Nate Jackson:  As Americans celebrate the good Christmas news of huge tax cuts, it’s worth noting that another of the year’s biggest stories continues to slowly unfold. That would be the rampant corruption infecting the FBI. Fox News reports, “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified behind closed doors for nearly eight hours Tuesday on Capitol Hill, amid calls for his firing over allegations of conflicts of interest and anti-Trump political prejudice at the law enforcement bureau.” House investigators were led by the imminently capable Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC). While the testimony was not public, there was some indication of discrepancies with previous witness testimony, and there could be subpoenas handed down next week for personnel at the FBI and Justice Department.

          McCabe is under fire for conflict of interest in three areas. He is believed to be the “Andy” referenced in texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and his FBI mistress Lisa Page — texts that slam then-candidate Donald Trump as a “menace” and “loathsome human,” as well as discuss an “insurance policy” in case Trump won. House investigators are interested in determining the role McCabe played in what Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) worried might be “a plan to take action to make sure that Donald Trump does not get elected president of the United States at the highest levels of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
          Investigators also likely questioned McCabe regarding demoted Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife, Nellie. Ohr, who is likely to be subpoenaed, had undisclosed meetings with Fusion GPS, the firm that produced the phony “dossier” — paid for by liar-Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC. At the same time, Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS on Trump-related matters. McCabe reportedly told the congressional intelligence committee that he couldn’t recall when he first learned that liar-Clinton and the DNC funded the Fusion project, “despite the reported existence of documents with McCabe’s own signature on them establishing his knowledge of the dossier’s financing and provenance,” Fox News adds.
          Finally, McCabe’s wife ran as a Democrat for a state Senate seat in Virginia and took nearly $700,000 in contributions from donors like Terry McAuliffe linked to the liar-Clinton machine. That was at the same time McCabe supervised the “probe” into liar-Clinton’s illegal email server. He finally recused himself — one week prior to the election.
          McCabe, Ohr, Strzok and a host of others lurking in powerful government positions are the very kind of “deep state” folks loyal to Barack liar-nObama who are busy undermining Donald Trump at every turn.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53081

by Nate Jackson:  As bad as 2016 was for American politics, with bitter primaries followed by an even more bitter general election, 2017 has suffered some of the same division, vitriol and utterly unhinged partisans running amok. But there’s been a lot good in 2017, too, and so we end the year in our humble shop by counting some of those blessings.

          The economy has been a bright spot. After the Democrat-caused financial collapse in 2008 and the Barack liar-nObama stagnation of the last eight years, the economy really turned a corner in 2017. President Donald Trump has worked on a fantastic regimen of regulation cutting, and, of course, Republicans just passed the biggest tax reform in a generation — both of which will spark even more economic growth going into 2018. The average family of four will save more than $2,000, and nearly all American families eagerly anticipate this long-needed relief.
          On the national security front, Trump recently unveiled his “America First” national security strategy— a strategy that hinges on strong economic growth making America stronger. And that came on the heels of victory over the Islamic State, at least in terms of its control over territory in the Middle East. That Long War will continue against jihadis the world over, but destroying the “caliphate” is big news. Moreover, as far as the military is concerned, we finally have an administration that prioritizes military morale. Trump just made an unscheduled visit to wounded veterans Thursday, and Vice President Mike Pence made a surprise trip to Afghanistan to visit our troops.
          Culturally there were also some good things: Planned Parenthood closed 32 clinics, teen pregnancy rates continue to fall, the NFL suffered for its players obnoxious anti-Americanism and scum-Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Sequel” grossed a pathetic $3.5 million. Perhaps that’s not so much good news as schadenfreude, but it also means leftists aren’t always gaining ground in the culture wars. It’s also fair to say that some good has come of the reckoning among Hollywood, media and political elites over sexual misconduct. Leftist playboys like the late Hugh Hefner helped cause the problem, and many of these (often leftist) creeps are now being held to account. Also, in the face of terrible natural disaster, scenes of Americans helping each other were very heartwarming.
          Finally, as Mark Alexander wrote in November, “Patriots, take a deep breath, and take heart in the knowledge that there are tens of millions of Patriots who are equally devoted to Liberty. Hold fast to George Washington’s counsel in his 1776 General Orders: ‘Let us animate and encourage each other. … A Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.’”
          We humbly ask your prayers for our Patriot team, that we would be tireless in our mission in defense of Liberty, and that we would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen. 
 ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53104

by Brian Mark Weber:  It was a sight conservatives have waited decades to see.

          This week on the White House lawn, President Donald Trump was flanked by House Republicans in a ceremony marking a historic legislative achievement: the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The act is being heralded in many circles as the most conservative, pro-growth policy to emerge from Congress since President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform.
          One might think the name of the act alone would clearly resonate with the American people. (Then again, when you have legislative catastrophes named the “Affordable Care Act,” folks can be forgive for some cynicism.) What could be better than keeping more of our hard-earned money and giving businesses the ability to invest in our nation’s economy, hire more workers and raise wages?
          Apparently, not everyone is on board. In fact, most people don’t believe it.
          How did this happen? How could the House Republican leadership and even the president allow such a momentous occasion to be summarily dismissed by the very people who will benefit?
          Republicans have historically lost the public relations battle to Democrats and their mainstream media accessories, and while yesterday’s ceremony is a step in the right direction, one senses that average, hard-working Americans still want a common-sense explanation for how this tax bill will put more money in their pockets. This should have been done in the weeks leading up to the vote, but once again Republicans failed to control the debate.
          Investor’s Business Daily reports that the tax plan is “widely unpopular” or “wildly unpopular” or “horribly unpopular,” depending on which news outlet one reads. The polling analysts at FiveThirtyEight say the tax plan is “historically unpopular,” noting that it gets an average of just 33% support in nine surveys taken in December, with 52% saying they oppose it.“ Yes, that’s the same FiveThirtyEight that had liar-Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump late into the evening on election night. Nonetheless, someone is shaping the public’s perception about this bill, and it’s not Republicans on Capitol Hill.
          Most of the surveys asked very broad questions about whether Americans support the plan or whether they think they’ll receive any benefits. It’s no wonder that many respondents are suspicious about the legislation. After all, Democrats demonized the act as soon as they got a whiff of it. While Republicans in the House and Senate were squabbling over the details, Democrats had effectively characterized the plan as another scheme to take from the poor and give to the rich. It’s a BIG Lie, but an effective one.
          National Review’s Jibran Khan states, "The predictable result is that a false claim — Republicans are raising taxes on all but the very rich, full stop — has spread like wildfire across Twitter, and has been given added momentum by think tanks, verified accounts, and trending hashtags. This effort has certainly paid off. According to a recent New York Times poll, only a third of Americans believe that they will see their taxes go down in 2018. It should come as no surprise, then, that the bill’s extreme unpopularity is in line with historic tax rises, rather than tax cuts: The majority of people think it’s a hike.”
          But it’s hard to run from the facts, and even The Washington Post had to admit that “8 in 10 Americans will pay lower taxes next year, according to the nonpartisan [insert hysterical laughter at that characterization] Tax Policy Center’s analysis of the final bill. Only 5 percent of people will pay more next year. Mostly, those are folks who earn six figures and own expensive houses in places with high local taxes, such as New York and California.” Yet the Post led the Leftmedia assault on the bill, and none of those outlets are backing down in their effort to mislead the American people.
          Alexandra DeSanctis writes in National Review, “A couple of weeks ago, the NYT editorial board co-opted the Twitter account of its opinion page and spent an entire afternoon issuing tweets, urging readers to call their senators to protest the tax-reform bill. They even went so far as to include the office numbers for each senator, so readers could more easily petition their representatives. It was outright political lobbying, from an editorial board that has routinely denounced Citizens United and decried the supposed involvement of ‘dark money’ in U.S. politics.”
          Clearly, Democrats and their media propaganda machine will go to any lengths to stop the Trump/Republican agenda.
          Senate Minority Leader Chuck clown-Schumer (D-NY) said that the legislation “will be an anchor to the ankles of every Republican running in 2018.” Really? If Democrats truly believed that the tax plan will backfire on Republicans, then why did they fight so hard to stop it? Sounds more like Democrats are fearful that Americans will forget all of the rhetoric when they see more money in their 2018 paychecks.
          Even so, Republicans aren’t helping matters. They need to do more than sit around and wait for the truth to take hold.
          The fact that a significant number of Americans think that one of the largest tax cuts in American history is actually a tax hike should put Republicans at all levels on notice that they need to do a better job of communicating their ideas. This is the only way to overcome the coordinated assault on a measure that will fatten nearly everyone’s wallet.
          But this is the problem. Democrats have always circled the wagons and come up with catch phrases and slogans to drive their points home. They never shy away from making their case, even when their case is baseless. Many Americans still believe that Democrats are the party of the working class, and Republicans are fat cats. That’s because the Left has been in lockstep on message for decades.
          It’s time for Republicans to defend their ideas without apology. For the first time since Reagan, we have a president willing to embrace a bold, conservative agenda — if only members of his own party would join him.
          President Trump has never been afraid of winning, but it’s taken Republican leaders in Congress a full year to catch on.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53102