The Mainstream Media vs. The Truth

Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article highlighting more dishonest reporting from The New York Times.

The article reports:

Seven weeks ago, after the White House released its official summary of a July 25 phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian President, the New York Times noted that the two had previously spoken on April 21 and wrote the following about that conversation:

When Ukraine elected its new leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, on April 21, Mr. Trump seized on the moment as an opportunity to press his case….He urged Mr. Zelensky to coordinate with Mr. Giuliani and to pursue investigations of “corruption,” according to people familiar with the call, the details of which have not previously been reported.

On Friday morning, the White House released its official summary of that earlier call, and it completely debunked the Times reporting that appeared in a front-page September 26 article. The official summary shows a light-hearted conversation about Zelensky’s election victory, Trump’s promise that a “very, very high level” delegation would attend his inauguration, and an invitation for Zelensky to visit the White House.

There’s not the slightest indication that he “seized on the moment as an opportunity to press his case,” nor any reference to Joe Biden, Rudy Giuliani, or anything else suggested in the Times story.

The Times account of the today’s White House release is silent on the Times earlier, apparently false reporting. But it does complain about how “a White House readout of the call in April provides a different account.”

Reporters Mark Mazzetti and Eileen Sullivan point out: “In that summary, provided to reporters shortly after the call took place, the administration said that Mr. Trump promised to work with Zelensky to ‘implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity and root out corruption.’”

Indeed, today’s White House release does contradict the White House report released at the time of the call, but the erroneous September 26 Times’ story does not rely on the “readout” as the basis for its wrong claims, but rather “people familiar with the call.”

In other words, the Times can’t blame the White House for its mistake in September. That’s all on them, and their anonymous source. (Maybe secret sources aren’t the best sources after all.)

There is agreement that there was corruption in Ukraine. There is also agreement that the corruption needed to be cleaned up.

A friend of mine who is a lawyer who follows these events very closely recently wrote:

Then I discovered that the day after VP Joe Biden bribed the Ukraine government into firing the Prosecutor who was investigating his son’s company, the Ukraine court released $23 million the government had seized as part of the investigation. Nobody knows what happened to the $23 million.

What we do know is the $23 million was part of the $50 Million in USAid that 26 Democrats shepherded through the United States Congress in 2014. All 26 received campaign contributions from Ukraine’s new lobbyist: Secretary of State John Kerry’s former chief of staff. How dare the President look into changing the USA’s foreign Policy!

Do you really wonder where the missing money ended up?

Maybe it’s time to take a really good look at where our foreign aid actually goes.

Haven’t These People Read The U.S. Constitution?

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Let’s look at this Amendment in the view of history and context. All ten amendments in the Bill of Rights limit the power of government and protect the rights of the citizens. The Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution to ally the fears of a people shell-shocked by the abuses of King George. The people wanted to make sure they would be able to defend themselves against a tyrannical government in the future. An armed citizenry was one way of keeping the government in check. The colonists felt like they needed a way to keep the government in check at that time and in the future.

Today the right to bear arms is under attack.

Yesterday CNS News posted an article about Kamala Harris, a presidential candidate who is advocating for policies that undermine the Second Amendment.

The article reports:

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) told CNN’s “State of the Union with Jake Tapper” on Sunday that on her 100th day in office when she’s elected president, if the Congress fails to send her a bill with “good” gun control ideas, she will issue an executive order saying anyone who sells more than five guns a year must perform background checks on those they sell them to.

Harris also plans to direct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to take away the licenses of gun dealers who don’t follow the law.

…“What we’re waiting for is Congress to have the courage to act, and so let me tell you what I’m proposing. I’m proposing, one, that if, by my 100th day in office when elected president of the United States, the United States Congress fails to put a bill on my desk to sign with all of the good ideas or any of the good ideas, then I’m prepared to take executive action, because that’s what’s needed, action,” Harris said.

When asked “executive action to do what,” she said, “To do, specifically, for anyone who sells more than five guns a year, they will be required to perform background checks on the people they sell them to, and this will be the most comprehensive background check policy that has ever been had in our country thus far.”

When asked whether that can be done by executive order, Harris said, “Yes. Yes, it can. I’m also prepared to say and to direct the ATF to remove and take away the licenses of gun dealers who fail to follow the law, and, Jake, 90 percent of the guns that are associated with crime have been sold by 5 percent of the gun dealers. We need to take their licenses away.”

I believe that the proposal by Ms. Harris is exactly what our forefathers were trying to prevent.

This Might Be Something To Take Note Of

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported on a speech given by Democrat Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI) to CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) last month. Just for the record, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial. If you are not familiar with the trial or the related documents, please follow the link to the Holy Land Foundation Trial to learn about the trial and what it means for America.

Here are some highlights of The Gateway Pundit article:

Congresswoman Tlaib was introduced by Executive Director of CAIR’s Florida chapter, Hassan Shibly — Shibly invoked the Islamic war cry as he introduced her.

“Allahu Akbar! The first Palestinian-American Muslim Congresswoman, our dear sister Rashida Tlaib!” Hassan Shibly said.

As soon as Rashida Tlaib walked up to the lectern to deliver her radical speech, she invoked the Muslim war cry of Allah in Arabic: “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim!” Tlaib said, which means, “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate.”

This phrase begins every chapter in the Quran except one and is seen as a Muslim war cry.

In fact, this is the very same phrase Bowe Bergdahl’s father said in front of the White House in 2014 after Obama traded Taliban terrorists in exchange for traitor Bergdahl.

Rashida Tlaib then declared victory over the US government.

“‘We always said ‘the Muslims are coming’… I think we’re here!” Tlaib said as the crowd cheered.

“We’re not only everywhere in all kinds of different governments but, mashallah, we’re in the United States Congress,” she said.

She is not representing Islam as a religion–she is representing Islam as a political system, calling for Sharia Supremacy. Please understand what that means–an end to the U.S. Constitution, an end to any sort of freedom for women, the death of homosexuals, killing of infidels, jizya, a tax on non-Muslims, and the goal of establishing a worldwide caliphate. Unfortunately, we have allowed the camel’s nose into our tent, and unless we realize this and correct our mistake, the rest of the camel will soon follow. She represents her district. She represents the result of allowing large numbers of immigrants to come to America without requiring them to assimilate. Her election represents a threat to our republic.

This Week In Washington

One America News posted an article today about what is happening this week in Washington, D.C..

The article listed the following votes:

The House will vote Tuesday on whether to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s guidance on auto-finance.

CIA Director nominee Gina Haspel will testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee for her confirmation hearing Wednesday.

Lawmakers are set to vote Thursday on the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018.

Republicans plan to continue their efforts to confirm at least six more of President Trump’s nominees for several key positions.

The article also notes that House Chaplain Patrick Conroy returns to work Monday. As noted in a previous article, President Trump will introduce his rescissions package to Congress tomorrow. Congress has 45 in-session days to respond to his request. The reaction to this request will tell the American people which Congressmen are actually fiscal conservatives and which are simply claiming to be fiscal conservatives in order to get elected.

This Is What Happens When A Businessman Is In Charge

President Trump is not a politician (although he obviously has a fairly quick learning curve). He is a businessman. We are about to see exactly what that means.

The Daily Signal posted an article today about President Trump’s request to Congress to cancel $15 billion in spending. First of all–I love the request. We will see what happens next.

The article reports:

“Tomorrow the president is going to be using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to send up the largest rescissions package in history from a president,” a senior administration official said Monday evening on a conference call.

“This first package will be the first of several,” the senior official said. “It will be designed to go after unobligated balances, things that have not been spent and programs from prior years.”

Although the White House Office of Management and Budget does not seek to rescind spending in Congress’ recently passed $1.3 trillion omnibus bill, the official said, the administration will do that later.

The article noted that rescission on the most recently passed omnibus bill will come later.

The article explains how the process works:

To start the rescission process, a president must send a request or requests to Congress. Once he does so, the lawmakers have 45 in-session days to act.

Lawmakers introduce rescissions as legislation in both the House and Senate and refer them to a committee; if the committee doesn’t act in 25 days, the rescissions may be thrown out.

Debate is limited to two hours in the House and 10 hours in the Senate, the Conservative Partnership Institute notes in a report.

The process cannot be used to cut mandatory spending, including for entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, said rescinded spending ought to reduce the deficit and pave the way for a bill to repair the nation’s infrastructure.

“I would like to see a commitment to say, everything that we save over and above this $11 billion will go 50 percent for debt reduction and 50 percent toward an infrastructure bill,” Davidson said before the number was finalized. “And I think that would be a great start to a infrastructure [bill] and a great way to make sure the president doesn’t have to sign another bill that is at the same level.”

All members of Congress need to understand that the massive spending bills that increase our debt are a national security risk. It is time that Congress began to take action to mitigate that risk.

Pro-growth Or No-growth

Guy Benson posted an article at Townhall today about the impact of the Trump Tax Cuts on the American economy. As has been pointed out by anyone with a brain, any deficits in Washington are caused by a spending problem–not by a lack of tax revenue.

The article includes a chart showing revised economic growth estimates based on the growth that has already occurred because of the tax cuts:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now projects 156.8 million jobs in America by year-end 2027—2.6 million more jobs than in its June 2017 Budget and Economic Outlook. CBO attributes an average of 1.1 million additional jobs over the next 10 years to the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

On April 10, I posted an article detailing the Democrats plan to roll back the tax cuts and increase both personal and corporate taxes. That will bring us back to the slow economic growth we experienced under President Obama. The Republicans need to make sure that the American voters understand that–a vote for a Democratic Congressman is a vote for economic slowdown.

Economic policies do have consequences. That has become very obvious in the past year or so.

There Really Are Not Two Parties In Washington

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today that erases any illusion anyone might have had that there are two political parties in Congress. There are two political parties in Washington–the anti-Trump agenda party and the pro-Trump agenda party, but the Republican and Democratic parties in Congress are generally one and the same despite the show they put on that they are different.

The article reports:

Now, a stunning discovery surfaces of Paul Ryan’s Congressional Leadership SuperPAC, congressionalleadershipfund.org, actually campaigning for the Democrat, Conor Lamb, in the recent PA18 congressional race.

As evidenced by Big League Politics the Paul Ryan SuperPAC sent a mailer to Pennsylvania CD-18 voters touting Lamb’s favorable position on gun ownership rights:

This is the mailer:

The article explains:

The real motive, based on an honest review of history, is the professional UniParty apparatus knew that Democrat Conor Lamb needed a lift to offset the cross party voting that was reflected in the district voting (by over 20 points) for Donald Trump in 2016.

The DC Republican apparatus is quite comfortable losing their majority position so long as they are not forced to support Trump policies which are entirely against their financial interests.  [How Mitch McConnell Crushed The Tea-Party]

It really is about money–in Washington power is measured by how much money you control. The more of taxpayers’ money Washington can seize and control, the more power they have. That’s why the establishment opposes the tea party movement and that is why the establishment opposes President Trump.

The article concludes:

The only threat to the financial interests of the GOP is President Donald Trump remaining in office and having to actually face carrying out a conservative Trump agenda in 2019 and 2020.  That Trump agenda is entirely against their “establishment republican” interests.

The Paul Ryan mailer to elect a Democrat is just another example of how corrupt the entire UniParty political apparatus is within Washington DC.

Another illustration of the opposition to President Trump is seen in the number of Libertarian and new Republican primary candidates in the current primary season. Many of these candidates are funded by the Republican establishment and are there to replace conservative Republicans who support President Trump with candidates the Republican establishment can control. President Trump is not the perfect President, but he is not part of the Washington establishment and is not controlled by it. If you want to see things change in Washington, you need to support the people who will support the President’s policies. Otherwise, we will have more of special interest fleecing the American taxpayer.

Representative Walter B. Jones Is Sounding The Alarm On The Deficit

Monday morning, a group of taxpayers and I were fortunate to sit down with Representative Walter B. Jones and ask him questions about his votes and his views. The interview will be aired on 107.1 WTKF The Talk Station on Sunday at 11am and 8 pm. You can stream the interview if you live outside the listening area. The interview will also be available on the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association website later in the week.

Representative Jones has been a warrior for responsible government spending since he has been in Congress. His voting record reflects that. He will not support a bill that increase the deficit, regardless of what is in the bill.

This is the handout he gave us about the deficit. I think all of us need to read it carefully. We need to understand the consequences of the unbridled spending that is currently the norm in Washington.

Americans need to learn to live within their means at home and at the federal and state levels. Most Americans carry some level of personal debt and do not realize that as the economy improves and the fed raises interest rates, the cost of that debt (and the cost of the national debt) will increase. It is time we all learned to spend responsibly–both at home and in government.

The Temper Tantrum Continues

Fox News is reporting today a number of Democrats are going to boycott President Trump’s State of the Union Address. Way to establish communication and work together, democrats.

The article reports:

“For the first time since I began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, I will not be attending the president’s State of the Union address,” Wilson (Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson) said in a statement late Sunday. “I have no doubts that instead of delivering a message of inclusivity and an agenda that benefits all Americans, President Trump’s address will be full of innuendo, empty promises and lies.”

Wilson joins Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.; and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., in boycotting the event.

This sort of foolishness (which has appeared at times on both sides of the aisle) needs to stop. It is time that the people we sent to Washington sit down and listen to each other whether they like it or not. Everyone needs to go to the speech.

Just for the record, the tax cuts are inclusive–the will impact about 90 percent of Americans with tax savings. They will benefit almost all working Americans.

The number of regulations the Trump Administration has rolled back has benefited all Americans. Most working Americans have 401k plans. The Trump Administration has been very helpful to those Americans. Most Americans want to have full time jobs. The Trump Administration has had a very positive impact on unemployment.

This list goes on. You get the point. The temper tantrum the left has thrown since Donald Trump was elected President needs to end. It has gotten very old and boring.

The Immediate Impact Of The Tax Cuts

The Daily Signal posted an article today about the immediate impact of the tax cuts recently passed by Congress.

I would like to remind people of what happened the in the 1980’s when President Reagan and Congress passed major tax cuts.

According to a Washington Post article April 10, 2015:

…the government’s budget numbers show that tax receipts expanded from $517 billion in 1980 to $909 billion in 1988 — close to a 75 percent change (25 percent after inflation),” Moore (Stephen Moore of The Heritage Foundation) wrote.

We checked the historical records of the White House budget office, and those numbers are right. But it’s devoid of important context.

First of all, revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), which is the best way to compare across years, dropped from 19.1 percent in 1981 to a low of 16.9 percent in 1984, before rebounding slightly to 17.8 percent in 1989. One reason the deficit soared during Reagan’s term is because spending went up as a share of the economy and revenues went down.

A HeraldNet article of December 15, 2012 reminds us that President Reagan made a deal with the Democrats that included spending cuts as well as tax cuts. Conventional wisdom concerning that deal was that for every dollar in tax cuts there would be a three dollar cut in spending. Unfortunately, the Democrats never kept their end of that bargain.

The HeraldNet article reports the plan:

Here’s the actual breakdown of the three-year agreement, according to a June 1982 chart prepared by the GOP-controlled Senate Budget Committee staff, which appears in the 1989 book “The Deficit and the Public Interest,” by Joseph White and Aaron B. Wildavsky. (Note: The numbers represent reductions from anticipated outlays.)

Revenue:

$98.3 billion (26 percent)

Defense cuts: $26.4 billion (7 percent)

Nondefense cuts: $34.8 billion (9.1 percent)

Entitlement cuts: $30.8 billion (8.1 percent)

Other reductions/offsets: $7.8 billion (2 percent)

Freeze federal pay raise: $26.1 billion (6.9 percent)

Management savings: $46.6 billion (12.3 percent)

Net interest: $107.7 billion (28.4 percent)

Total non-revenue:$280.2 billion (74 percent)

Total: $378.5 billion

…At best, the spending savings that Congress could deliver, including defense cuts, amounted to a 1:1 ratio.

As Congress debates spending, we can hope that they will not repeat this mistake. Increased government revenues due to tax cuts should not lead to increased federal spending.

So far the results of the recent tax cut have been positive.

The article at The Daily Signal reports:

More businesses are announcing bonuses, higher minimum wages, and new benefits for employees after passage by Congress of Republicans’ tax reform bill. 

An email from House Speaker Paul Ryan’s press office highlights 33 businesses—including Aflac, Associated Bank, and PNC Bank—that have announced raises, bonuses, and other improvements for employees.

In moves that may defuse efforts to mandate higher minimum wages across the nation, at least nine of the 33 businesses announced they are boosting their minimum wage for thousands of workers to $15 or more an hour.

The article at The Daily Signal includes a partial list of companies offering benefits to their employees as a result of the tax cut. The article also includes a link to a complete list.

All working Americans have many reasons to celebrate the tax bill.

 

So What Did Congress Do This Year?

These are the numbers for Congress in 2017:

The House has been hard at work, and we’re guessing you probably haven’t heard about it. Here’s how:
544 bills have PASSED out of committee → that’s 52 more than Obama’s first term and 132 more than average.
477 bills have PASSED the House → that’s 53 more than Obama’s first term and 86 more than average. #DidYouKnow

As of July 1, 2017, 42 bills had been passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and signed by President Trump according to the  Minneapolis Star Tribune. I could not find any more recent totals.

The Beginning Of Accountability

The Washington Examiner is reporting the following today:

A House Republican introduced legislation Wednesday that would make public all legislative branch settlement payments made in the past two decades and would force lawmakers and staff to repay harassment claims settled on their behalf.

The bill, authored by Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., would also prohibit future use of federal funds to pay harassment claims, which is now the practice.

This is long overdue. The practice should not have begun in the first place. There also needs to a private audit of government expenses to see what else Congress has been spending money on that the public is unaware of.

The article further reports:

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., pledged a “comprehensive” examination of harassment problems, beginning with a Dec. 7 hearing in the House Administration Committee. The panel will scrutinize the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, which instituted a prohibition of discrimination and harassment in the legislative branch.

One thing to keep in mind here is that sometimes a person will simply pay a person bringing charges because it is easier than fighting the charges. That needs to be considered in looking at these cases–how much time would a Congressman lose fighting a charge that wasn’t true? Also, not all of these cases were sexual harassment cases–some were discrimination. Again, how many were settled because it was simply easier than going to court? What we need is a way to distinguish false charges from valid charges so that appropriate actions can be taken. I am not sure Congress is capable of that. However, the bill that Representative De Santis has introduced is a good first step toward ending a pattern of horribly adolescent behavior in Congress. Let’s see if Congress is willing to pass the bill.

An Agenda That Would Help All Americans

On Tuesday, CNS News posted an article about President Trump‘s agenda after tax reform. It is an ambitious agenda that would do great things for America.

The article reports:

At the start of a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Trump plugged the Republican tax plan, then said spending cuts and welfare reform are next on the list:

“We’re working to reduce wasteful government spending,” Trump said. “We’ll be working on healthcare, infrastructure, and welfare reform. We’re looking very strongly at welfare reform, and that will all take place right after taxes — very soon, very shortly after taxes. So we’ll be submitting plans on healthcare, plans on infrastructure, and plans on welfare reform — which is desperately needed in our country — soon after taxes.”

Welfare is needed as a safety net–it should not be a career choice. It is time to examine what we are doing to educate those children from families where education is not seen as valuable. It is time to make sure that children who graduate from American high schools know how to fill out a job application, a college application, etc. The key to welfare reform is education and providing a reasonable transition from welfare to work. I think we can do that if both parties in Congress would work together.

The article concludes:

At the White House press briefing on Monday, a reporter asked spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders what Trump meant when he mentioned welfare reform:

“I think there’s no secret,” Sanders said, noting that Trump had spoken about it during the campaign. “And when we have specifics on what that will look like, we’ll certainly announce them and roll them out. I don’t anticipate that happening over the next couple of weeks. We’re very focused on tax reform and making sure we get that done by the end of the year.

“But this is something that the president has a great deal of interest in, and I think you can count on probably the first part of next year seeing more specifics and details coming out on that.”

To be a healthy country, we need to give Americans opportunities to improve their lives through education and hard work. Welfare reform would be a step in that direction.

President Trump’s Tax Plan

The information in this article is from Investor’s Business Daily and the Tax Foundation.

Investor’s Business Daily reports:

Among the most potent provisions in the GOP tax reform package unveiled Wednesday by President Trump are the big cuts in taxes on corporations and small businesses. Inevitably, they will be styled by foes as a sop to the rich and Wall Street. In fact, they’re one of the best middle-class tax cuts of all.

How we tax businesses is among the most distorted, costly and anti-competitive elements of our tax code. Today, U.S. corporations competing on the world stage face a top tax rate of 39%, compared to a 23% average for the rest of the world.

The proposed Republican tax reform would slash that to 20%, below the average. It would also shift the U.S. to a “territorial taxation” model, which keeps overseas profits from being taxed twice — once when the profit is earned overseas, and again when repatriated to the U.S. The U.S. is almost alone among nations in doing this.

Meanwhile, new rules would level the playing field between U.S.-headquartered companies and foreign-headquartered companies by keeping our rates low. This will keep companies from buying foreign companies and relocating their headquarters overseas to take advantage of lower rates.

Then there’s small businesses. Among other things, the plan cuts levies on so-called S corporations (small businesses and sole proprietorships, in which the profits go to the owner’s individual tax form) to 25%, thus giving many small business owners who now pay super-high individual tax rates of 30% or higher a big tax cut. It also lets businesses write off investments (except for structures) immediately. This would let companies recapture the value of their investments more quickly, lowering their tax bite now and boosting profits later on.

The article notes that the media generally portrays business and business owners in a negative light. They fail to realize that businesses pass the expense of taxes along to the consumers. We are the ones who pay the corporate taxes.

Investor’s Business Daily further states:

…A survey of tax-cut research by the Heritage Foundation finds 10 studies demonstrating that corporate tax cuts improve worker welfare by upgrading their skills, improving the equipment they work with, and boosting their pay.

Another recent study, this one published in August by economists Andrew Hanson of Marquette University and Ike Brannon of the Cato Institute, asserted that “recent tax reform discussions that propose a (corporate) rate reduction between 30% to 57% … would imply employment gains between 6% to 22% and wage increases between 15% to 28%.” That’s quite a gain, and a big reason why tax reform could put us back on the path to 3% average GDP growth.

Sadly, because of the relentless anti-business bias of the U.S. media, many Americans think corporations are “greedy,” and so they should be taxed to the gunwales.

The Tax Foundation reports:

  • Mr. Trump’s tax plan would substantially lower individual income taxes and the corporate income tax and eliminate a number of complex features in the current tax code.
  • Mr. Trump’s plan would cut taxes by $11.98 trillion over the next decade on a static basis. However, the plan would end up reducing tax revenues by $10.14 trillion over the next decade when accounting for economic growth from increases in the supply of labor and capital.
  • The plan would also result in increased outlays due to higher interest on the debt, creating a ten-year deficit somewhat larger than the estimates above.
  • According to the Tax Foundation’s Taxes and Growth Model, the plan would significantly reduce marginal tax rates and the cost of capital, which would lead to an 11 percent higher GDP over the long term provided that the tax cut could be appropriately financed.
  • The plan would also lead to a 29 percent larger capital stock, 6.5 percent higher wages, and 5.3 million more full-time equivalent jobs.
  • The plan would cut taxes and lead to higher after-tax incomes for taxpayers at all levels of income.

The Democrats will fight this plan tooth and nail. Why? Because under this plan states with reasonable tax burdens will no longer subsidize states with high tax burdens. New York, California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts (to name a few) all will have to re-examine their tax policies or they will see a taxpayers’ revolt.

I celebrate the end of the death tax. The purpose of the death tax is to redistribute wealth–that is not an American value. The money in an estate was taxed as it was earned. If land increased in value, so be it. A family should not have to sell the family farm to pay their taxes.

Democrats have never met a tax cut they liked. I expect this one will be no different. The other thing to keep in mind is that the worst nightmare for the Washington establishment is a successful Trump administration. These tax cuts would promote economic growth, which in turn would begin to lower the deficit. The Washington establishment cannot afford to have an outsider reach that level of success. Now if we could only cut the spending.

You can expect the Federal Reserve to begin to raise interest rates quickly in an attempt to slow economic growth. The Federal Reserve is also part of the Washington establishment that does not want an outsider to succeed.

What Needs To Be Done

Congress has had a rather lackluster session so far this year. They failed to repeal ObamaCare and generally have not done anything to help the economy or the American people come out of the recession. Any economic growth has been the result of undoing regulations. That has been done by President Trump without the help of Congress. Now, as Congress comes back from their recess, it would be very nice to see them actually accomplish something. However, that is definitely wishful thinking, considering Congressional leaders and their agendas. The thing to remember here is that even though Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have R’s after their name, they are not Republicans who believe in the Republican platform. They are Washington establishment types who believe in big government, expanding budgets, and expanding control over the lives of ordinary Americans. They have no intention of ever having to live under the laws they passed (they made sure they exempted themselves from any changes due to the repeal of ObamaCare before they discussed repeal). Keep in mind that the biggest nightmare of the Washington establishment is a successful Trump presidency. That is one of the reasons President Trump is so viciously attacked in the mainstream media.

One of the big items on the agenda for Congress this fall is tax reform. Our current tax system is a tribute to the efforts of lobbyists. Unfortunately, many of our political leaders are in the pockets a those lobbyists, so I am not optimistic that anything meaningful will be accomplished (other than possibly convincing Americans to vote these leaders out of office).

The Daily Signal posted an article today listing some of the problems with our current tax code. The current tax code is outdated, unfair, overly complicated, and an indication of the corruption that has crept into our government over the years.

The article lists some of the major areas where change is needed:

Problem 1: Our Tax Code Is Not Pro-Growth

Our current tax code suppresses business creation, expansion, and reinvestment thanks to high tax rates. The U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest in the industrialized world, which makes it difficult for American businesses to compete with their foreign counterparts.

America’s tax code puts companies at a disadvantage by failing to allow full expensing, or the ability to allow all businesses to deduct the full cost of new capital investments such as a building, machinery, technology, etc., necessary for business creation and growth.

It also taxes companies on the profits they earn overseas, discouraging foreign investment here in the U.S. to the tune of $2.6 trillion.

Finally, the tax code punishes saving and investment through double or even triple taxation, hurting small businesses and families looking to grow their personal wealth.

The tax code needs to be changed to encourage the growth of entrepreneurship and small business.

The article lists the second problem:

Problem 2: Our Tax Code Is Too Complex

When it started in 1913, the tax code was 400 pages long. By 2013 it was over 74,000 pages.

Americans spend 9 billion hours complying with the tax code every year, which costs them over $400 billion in lost economic productivity every year. It’s critical that we don’t just cut the tax rate, but that we work to simplify it as well.

More and more tax professionals are specializing in a small segment of the tax code, such as estate tax or small business taxes or companies with large assets that depreciate.

Four hundred pages was too long, seventy-four thousand is ridiculous.

Problem number three:

Problem 3: Our Tax Code Is Full of Corporate Favoritism

Well-connected people and businesses routinely game the tax system, precisely because it’s designed that way. This leaves the majority of hard-working taxpayers at a disadvantage.

For example, Nevada agreed to give Elon Musk’s Tesla $1.3 billion in tax incentives in exchange for them building a lithium battery production plant in the state.

Timothy Carney points out that other producers of batteries were experimenting with other types of battery power, but when they found about the special interest subsidy given to lithium batteries, they abandoned their testing of those battery types and focused on producing lithium.

Not only are taxpayers having to foot the bill for nearly a quarter of this for-profit investment, but there are opportunity costs lost in what could have come out of further innovation that was halted because business owners wanted to take advantage of a tax break.

Thank God the people manufacturing buggy whips didn’t have a better lobbyists. Who knows what subsidies they would be getting!

It’s time for common sense to intervene. It is questionable whether or not Washington is capable of common sense, but if the current Congress intends to be re-elected, they need to do what needs to be done to correct the problems in our tax system. It is long past time for an overhaul and long past time for excuses.

It Wasn’t A Unilateral Decision

This article is based on two sources–an article posted at Lifezette today and an article from the BBC, also dated today.

The article at Lifezette reminds us that until President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, the Democrats wanted Director Comey fired.

The article reports:

Comey, being Comey, closed the new investigation in record time, ending the investigation two days before Election Day and enraging Republicans by publicly declaring he still would not recommend charges against Clinton.

Schumer indicated Comey’s handling of the matter was a deal-breaker.

“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Schumer said of Comey on Nov. 2.

Schumer called Comey’s letter to Congress “appalling.”

Schumer is far from the only Democrat who has questioned Comey’s judgement or called for his firing.

…”This is not fake news. Intelligence officials are hiding connections to the Russian government. There is no question,” then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said in a Dec. 10 interview on MSNBC. “Comey knew and deliberately kept this info a secret,” he said.

The MSNBC host asked Reid if Comey should resign. “Of course, yes,” Reid replied.

 Comey’s decision to publicly reopen the Clinton investigation drove Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) to also demand the FBI director resign.

“I called on FBI Director James Comey to resign his position after his recent communication with members of Congress regarding the bureau’s review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server,” Cohen wrote in a Nov. 3 op-ed published in The Hill.

It gets better.

The BBC posted a copy of the letter written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommending that Director Comey be fired. Follow the link above to read the entire letter.

Director Comey made some unusual decisions during the run-up to the November 2016 election. There are some valid questions as to whether or not the FBI was politicized under President Obama. It is very obvious that the Justice Department was compromised, but the jury is still out on the FBI.

I don’t know whether or not this is part of draining the swamp. I do know that draining the swamp is going to be a long term, ongoing operation, and I wish President Trump all the best in doing that.

Is ObamaCare Dying?

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill today to repeal and replace ObamaCare.The bill, named the American Health Care Act, passed by a vote of 217-213. It is not a perfect bill, but it is a first step in stopping the collapse of ObamaCare and the descent into a government-controlled single-payer system. When President Obama gave us ObamaCare, the Democrats knew it would fail–the law ignored the statistics of the actuarial tables that keep the insurance agencies in business. There was no way it could succeed. The goal was to create an entitlement that would collapse and then institute a single-payer government plan. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, that would have happened. Instead, we have a President Trump who believes in free markets.

The Daily Signal posted an article about the passage of the bill today.

The article details some of the amendments to the bill:

New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur’s amendment would give the secretary of health and human services the authority to grant a waiver to states that wanted an exemption from costly Obamacare rating rules and benefit mandates.

In order to secure a waiver from these federal insurance rules, the amendment specifies that states must establish a high-risk pool for persons with pre-existing conditions, a program to stabilize the those premiums, or participate in a new federal risk-sharing program designed to secure continuing coverage and market stability.

As drafted, the waiver from these federal regulations would be virtually automatic. In short, the states would make the key regulatory decisions over benefits and rating rules.

A second amendment, offered by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) adds $8 billion over 2018-2023 to the bill’s $130 billion Patient and State Stability Fund (making the total around $138 billion).

It specifies that those additional funds are to be used by states that have received a waiver from federal insurance rules (under the MacArthur Amendment) to assist individuals with increased healthcare costs.

A Good Foundation

The House’s action should be understood as part of a continuing process of national health reform.

As amended, the House bill rightly focuses on costly health insurance rules, makes historic changes in Medicaid—transforming Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement to a budgeted program—and repeals the national health law’s mandate penalties and its slew of taxes.

In fact, the House bill provides for one of the largest tax reductions on record.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a beginning. Twenty Republicans voted against the healthcare bill. All the Democrats voted against the bill. It would be nice if Congress stopped playing politics and worrying about campaign donations and elections and simply tried to do what was best for America.

Why It Is So Difficult To Drain The Swamp

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as ObamaCare, was signed into law on March 23, 2010. It was passed with only Democratic votes in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. In September 2009, The Tea Party organized a march on Washington and protests in other cities. The protestors were opposing the proposals for ObamaCare, increased federal spending, bigger government, and higher taxes. In 2010, the Republicans were elected to a majority in the House of Representatives and in 2014, the Republicans were elected to a small majority in the Senate. So why, after the elected Republicans promised smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending, did the government continue to grow? At the heart of the matter is the difference between process and policy. There is also the element of showmanship—the Republicans voted to repeal ObamaCare on a regular basis knowing that even if they had the votes to repeal it, they did not have the votes to override a Presidential veto that would surely occur.

So how does the process impact the policy? The following notes are taken from a Heritage Action Sentinel Brief explaining how Washington actually works.

The GOP Pledge to America included the following:

“We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with ‘must-pass’ legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time”

Well, that promise was quickly broken.

The Heritage Action Brief explains:

Congressmen may claim that they had no other choice but to vote on the package once Leadership made the decision. That is not true; it was not a fait accompli. As is custom, right before the House voted on the CR (Continuing Resolution), Leadership holds a procedural rule vote to consider every bill and set the terms of the debate. Any member who did not like the process whereby the subsequent provisions were to be considered has the opportunity to vote against the rule. This would prevent Leadership from packaging in unfavorable legislation, like the Ex-Im reauthorization or a myriad of other bad legislation.

Hiding Policy in Process. For more than a decade, GOP Leadership, when in control of the House, has promulgated the view that procedural “rule” votes are routine, party line votes that should be approved without a second thought. This has given them a relatively free license to bring bills to the floor not supported by conservatives, and they rely on Democrats for the necessary votes to pass them. The concept of “logrolling” bad bills into a crucial funding measure or, worse, a matter of foreign policy, is a compelling reason (one of many) for challenging a procedural rule. Not to mention, the American people voted this type of legislating out of office in 2010 when House Republicans adopted the Pledge of America, which precluded the packaging of unpopular legislation together.

Remember this the next time your Representative tells you they have no choice but to vote for more bad policy. Usually they only need to vote NO on the rule to change the process and allow better policy.

The longest serving congressman in history, former Michigan Representative John Dingell once said, “I’ll let you write the substance…you let me write the procedure, and I’ll [beat] you every time.” In other words, process is policy, and Congressmen who vote on auto-pilot on process fail to represent their constituents on a vast number of votes.

This is the swamp that needs to be drained. The best thing President Trump could do would be to give the conservatives in Congress the courage to stand up against the process status quo. It is time to make Congress more transparent and more responsive to the voters. We saw in this past election that the voters will speak up. It is time that our representatives started listening.

Will It Make A Difference?

I don’t know whether the fact that FBI Director James Comey is reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails will matter to anyone or not. Everyone (including me) is tired of hearing about Hillary’s private server. I suspect if you took a poll you would find out that half of the people polled believe that whatever new information the FBI finds will not make a difference in her support and the other half believe that whatever new information the FBI finds will never lead to any penalty for her actions.

However, John Hinderaker at Power Line had an interesting take on this story. He posted a story today that pointed out the fact that the first instinct of the Clinton campaign when faced with this story was to lie.

The article reports:

I find it revealing that when the Clinton campaign launched its attack on Comey, it led off with a lie. In her press conference last night, Hillary Clinton accused Comey of partisanship, falsely claiming that he had sent his letter only to Congressional Republicans. In fact, Comey followed the standard protocol, addressing his letter to the chairmen of the relevant committees and sending copies to the ranking minority members of each committee:

This statement in the Power Line article is followed by a complete copy of the letter, including the people it was addressed to. Follow the link to Power Line to see the letter.

The article concludes:

But that’s not all: Hillary’s campaign manager, John Podesta, echoed Hillary’s smear:

“FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen,” Podesta said in a statement.

Note that this was a written statement, not an off the cuff characterization at a press conference. So the campaign’s lie–Comey is a partisan, he only communicated with Republicans!–was deliberate. That being the case, it is hard to take the Democrats’ indignation seriously.

It is unfortunate that this is coming up a week or so before the election, but all this could have been avoided by not using a private server or by complying with subpoena requests when they were made. The only person responsible for this scandal is Hillary Clinton. Her staff simply reflected her handling of classified material. Had she cooperated with the investigation, it would simply be an unhappy memory by now, but that is not the way the Clintons historically handle their own bad behavior. Bill Clinton, as President, rode out his numerous scandals by delaying, distracting, and lying. That seems to be a popular strategy in the Clinton family.

No Wonder She Deleted Them

As more deleted emails drip out of Hillary Clinton’s email account, the information on them gets more interesting. It is becoming somewhat obvious why some of them were deleted. Judicial Watch has been busy making sure that the public gets a look at the deleted emails that are not marked classified (since Mrs. Clinton claims there were no classified emails on her server, there should be a lot of emails to look at).

Yesterday Counter Jihad posted a story about an interesting coincidence revealed in one of the emails that was deleted, recovered, and recently released.

The story reports:

Yesterday Judicial Watch released emails showing that a Crown Prince of Bahrain was able to secure a meeting with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton through the Clinton Foundationafter being rejected by official State Department channels.  Today, the International Business Times follows up on that report by revealing that the timing of this meeting lined up with a sudden, and large, increase in arms sales to Bahrain.  Furthermore, this increase came in spite of Bahrain being engaged in massive human rights abuses and suppression of peaceful civilian protests.  Finally, Hillary Clinton’s lawyers destroyed the emails documenting this meeting without turning them over to the State Department.  These were among the emails destroyed as allegedly “personal.”

Now, Bahrain is an important regional ally of the United States.  The US 5th Fleet, also called NAVCENT as it is the fleet permanently assigned to US Central Command, is based out of Bahrain’s harbors.  Bahrain would thus ordinarily enjoy some US military arms sales, as well as occasional access to high level State Department officials.  However, in this case the State Department had already turned down the request for a meeting when it came through official channels.  So, Crown Prince Salman contacted the Clinton Foundation to ask them to get him a meeting anyway.

And they did.

I really wouldn’t consider this email personal, but I guess Hillary did. The article goes on to explain that after the discussion of a meeting, the United States dramatically increased the amount of weaponry sold to Behrain (at a time when the government of Bahrain was moving against pro-democracy protests).

The article includes the following statement:

During those Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 — when Bahrain was accused of using tear gas on its own people — the Clinton-led State Department approved more than $70,000 worth of arms sales classified as “toxicological agents.”

The arms deal also included armored vehicles, missiles and ammunition. The sale of these items to Bahrain faced opposition in Congress, but the sale was approved.

The article concludes:

But the Crown Prince wanted his meeting, and he wanted his arms, and he got both because he was a good friend of the Clinton Foundation.

Not that the public would have known this, but for the FBI investigation.  Clinton’s lawyers deleted these emails without turning them over to the State Department, though it turns out that they are clearly public records that explain just how a momentous decision was made on a major arms deal.

In spite of that, the FBI recommended no prosecution.

I guess pay-for-play is not illegal in Washington. Now we know how the Clintons went from dead broke when they left the White House (as Hillary Clinton has stated) to a net worth in 2015 of $32,015,000 (Breitbart.com). I suppose she and Bill should be congratulated on their entrepreneurial spirit.

The House Of Representatives Leadership Does Not Represent Me

Freedomworks posted an article today illustrating how Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are trying to silence conservative voices. It is time we had new leadership in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. The people currently serving represent themselves and not the rest of us.

The article reports:

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is at it again.

He is using a House procedure to try and pass major legislation in a way that minimizes debate and prevents conservative amendments from being introduced and debated. Last month the majority leader did this to authorize $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for a global food security bill. FreedomWorks drew attention to the bill on our blog.

Today, Majority Leader McCarthy has scheduled H.R. 5077, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2017, for a vote in the House under the same expedited procedure, called suspension of the rules. This procedure is customarily reserved for non-controversial legislation. This bill is anything but non-controversial. It is scheduled for only 40 minutes of debate, as opposed to an hour of debate, which is the norm for bills considered under a rule. Amendments cannot be offered, and the bill can be voice-voted, allowing members to avoid being put on the record with a recorded vote.

H.R. 5077 proposes to spend $521 million of taxpayer and borrowed money over a 5-year period. That is just on the unclassified portion of the legislation. According to the committee report on the bill, the goal of the bill is to “authorize the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government for fiscal year 2017. These activities enhance the national security of the United States, support and assist the armed forces of the United States, and support the President in the execution of the foreign policy of the United States.” Majority Leader McCarthy shouldn’t bring up such an important bill in a manner that prevents conservative and liberty movement amendments.

The article points out that there needs to be an opportunity for Representatives to make amendments that will protect the U.S. Constitution, as many of the entities funded in this bill have overstepped their boundaries in the past. It is quite possible that if the bill were allowed to be amended, it might be improved. Unfortunately, that may be exactly what Leader McCarthy wants to avoid.

The article concludes:

The majority leader should be running the floor in a way that allows significant bills to be fully debated with opportunities for members of the House to work their will through an amendment process. The intelligence bill should have come up as a regular rule bill, not under an expedited procedure that keeps member input to a minimum. The House, members, and the intelligence bill deserve better.

It is time for a change of leadership in Congress. We need Congressmen who will represent the interests of the American people–not people who represent only their own interests.

Effectively Using The Power Of The Purse

Theoretically, the House of Representatives can limit executive power by using its control of the purse strings. According to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot spend money unless that spending is authorized by the House of Representatives. We haven’t seen the House of Representatives use that power as much as I would have liked under the Obama Administration, but the power is there. In fact, there was one recent incident where the House of Representatives successfully used that power.

In October I posted a story about the Obama Administration attempting to spend money that was not allocated by Congress. At issue were payments to insurance companies to alleviate their losses under Obama.

As reported by the Daily Signal in October:

In January, Sessions’ committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee had identified that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lacked an appropriation for bailing out insurance companies through the risk corridors. They asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the matter. That September, the GAO issued its legal opinion: the administration would need an appropriation from Congress to make outgoing payments.

Today The Los Angeles Times reported:

A federal judge ruled for House Republicans on Thursday in their suit against President Obama and declared his administration is unconstitutionally spending money to reimburse health insurers without obtaining an appropriation from Congress.

The judge’s ruling, though a setback for the administration, was put on hold immediately and stands a good chance of being overturned on appeal.

The ruling upholds the Constitution, why would it be overturned on appeal?

The article at The Los Angeles Times reports:

The Constitution says “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law,” said Judge Rosemary Collyer, yet the administration has continued to pay billions to insurers for their extra cost of providing coverage for low-income Americans.

“Paying out Sec. 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” she wrote. “Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

Stay tuned to see if the Constitution will be upheld.

Is American Sovereignty Important?

America is now more than two hundred years old. The U.S. Constitution that we began with is still in place. We are still a sovereign nation. Most of us take our freedom and national sovereignty for granted, but what are some of the forces working against our freedom and against our sovereignty and what are we doing to stop them?

Well, one U.S. House of Representatives member has come up with a good place to start. Alabama’s Representative Mike Rogers on March 2, 2015, introduced H.R. 1205: American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2015 into the House of Representatives. The bill has about a 1 percent of being passed, but at least it was introduced. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The bill would end the United States’ membership in the United Nations. Why would we want to do that? Because the United Nations as of late has become a sounding board for tin horn dictators who want to take money from free countries who have earned it and give the money to other tyrants who have not. Part of their objective is to undermine the sovereignty of free western countries and set up a worldwide government that will control everyone and be run be a few elites who will establish the rules but not have to live by them. I just happen to have a few examples of what the United Nations has done in recent years that should be cause for alarm.

Some comments from the Washington Times about the UN Arms Trade Treaty:

The criteria that arms should not be used to “prolong” or “aggravate” instability is troubling. China could use such a provision to label U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as a violation of international law. In 1941, such a treaty would have made illegal the U.S. lend-lease program to aid Britain before Pearl Harbor.

The implication is absurd: If giving arms to an ally fighting a tyrant prolongs the conflict, the only “legal” option for the ally is to surrender.

Another problem is the draft’s invocation of “international human rights law.” Unfortunately, liberal activists often claim that strict gun control is a “human right.” This reference, then, could be interpreted in ways that infringe on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.

Why should we care what some U.N. treaty says? Just ignore it, you say, because our Constitution trumps everything. Well, not if the U.S. signs and the Senate ratifies it. At that point, the treaty carries the weight of U.S. domestic law.

Forbes Magazine posted the following about The Law of the Sea Treaty:

Then there’s the currently proposed, Obama-endorsed, Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which would subordinate U.S. naval and drilling operations beyond 200 miles of our coast to a newly established U.N. bureaucracy. If ratified by Congress, it will grant a Kingston, Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) the power to regulate deep-sea oil exploration, seabed mining, and fishing rights. As part of the deal, as much as 7% of U.S. government revenue collected from oil and gas companies operating off our coast will be forked over to ISA for redistribution to poorer, landlocked countries.

The U.S. would have one vote out of 160 regarding where the money would go, and be obligated to hand over offshore drilling technology to any nation that wants it… for free. And who are those lucky international recipients? They will most likely include such undemocratic, despotic and brutal governments as Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe…all current voting members of LOST.

Both of the above articles are from 2012. This is not a new thing.

According to the website appinsys.com:

On November 14, 2010 the NZZ Online had an interview with Ottmar Edenhofer (Edenhofer is joint chair of IPCC Working Group 3 and deputy director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Berlin Institute of Technology).

Mr. Edenhofer stated:

  • …“Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. … One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore … But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

Last night I went to see the movie “Climate Hustle.” There was a lot in the movie that I was already aware of, but it was nice to see it organized and in one place. I don’t know if and when the movie will be shown again, but it is worth seeing.

Representative Rogers H.R. 1205: American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2015  may never get out of committee. That in itself illustrates the need for change in Washington. If we don’t change our representatives in Washington, we may lose our sovereignty as a country and our lifestyle.

Making The World A More Dangerous Place

President Obama has again announced his plans to close the terrorist detainee center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Politico reported yesterday that the Pentagon planned on releasing its plan to close the facility and move the prisoners to the United States.

Yahoo News reported today on the President’s plan to close down Guantanamo. The article explained:

President Barack Obama presented a long-shot plan Tuesday to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention center, hoping to fulfill an elusive campaign promise before he leaves office next year.

Describing the jail as a stain on America’s reputation and a catalyst for jihadists, Obama said “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president.”

“For many years, it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security. It undermines it,” Obama said from the Roosevelt Room

…The Guantanamo Bay closure plan, which took months to produce, offers no specifics on where a US facility would be, but military officials have previously listed Fort Leavenworth, Kansas or the US Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina among the possible destinations for inmates.

Those locations, however, face objections from local politicians.

The US leader has long argued that many Guantanamo prisoners should be transferred overseas and some should be tried by military courts.

A small number — those deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute — would be held in the United States.

So what is the problem with this? In the closing, some prisoners would be released to various countries.

In January 2015, Fox News reported the following:

SEPTEMBER 2014 REPORT OF THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

As of July 15, 2014, 620 detainees have been transferred out of the detention facility.

Of the total, 107, or 17.3 percent, have been “confirmed of re-engaging,” which is defined as being directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities. Nearly half of those — 48 — are now dead or in custody.

Of the total, 77, or 12.4 percent, are “suspected of re-engaging.” This category comprises detainees for whom it’s plausible that they are directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities, but it can’t be verified or is based only on information from a single source. Sixteen of these 77 are now dead or in custody

Many of the former detainees have attained ‘superstar’ status in the terrorist groups they now lead.

Closing Guantanamo is a really bad idea. Unfortunately, the prison could have been a valuable asset in ending the war on terror had it been properly used during the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration did not send anyone to Guantanamo, instead they used drones to simply kill terrorists. At least sending them to Guantanamo to be questioned might have given us some of the intelligence we needed to predict the rise of ISIS. There is also the problem of putting terrorists in prison on American soil. The lawyers will have a ball claiming civil rights that non-combatant terrorists are not entitled to (under the Geneva Convention or any other convention). There is also the risk of a nearby school, mall, airport (pick your target) being taken hostage so that the terrorists will be freed to commit more terrorism.

All in all, closing Guantanamo is a really bad idea. It will make America less secure–not more secure.

I Thought This Was A Done Deal, Evidently It Is Not

The Daily Signal posted an article yesterday about the budget deal the House of Representatives put forth under Paul Ryan. The deal was essentially the deal that was negotiated by the previous Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

The article reports:

In October, in his effort to “clear the barn” for Ryan, then-Speaker John Boehner helped negotiate a two-year budget deal with President Barack Obama and Democrats. It raised the 2017 spending level roughly $30 billion above the total lawmakers set in 2011 to control spending.

Though the majority of Republicans did not vote for the Boehner-Obama budget deal, the new House leadership has indicated spending bills for fiscal year 2017 must abide by the higher spending level prescribed by the October agreement.

But a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projecting trillion-dollar deficit levels by 2022 appears to be persuading more than just the usual suspects to ignore the budget deal and insist on a lower spending level.

Someone considerable smarter than I am observed recently that the current difference between Democrats and (establishment) Republicans is not over the size of the federal budget, but over who controls the money. Conservative Republicans are more interested in the size of the budget and want to shrink both government and government spending. The establishment Republicans have consistently ignored the conservative base that put them in office. That is going to become a problem for the establishment Republicans in the very near future.

The article further reports:

“I can tell you that Obamacare and the spending crisis are the reasons why I came up here and the reason I voted against the omnibus [spending bill] is because we got off Paul Ryan’s path to prosperity,” Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “I will fight hard for a lower budget number, and I expect a great deal of my colleagues will do the same.”

Farenthold is referring to 2012 proposal authored by Ryan, R-Wis., when he was chairman of the House Budget Committee that reformed entitlement programs, cut taxes, and reduced spending.

While the conservative House Freedom Caucus is leading the charge to renege on the October budget deal and revert to the lower spending number set under the Budget Control Act of 2011, other GOP members also are concerned.

The Republican Study Committee, a larger group of conservative House members from which the Freedom Caucus sprang, will propose a budget that sticks to sequestration levels, its chairman says.

America cannot continue to spend money at its present rate. The deficit passed nineteen trillion dollars this week. I don’t even know how to write that number! Conservatives have been sending people to Washington since 2010 to cut spending. It is about time Washington heard their voices. If the people who are in Washington to represent us now do not represent us, we will have to send different people.