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The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
Memo to GOP: Pass the Tax Bill
by David Limbaugh
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TOP Mueller FBI
Investigator Fired For Anti-Trump Bias
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DOJ Unseals Federal Arrest Warrant
for Kate Steinle Illegal Alien Killer Jose Zarate
{theconservativetreehouse.com} ~ The Department of Justice unsealed an arrest warrant Friday for Jose Inez Garcia Zarate... the illegal immigrant acquitted Thursday in Kate Steinle’s murder trial. There is an existing federal detainer that requires this defendant to be remanded into the custody of US Marshals Service to be transported to the Western District of Texas pursuant to the arrest warrant. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/01/doj-unseals-federal-arrest-warrant-for-kate-steinle-illegal-alien-killer-jose-zarate/.
Senate passes tax
reform bill: Here's how it affects you
by Samuel Chamberlain
{foxnews.com} ~ The U.S. Senate voted just before 2 a.m. ET Saturday to pass a sweeping tax overhaul worth roughly $1.4 trillion... putting the Trump White House a big step closer to its first major legislative victory – and many Americans closer to a tax cut. The vote was 51-49, with Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee the only member of the GOP to side with the Democrats in opposition. Not long after the vote, President Donald Trump tweeted his reaction: "We are one step closer to delivering MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America," the president wrote. "Special thanks to @SenateMajLdr RINO-Mitch McConnell and Chairman @SenOrrinHatch for shepherding our bill through the Senate. Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!" but negotiators from both chambers will start meeting Monday to agree on a single piece of legislation that both chambers must approve before it is sent to the president for his signature. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/02/senate-passes-major-tax-reform-package.html.
Keith Olbermann Quits
Politics: ‘My Work Here Is Done’
by Brian McNicoll
{aim.org} ~ Keith Olbermann is out of a job again, but this time he hasn’t been fired... Olbermann announced Monday he will end his political commentary series at GQ because Donald Trump’s presidency will be over soon, and his “work here is done.” Trump’s demise is so close at hand, Olbermann said, that “I think even this dim-witted world of American political TV reporting, which is still calculating how to get Trump’s idiot supporters to watch their networks and still waiting for Trump to pivot, even it can carry this the rest of the way. So I am retiring from political commentary in all media venues.”... http://www.aim.org/aim-column/keith-olbermann-quits-politics-my-work-here-is-done/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Email%20Nov-28-2017&utm_medium=email.
FBI probe of 'Antifa ideology'
underway, Wray tells House panel
by Lukas Mikelionis
{foxnews.com} ~ The FBI is investigating people inspired by “kind of an Antifa ideology,”... bureau Director Christopher Wray said Thursday. Wray told members of the House Homeland Security Committee that people associated with the so-called anti-fascist or Antifa movement were subject to the FBI probe amid possible violent criminal activity. “While we're not investigating Antifa as Antifa — that's an ideology and we don't investigate ideologies — we are investigating a number of what we would call anarchist-extremist investigations, where we have properly predicated subjects of people who are motivated to commit violent criminal activity on kind of an Antifa ideology,” he told the House panel... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/01/fbi-probe-antifa-ideology-underway-wray-tells-house-panel.html.
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Memo to GOP: Pass the Tax Bill
by David Limbaugh{townhall.com} ~ For a host of reasons, it is extremely important that Republicans pass the most pro-growth tax reform bill that can squeak by both houses of Congress.
Though President Trump's tweets and manners upset a lot of people, what seems to be lost in the mix is that his administration is making progress along many fronts. It's not just his judicial appointments, though it is difficult to overstate how excellent these have been.
He has also quietly made improvements in a number of other areas, scaling back oppressive administrative regulations on the environment, immigration and health care. The administrative state is a galloping cancer on our liberties that Congress rarely reins in, so Trump deserves credit for lawfully rescinding some of Barack liar-nObama's unlawful orders.
Trump has also helped restore pride in America by promoting the American idea and expressing pride in and supporting the military and our national defense. He has not yet been the trade protectionist I feared, and he has been more circumspect in foreign policy than some anticipated.
But unless Trump is able to advance his legislative agenda, Republicans will be handicapped in 2018, not to mention 2020. Aware of this, Democrats will conspire to thwart any GOP tax bill, even one they would support if they were in charge.
Though the mouth-foaming left can't seem to discern this, Trump is not strongly ideological. Liberals see any Republican president as a right-wing extremist who must be stopped at all costs. Trump's idiosyncratic behavior makes him all the more contemptible to them, but they would oppose his agenda just as fervently if he had pristine manners like, say, George W. Bush or Mitt Romney.
And though Trump's non-ideological bent may work to his advantage in some cases, it is clearly a detriment to advancing a legislative agenda. This is one place where governance is markedly different from running a business.
Though a handful of recalcitrant Republican senators can rightfully be blamed for the GOP's failure thus far to repeal liar-nObamacare, Trump might very well have been able to overcome this obstacle had he presented a clearer vision. The problem is that he didn't have one and was too malleable, by which he forfeited his ability to build a coalition and lead on the issue. He just wanted a victory, and that is never enough.
The deeper problem was that he was of two minds on the issue. He was trying to reconcile conflicting goals -- to reinstitute market forces in health care without removing the underlying socialistic structure of liar-nObamacare.
We are seeing a bit of the same with the tax bill. The current bill is partially pro-growth, especially on the corporate side, but is schizophrenic because it incorporates the Democrats' class-warfare assumptions. I believe that Trump erred in allowing the Democrats to frame the debate in their terms when he said the rich don't need a tax cut -- as if their money belongs to the government and they can only keep what the government, in its beneficence, allows.
Another major problem is that Republicans have tacitly conceded that every bill has to be "revenue-neutral" based on static scoring. That is, for every dollar in taxes they cut, they have to raise taxes somewhere else, totally factoring out the growth-generating aspects of reduced marginal rates. Republicans throw in part of the towel before negotiations begin.
Even if you believe that reducing tax rates won't expand the revenue pie, why is their default position to raise taxes elsewhere to pay for cuts instead of reducing spending?
I doubt that I will be ecstatic with whatever version finally emerges from Congress, but based on current proposals, I am optimistic that it will be a significant improvement over the status quo in substantially reducing corporate rates and individual rates on most of the middle class the poor don't pay and in simplifying the code.
I pray that the Republicans pass the best version they can so that they can fulfill one promise and then move on to spending issues and revisit health care reform -- from a stronger position.
When they turn to spending, they will have to face the unpleasant reality that it is numerically impossible to curb the federal leviathan without once and for all tackling so-called entitlements. The Democrats will never do it, and they'll force Republicans to walk over hot coals in hell to make any progress here, but that's better than bequeathing our children fiscal hell.
I was encouraged to read recently that Paul Ryan and others in the GOP leadership fully intend to work on these issues next. If we think health care and taxes are a tough sell, just wait for entitlements.
So let's not allow, once again, the perfect to be the enemy of the good but encourage Congress to pass tax reform. The market is up based on positive signals, but those signals, as soon as possible, must be reinforced by real legislation. The clock is ticking.
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