by Todd Johnson:  Monday’s unveiling by President Donald Trump of his congressionally mandated national security strategy is a significant milestone for many reasons. Primarily, it serves as a blueprint for his administration’s approach to security concerns around the world and the timing of its release couldn’t be better.

          It serves as a bookend to his actions of last week where he signed a massive $700 billion defense bill, which is focused on trying to restore America’s competitive advantage. Trump’s signature on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a critical step as Congress continues to wrestle with how to fund their vision for a more robust defense capability in the broader context of budget reform.
          More importantly, Trump’s decisive action comes at a major inflection point for the U.S. military as the nation’s uniformed leadership finds itself grappling with on-going, low intensity combat operations around the world while simultaneously trying to modernize force structures and doctrine. Just last month the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, stated that the U.S. military advantage against near-peer competitors is eroding. His assessment is in line with a recent think tank report that stated America’s military forces need to retool immediately for future conflicts.
          Last week, the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis, released a study highlighting the fact that the United States military is not properly configured to meet the conventional threats of peer competitors like China or Russia in the next war. According to the report, “Put more starkly, assessments in this report will show that U.S. forces could, under plausible assumptions, lose the next war they are called upon to fight, despite the United States outspending China on military forces by a ratio of 2.7 to 1 and Russia by 6 to 1.”
          This is the main reason why Trump, his surrogates and congressional Republicans have been advocating for increased military spending for the foreseeable future. This reinvigorated approach for defending the homeland and its worldwide interests are needed, but care must be given to avoid wasteful spending. Also, Trump and his team need to continue working on reaching out to traditional allies as those relationships often serve as the foundations for America’s ability to project power around the globe.
          This approach allows the United States to share the burden of deterring aggressive actions emanating from Russia and China, which is critical in an era where threats can range from conventional troop movements to economic coercion to cyber incursions. This “adversarial competition” from Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and others is the new paradigm for future conflict and America and her allies must continue to be vigilant if they expect to win.
          Trump’s national security strategy is a great initial step but it is only the first of many on a journey to setting the conditions for peace and security around the world. Only time will tell if he and his administration are able to fully achieve the nation’s goals while our partners achieve theirs.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53023

by Thomas Gallatin:  President Donald Trump released his “America First” national security strategy Monday. The 68-page document sets forth a clear and sober understanding of the genuine threats the nation faces, as well as outlining a strategy for confronting these threats. In short, it represents both a reversal and a repudiation of U.S. policy over the previous eight years. Gone are the Barack liar-nObama-era references to the supposed imminent security threat posed by climate change. So too is liar-nObama’s self-defeating doctrine of “leading from behind.” No more apologizing for American global power and influence. That nonsense has been replaced with a realistic view of the world and America’s roll as the world’s leader.

          Trump’s policy is based on four fundamental principles: protecting the American people and homeland, promoting American economic prosperity, maintaining peace through strength, and expanding American influence across the globe. Strategically, the policy focuses on controlling America’s borders, rebuilding the military and taking the lead in both NATO and the UN. The document states:
          We must convince adversaries that we can and will defeat them — not just punish them if they attack the United States. We must ensure the ability to deter potential enemies by denial — convincing them that they cannot accomplish objectives through the use of force or other forms of aggression. We need our allies to do the same.
          Trump’s national security strategy also doesn’t shy away from naming those nations that pose the greatest threat to the American way of life, namely China and Russia, as well as the “rogue regimes” of Iran and North Korea.
          What may be the biggest break from liar-nObama’s foreign policy, however, is Trump’s emphasis on establishing U.S. national security via building up the nation’s economic strength. Trump declared that “economic security is national security,” explaining, “Economic vitality, growth and prosperity at home is absolutely necessary for American power and influence abroad. Any nation that trades away its prosperity for security will end up losing both.” liar-nObama was far more focused on social engineering in the military and redistributing the nation’s wealth to his favored constituents.
          In his announcement, Trump summed up his primary national security perspective, stating, “We are calling for a great reawakening of America, a resurgence of confidence, and a rebirth of patriotism, prosperity and pride. And we are returning to the wisdom of our Founders: In America the people govern, the people rule and the people are sovereign.”  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53029

by Paul Albaugh:  Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of the mainstream media today is that most stories have a very negative narrative. Most “news” has to do with a catastrophe somewhere, or a political scandal — whether it’s true or not — or just about anything that captivates the audience into believing that circumstances are far worse than they actually are. There just isn’t a whole lot of good news being presented to the everyday American. In fact, when there is good news, it’s often overshadowed by bad news. Crisis sells.

          Last week, there was some outstanding news that either wasn’t reported or was given such short shrift that most people missed it. In case some have forgotten, we are still at war and have been since 2001. Thanks to Barack liar-nObama and liar-Hillary Clinton’s malfeasance in abandoning Iraq in 2011, the Islamic State has been wreaking havoc for more than three years in the Middle East — specifically with its supposed caliphate in Iraq and Syria — as well as globally with so-called “lone wolf” attacks. The United States military has been actively engaged with the Islamic State, and has been helping the Iraqi military and the rebel fighters in Syria take back the cities in which these jihadis had gained a stronghold.
          The goal of the Islamic State was to establish a caliphate, in which they would dominate strategic parts of the Middle East. Their objective was to rule by the force of brutality and to commit evil acts of terror against all those who did not submit to their reign. This group, as we have written before, was not the JV team liar-nObama dismissed early on. No, it was a network of evil people who were a lot smarter, more organized, better funded and more sophisticated than Mr. Spike the Football would admit.
          Perhaps the news media was so focused on the Alabama Senate race, Donald Trump’s latest Twitter posts, or the avalanche of sex scandal. But the fact is, there was some really good news from Iraq that should have been given higher billing. On Dec. 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider-al-Abadi declared victory in the war against the Islamic State. That’s right, it is defeated — at least in terms of it not having control over any Iraqi cities or territory. This is terrific news, especially for our military and our allies who have been relentless in this long war.
          As National Review’s David French, himself a veteran of the Iraq War, puts it, “The caliphate is a smoking ruin. It courted conflict with the great powers. It craved Armageddon, and it got its wish. No one knows ISIS’s exact casualty figures, but its fighters have died by the tens of thousands.” In other words, our fine men and women carried out airstrikes, artillery bombardments and assaults in a highly effective manner, along with Iraqi soldiers and removed control from one of the most evil terrorist regimes in modern history. Again, this should have dominated headlines but it didn’t.
          Why? French notes that while Trump is delivering on his promise to defeat the Islamic State, his own posts on Twitter about fake news or various personal feuds overshadowed any good news from the war front that the media should have reported. In a sense, Trump, intentional or not, distracts the public from good news by creating his own bad news.
          French further notes that Americans as a whole are partially to blame for the lack of good news that is reported. Stories of panic and fear are read far more than stories about victory and peace; people ignore “good news” stories in favor of “bad news,” so journalists focus on the negative. The old ‘80s motto “if it bleeds, it leads” works for the marketing guys.
          Regardless, it seems that with the declaration of victory against the Islamic State, reporters should have been flooding the airwaves with this announcement, but it seems that no one showed up to report on it. Perhaps no one thought that this victory against the caliphate was significant enough. Could it be that because the leadership of the Islamic State is stubbornly hanging on that reporters didn’t see the significance? Or is it because  any good news for Trump is a non-starter?
          Now, let’s be real, the fight against this foe is not over yet, as there are still thousands of jihadis in the battle, not just in the Middle East, but in other parts of the world. Still, the Islamic State today does not have what it had a month ago. It doesn’t have a caliphate and it doesn’t have control over any cities. Jihadis are on the run, and if we can continue to pursue these evil fighters relentlessly with the help of our allies in the Middle East, then one day perhaps the Islamic State will fully be defeated.
          Trump and our military should remain committed to defeating our enemies. But the task will likely be more difficult in the years ahead, as many fighters return to their homelands and seek to reorganize and carry out smaller scale attacks. But for now, we all should be happy with the performance of our military in carrying out this difficult mission. And we should all pray daily for their safety wherever they may be serving.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53030

by Thomas Gallatin:  Just in time for Christmas, Republicans are poised to hand Americans an historic tax reform package. With initial holdouts — Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) — having now agreed to the finalized legislation, congressional Republicans plan to vote on the bill and have it on President Donald Trump’s desk by week’s end. This will mark a major milestone for both Republicans and Trump in fulfilling a major campaign promise to significantly cut taxes. Trump declared, “This is going to be one of the great gifts to the middle income people of this country that they’ve ever gotten for Christmas.” Anticipating the typical Democrat objections, Trump added, “The Democrats have … their standard sound bite. Before they even know what the bill is all about, they talk about ‘[cuts] for the wealthy.’”

          So what’s in the Republicans’ finalized Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which will lower taxes on the vast majority of Americans? Here are some of the highlights of the bill:
          The biggest change, which Trump has long called for, is a significant cut to the corporate tax rate. It drops to 21% down from the current 35%.
          The child tax credit, a major sticking point with Sen. Rubio, is doubled to $2,000-per-child, and the refundable tax credit is increased to $1,400 per child.
          The liar-nObamaCare mandate is eliminated. Americans will no longer be penalized for declining to purchase health insurance.
          The estate tax, a.k.a. death tax, remains, but the threshold for having to pay it has doubled to $11 million for individuals and $22 million for married couples.
          The alternative minimum tax (AMT) has been eliminated for corporations while the AMT threshold for individuals and families has been significantly increased up to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples.
          Mortgage tax deductions decrease for any interest on loans of $750,000 and up.
          What doesn’t change? The student loan interest deduction remains, as does the medical expense deduction and the graduate student tuition waver. There are no changes to 401(k)s. And the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches and nonprofits from endorsing political candidates, remains the same, despite earlier GOP attempts to repeal it.
          As we have previously written, this tax reform represents a political Armageddon for Democrats as it cuts their political influence, primarily seen in their income redistribution practices, by restructuring power away from them. It transfers greater power back to the American people. Democrats know that, which is why they have been hollering about it being vindictive and unjust. Rather than seeking to put aside their anti-Trump antagonism and seek to work with Republicans, they essentially ceded over their power to Republicans who will reap all the accolades for spurring economic growth with this bill.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53000

by Arnold Ahlert:  “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way [Donald Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.” —one of the text messages sent by FBI official Peter Strzok to fellow FBI official and DOJ attorney Lisa Page, Aug. 15, 2016

          After eight years of liar-nObama administration efforts to “fundamentally transform” our nation, Americans may be facing the reality that our major law enforcement institutions are fundamentally corrupt, and that Democrats and their Leftmedia allies — now indistinguishable from one another — will attempt to minimize this damning reality.
          Yet at some point, Americans are owed an explanation about an “insurance policy” that resembles a strategy to undermine the 2016 election. We can already surmise that “Andy” refers to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife received nearly $700,000 in campaign donations for her Virginia Senate race from liar-Clinton allies — while he was supervising the liar-Clinton email investigation.
          That Strzok was removed from the Russian collusion investigation for this text and the approximately 10,000 other exchanges between him and his extra-marital partner — a removal exposed by leaks, as opposed to full disclosure by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — begets a reasonable question: Why does he remain at the FBI in any capacity?
          Strzok was once the nation’s second-in-command for counterintelligence. Yet he carried on an easily traceable affair with a colleague — when he wasn’t busy leading the investigation into liar-Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and critically editing the memo that gave former FBI director James Comey cover to exonerate her. Strzok also failed to charge liar-Clinton associates Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, despite proof they were lying about having no knowledge of liar-Clinton’s private server, even as he facilitated the indictment of Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn — for the same crime.
          Strzok was hardly an outlier. The stench of partisanship attaches itself to other members of Mueller’s team. Bruce G. Ohr, the former associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, was demoted after evidence revealed he was in contact with Fusion GPS, producer of the infamous Steele dossier paid for by the liar-Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. (His wife, Nellie Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS specifically to probe Trump). Andrew Weissmann emailed former acting AG Sally Yates to express his “awe” for her refusal to implement Trump’s legal travel ban. Aaron Zebley  represented liar-Clinton IT staffer Justin Cooper, the man who set up liar-Clinton’s server — and smashed her Blackberries with a hammer. Jeannie Rhee was a liar-Clinton campaign donor, represented the liar-Clinton Foundation, and functioned as liar-nObama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes’ personal attorney.
          Page and Strzok had another equally damning exchange. “Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace,” Page stated in a text that also included a Trump-related article. “Of course I’ll try and approach it that way,” Strzok replied.
          Was Strzok’s aforementioned editing job that included changing the words “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless” in Comey’s memo part of that “approach?”
          During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Dec. 7, current FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted his agency is above reproach. Yet when Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) asked him if the Steele dossier was used to spy on Trump associates, Wray refused to answer, citing the ongoing investigation conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General as the reason. Six days later, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein declined to answer the same question — but insisted there’s no bias in Mueller’s investigation.
          What about illegality? Trump attorney Kory Langhofer is accusing Mueller of illegally obtaining transition team emails from career staffer at the General Services Administration (GSA), including confidential attorney-client communications, in an apparent violation of the president’s Fourth Amendment rights.
          Moreover, Wray and Rosenstein aren’t the only stonewallers. On March 20, 2017, Comey told Congress the counterintelligence operation into Russian collusion was recommended by Asst. Director of Counter Intelligence Bill Priestap, who was Strzok’s former boss. Priestap also  decided not to inform congressional overseers “because of the sensitivity of the matter,” Comey testified.
          Disingenuous? Priestap’s boss was McCabe. McCabe’s boss was Comey.
          McCabe was scheduled to testify behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee last Tuesday, but abruptly canceled due to a “scheduling error.” Some members of the Committee apparently weren’t buying it. “McCabe has an Ohr problem,” a congressional source surmised.
          He is scheduled to testify this week, and while the Committee is prepared to subpoena McCabe to compel his testimony, one suspects he would invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination — before stating anything that might reveal the nation is in the midst of the biggest political scandal in its history.
          In the meantime, a trio of other stories buried by the Leftmedia are extremely troubling. First, former DNC Interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile revealed that after the DNC’s servers and computers were was hacked, they replicated the information on both — and then “destroyed the machines.”
          Those were the machines the DNC refused to turn over to the FBI for examination, and the agency’s assertion they were hacked by the Russians is based solely on the assessment made DNC-hired cyber security firm CrowdStrike.
          Brazile insisted the DNC cooperated fully with the FBI, and that Comey’s testimony to the contrary was false. Yet Brazile is a documented  liar who initially denied sending primary debate questions to liar-Clinton’s campaign before admitting the truth.
          Second, Robert Mueller was granted an ethics waiver to serve as special counsel — and the DOJ refuses to explain why they accommodated his blatant conflicts of interest.
          Third, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, a 2012 liar-nObama appointee — who also sat on the FISA Court while the Trump team was under surveillance by the liar-nObama administration — recused himself from the Michael Flynn case without explanation.
          With so many players and moving parts it’s easy to ignore the one individual who may have been the prime mover behind all of these machinations. “Lest we forget, President liar-nObama had endorsed Mrs. liar-Clinton … to be president,” Andrew McCarthy writes. “Moreover, liar-nObama had knowingly participated in the conduct for which liar-Clinton was under investigation — using a pseudonym in communicating with her about classified government business over an unsecure private communication system.”
          Americans should also remember former AG Loretta Lynch’s airport tarmac meeting with liar-Bill Clinton while his wife remained under investigation, and that she directed Comey to call that investigation a “matter.” Emails released Friday by the DOJ reveal department officials were less concerned by the meeting itself than that it was leaked to the press and how to prevent further leaks.
          Americans should also remember liar-nObama National Security Advisor Susan Rice and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power  unmasked  Americans.
          Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz’s office has compiled more than 1.2 million pages of documentation, and even if the aforementioned players don’t cooperate, indictments are a real possibility. Thus, Americans will soon learn if we are still a constitutional republic — or whether the aforementioned “fundamental transformation” has succeeded beyond the former president’s wildest dreams.
          Trump is said to be dismantling liar-nObama’s “legacy.” Taking down a potential police state should be priority number one.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52984

LEGAL ANALYSIS: Why Mueller’s Seizure of Transition Emails Likely Violated the Law