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Politics

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., listens during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid, on her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017 in Washington. (Photo: AP)

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., listens during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid, on her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017 in Washington. (Photo: AP)

Al Franken will officially be replaced in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday by Minnesota Lt. Governor Tina Smith, who announced she intends to run for reelection in 2018. The former comedian resigned in disgrace amid allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment and various other allegations of misconduct.

The house came down for the would-be two-term senator on November 16, when Leeann Tweeden, the morning news anchor on TalkRadio 790 KABC in Los Angeles, provided a photo image of Senator Al Franken groping her while she slept.

She also alleged in her story that he forcefully kissed her and stuck his tongue down her mouth without her consent during a 2006 USO Tour in Afghanistan.

Leeann Tweeden, asleep on the flight back to the United States from Afghanistan, groped by now-Senator Al Franken, D-Minn.

Leeann Tweeden, asleep on the flight back to the United States from Afghanistan, groped by now-Senator Al Franken, D-Minn.

On November 20, another woman named Lindsay Menz also alleged Senator Franken grabbed her inappropriately while her husband took a photo of the two at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010.

“It wasn’t around my waist,” Ms. Menz said. “It wasn’t around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt.”

A recent poll conducted by SurveyUSA found only 36% approved of the job Senator Franken was doing in the U.S. Senate, while just 22% believe he should remain in office.

Lt. Governor Smith, 59, also a Democrat, was appointed by Democratic Governor Mark Dayton in December and will serve until a special election is held this year to complete the term, which ends in 2020.

The former General Mills executive started her own marketing and political consulting firm in the 1990s. She ran Walter Mondale’s unsuccessful 2002 Senate campaign against Norm Coleman and also Ted Mondale’s failed bid for governor in 1998.

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith answers a question after Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) announced Smith to replace U.S. Sen. Al Franken at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on Dec. 13, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith answers a question after Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) announced Smith to replace U.S. Sen. Al Franken at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on Dec. 13, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

“Tina Smith will make an excellent United States Senator,” Mr. Franken said in a statement. “She is a dedicated public servant who’s worked tirelessly on behalf of Minnesotans, and Governor Dayton couldn’t have made a better choice for this job.”

Ms. Smith also served in the early 2000s as a vice president of external affairs for Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. Following her time at Planned Parenthood, she served as chief of staff to Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak before taking the same job with Governor Dayton.

The race is expected to be competitive and is rated only SLIGHTLY DEMOCRATIC on the PPD Senate Election Projection Model.

Mr. Franken barely defeated then-incumbent Senator Coleman in a wave election for Democrats in 2008. His 312-vote margin of victory was clouded by allegations of voter fraud. Before the recount, Mr. Coleman was up 206 votes and 1,099 felons — all ineligible to vote — were later identified as having voted.

As the People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) Big Data Poll correctly identified before the 2016 presidential election, the Twin Cities had begun to swung back toward Republicans. President Donald Trump campaigned only one time in the state during the closing weeks of the campaign and barely lost to Hillary Clinton, due largely to extended early voting totals.

Former two-term Governor Tim Pawlenty has been floated by Republicans as a possibility. He’s a widely known candidate who can raise significant sums of money. Worth noting, Democrats apparently view him to be a threat.

Alliance for a Better Minnesota last month paid for a poll attacking him because of a rumor that claimed Mr. Pawlenty was considering another run for governor.

Al Franken has officially been replaced in

US

Police are seen as demonstrators gather near Camden Yards to protest against the death in police custody of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. on April 25, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

Police are seen as demonstrators gather near Camden Yards to protest against the death in police custody of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. on April 25, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

The murder rate in Baltimore set a new record in 2017 with 343 homicides, or 55.8 killings per 100,000 people, The Baltimore Sun reported. It’s the third straight year in a row where the number of murders was above 300.

The previous record set in 2015 was 55.35 per 100,000 people, when the city boasted 344 homicides, though it had thousands more residents. In 1993, the city suffered the most homicides (353), but had roughly 100,000 more residents at the time.

The average age of a homicidal victim in Baltimore City is 31-years old.

Without a doubt, the murder rate has increased since officials relaxed policing and limited police presence in the city following the accidental death of Freddie Gray. Then-Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby charged all six police officers involved in the Gray case, and all charges were eventually dropped after her case fell apart and several were found not guilty at trial.

She never had a case, and faced growing calls for disbarment over her conduct during the prosecution. Former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that she would not seek re-election amid skyrocketing crime rates, riot threats and racial tension. At a press conference in 2015, Rawlings-Blake claimed that she wanted to focus on the community, which under her watch saw a 56% increase in the murder rate.

Most experts blame the decrease in police presence and a lack of backing for police from political leadership for the increased murder rate in Democratic cities across the country. It has caused police to abandon active patrolling.

A former Baltimore police officer said at the time Ms. Mosby was on a “witch hunt” and the city was losing officers “right and left.”

The Rev. Kinji Scott, a pastor in Baltimore who has held various positions in local city government, told National Public Radio (NPR) that the community feels different toward police presence than Big Media portray.

“We wanted the police there,” Scott says. “We wanted them engaged in the community. We didn’t want them beating the hell out of us, we didn’t want that.”

When asked whether the “hands off, don’t arrest” policing strategy was supported by the black community in Baltimore, his answer was surprising. He also saw a clear connection between the change in policing and the rise in the murder rate.

“No. That represented our progressives, our activists, our liberal journalists, our politicians, but it did not represent the overall community,” he added. “Because we know for a fact that around the time Freddie Gray was killed, we start to see homicides increase. We had five homicides in that neighborhood while we were protesting.”

The murder rate in Baltimore set a

Opinion

President Donald Trump in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House signs an order beginning the process of moving the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel to Jerusalem on December 6, 2017.

President Donald Trump in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House signs an order beginning the process of moving the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel to Jerusalem on December 6, 2017.

Happy New Year!

We listed yesterday the good and bad policy developments of 2017, so now let’s speculate about potential victories and defeats in 2018.

Here are two things I hope will happen this year.

  • Welfare reform – If my friends and contacts on Capitol Hill are feeding my accurate information, we may see a bigger and better version of the 1996 welfare reform in 2018. The core concept would be to abolish the dozens of means-tested programs (i.e., redistribution programs targeted at low-income people) in Washington and replace them with a “block grant.” This could be good news for federal taxpayers if the annual block grant is designed to grow slowly. And it could be good news for poor people since state government would then have the ability and flexibility to design policies that help liberate recipients from government dependency.
  • Collapse of Venezuela – Given the disastrous deterioration of the Venezuelan economy, it’s difficult to envision how the Maduro dictatorship can survive the year. Yes, I know the regime is willing to use the military to suppress any uprising, but I suspect hungry and desperate people are more likely to take chances. My fingers are crossed that the corrupt government is overthrown and Venezuela becomes another Chile (hopefully without a transition period of military rule).

Here are two things I fear may happen in 2018.

  • Pulling out of NAFTA – America dodged a bullet in 2017. Given Trump’s protectionist instincts, I worried he would do something very dangerous on trade. But pain deferred is not the same thing as pain avoided. The President has made some very worrisome noises about NAFTA and it’s possible he may use executive authority to scrap a deal that has been good for the United States.
  • A bad version of Brexit – Given the statist mindset in Brussels and the continent’s awful demographics, voting to leave the European Union was the right decision for our British friends.Simply stated, it makes no sense to stay on a sinking ship, even if it sinking slowly. But the net benefits of Brexit depend on whether the United Kingdom seizes the moment and adopts pro-growth policies such as tax cuts and free-trade pacts. Sadly, those good reforms don’t appear likely and it appears instead that the feckless Tory leadership will choose to become a satellite member of the EU, which means living under the thumb of Brussels and paying for harmonization, bureaucratization, and centralization. The worst possible outcome in the short run, though at least the U.K. is better positioned to fully extricate itself in the future.

I’m adding a new feature to my hopes-and-fears column this year.

These are issues where I think it’s likely that something consequential may occur, but I can’t figure out whether I should be optimistic or pessimistic. I sort of did this last year, listing Obamacare reform and Italian fiscal crisis as both hopes and fears.

It turns out I was right to be afraid about what would happen with Obamacare and I was wrong (or too early) to think something would happen with Italy.

Here are three things that could be consequential in 2018, but I can’t figure out whether to be hopeful or fearful.

  • Infrastructure reform or boondoggle – I put an “infrastructure boondoggle” as one of my fears last year, but the President and Congress postponed dealing with the issue. But it will be addressed this year. I’m still afraid the result may be a traditional pile of pork-barrel spending, but it’s also possible that legislation could be a vehicle for market-based reform.
  • Normalization of monetary policy – I try to stay clear of monetary policy, but I also recognize that it’s a very important issue. Indeed, if I was to pick the greatest risk to the economy, it’s that easy-money policies (such as artificially low interest rates) have created a bubble. And bursting bubbles can be very messy, as we learned (or should have learned) in 2008. The Federal Reserve supposedly is in the process of “normalizing” monetary policy. I very much hope they can move in the right direction without rattling markets and/or bursting bubbles.
  • A China bubble – Speaking of macroeconomic risks, I’m very glad that China has partially liberalized and I’m ecstatic that reform has dramatically reduced severe poverty, but I also worry that the government plays far too large a role in the banking sector and interferes far too much in the allocation of capital. I’m guessing this eventually leads to some sort of hiccup (or worse) for the Chinese economy, and all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that the government responds with additional liberalization rather than the bad policies being advocated by the OECD and IMF.

By the way, I fully expect the Democrats to sweep the 2018 elections. And since the Party is now much farther to the left than it used to be, that could lead to very bad news in 2019 – particularly if Trump unleashes his inner Nixon.

Yesterday’s column was a look back on

Politics

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 19, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 19, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

President Donald Trump said early Monday morning on New Year’s Day that the United States (US) will no longer give foreign aid to Pakistan, tweeting “they have given us nothing but lies & deceit.”

“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools,” President Trump tweeted. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

U.S. officials and foreign policy analysts have long accused Pakistan of offering terrorists a support system, even before Osama bin Laden was found living in a compound in Abbottabad. He was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011 at a compound located just half a mile from Pakistan’s premier military training academy Kakul Military Academy (PMA) in Abbottabad.

It’s the equivalent of West Point in the U.S., and it’s inconceivable to U.S. officials that the renowned Pakistani intelligence service would not have known he was there. As a result, the Obama Administration chose not to alert the Pakistani government of the operation that finally resulted in his death.

“It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission,” former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. “They might alert the targets.”

Documents leaked by Wikileaks revealed American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden each time U.S. forces approached his location. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) also helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According to the leaked cables, in December 2009 the government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden’s whereabouts.

A police report dated January 17, 2012 shows bin Laden’s youngest wife Amal Ahmad Abdul Fatah said that except for the 8 or 9 months just after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001 he moved from home to home in Peshawar, Swat and Haripur, Pakistan before settling in Abbottabad.

He remained there for the last 6 years of his life.

“It is inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for extended period of time,” then-chief counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said.

Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistan Ambassador to the U.S., who once said both countries “cooperated in making sure” that the operation leading to his death was “successful,” admitted that Osama bin laden indeed had a support system in Pakistan. However, he claimed that the Pakistani government wasn’t privy to it.

In October 2011, former Pakistani Army Chief General Ziauddin Butt stated that bin Laden was kept in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad by the then Director-General of the Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004–2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah. He further asserted that it occurred with the “full knowledge” of General Pervez Musharraf, the former president.

In August, President Trump said “the next pillar” of his new strategy to combat Islamic extremism involved a “change in our approach to Pakistan.” The Trump Administration during the summer already withheld roughly $50 million in military aid to Pakistan in response to their lack of action against the Haqqani Network and the Taliban.

President Donald Trump said early Monday morning

Fake News

ABC News' Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross is a longtime purveyor of fake news.

ABC News’ Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross is a longtime purveyor of fake news.

In 2017, a complete disregard for evidentiary standards in journalism was on full display. Corporate Big Media spent most of 2017 elevating the dangers to our republic posed by fake news, but would hands down become the biggest, most frequent purveyors of misinformation and blatant dishonesty in journalism.

The outfits that topped the repeat-offender list were CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. That’s empirical fact determined by tracking the number of stories that collapsed, whether the outfits issued a retraction, a “clarification” or did nothing. In the cast of CNN, offenses covered the trivial — such as fake fish-feeding stories in Japan or airing fake magazine covers — to the not-so trivial, such as falsely reporting Anthony Scaramucci was under criminal investigation.

The most serious offender was Brian Ross at ABC News. That’s a matter of opinion — our opinion — which is based not only on the seriousness of insinuating the President of the United States is a traitor but also the financial harm it caused to everyday Americans.

Top Fake News Stories of 2017

Russia Hacked the Election (After the U.S. Electricity Grid)!

“Russians tried to hack elections systems of 21 states in 2016,” a headline in USAToday on September 22 claimed. Various other outlets including CNN and alphabet new networks either published their own version of the story or regurgitated the USAToday headline.

Except, it never happened.

The Associated Press would soon after report that Wisconsin – one of the 21 states, which consequently voted for President Trump – did not have its election systems targeted by Russian hackers. Michael Haas, the chief elections administrator in The Badger State, “repeatedly said that Homeland Security assured the state it had not been targeted.”

It further fell apart when the California Secretary of State Alex Padilla issued a statement refuting the claimed report.

A theme emerges when examining the stories about Russia “hacking” the election. Mediates repeatedly attempt to blur the lines between the alleged hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and John Podesta, and actual U.S. election systems. For the record, we’ve yet to see any evidence of that hacking and former intelligence analysts argue it was a leak, not a hack.

It also followed a false report by The Washington Post in late 2016, which fell apart in early 2017. It claimed Russia had hacked the U.S. electricity grid and it was repeated by other Big Media outlets and various Democratic politicians, including Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and Governor Peter Shumlin.

“A malware code associated with Russian hackers has reportedly been detected within the system of a Vermont electric utility.”

Except, there was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid” and the malware was found on a single laptop that was not even connected to the electric grid.

The Washington Post never even bothered to contact the company. Burlington Electric issued its own statement to the Burlington Free Press debunking the report.

“We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop NOT connected to our organization’s grid systems,” they said, with emphasis.

In 1 Week, 3 Fake News Bombshells at The Washington Post

The Washington Post had one of the worst weeks in journalism back in May, 2017, publishing 3 major stories that completely collapsed shortly after. The first was a story claiming former FBI director James Comey had requested additional prosecutorial tools from the Department of Justice (DOJ) one day before he was fired by President Trump.

This “report,” which was ridiculous on several levels, was cited by Democrats and other media outlets as proof President Trump only fired Mr. Comey because he was getting too close in the Russia investigation.

First, the director doesn’t actually investigate potential crimes, the special agents do. Second, Comey wasn’t actually in charge of the investigation, now-Acting Director Andrew McCabe was. Mr. McCabe, who is himself under investigation by the DOJ inspector general for his role in the Clinton email case, testified before Congress that the Comey firing would do nothing to obstruct a FBI investigation. Lastly, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein completely debunked this as fake news during briefings with Capitol Hill lawmakers. In his opening statement, he gutted the entire piece.

I want to address media claims that the FBI asked for additional resources for the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. I am not aware of any such request. Moreover, I consulted my staff and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and none of them recalls such a request.

The Washington Post also reported that Deputy AG Rosenstein was weighing whether to resign from his role at the Justice Department.

Never happened.

The final “bombshell” story, which provoked the paper to erupt in celebration, surrounded his sharing of “highly sensitive classified information” with the Russians, endangering sources, methods and angering the source nation that gathered the intelligence.

As it turned out, that nation was Israel and The Washington Post and The New York Times were the ones who exposed that information. Several officials told PPD – and other outlets have confirmed – that President Trump wasn’t even aware of the source nation at the time.

The Washington Post cited anonymous past and current intelligence officials as sources, which translates into former Obama administration officials.

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – the only three U.S. officials in the room – all said the premise of the story as it was written was completely false.

Mueller Subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for Trump Records

Bloomberg News, followed by The Wall Street Journal, reported Special Counsel Robert Mueller III subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for records relating to President Donald Trump. Sources who spoke with People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) and Fox News quickly refuted the report and Deutsche Bank later confirmed the initial report was false.

The sources who told PPD the story was bogus also said they believed it was meant to serve as a distraction from the exposed bias on behalf of members of the special counsel team, i.e. Peter Strzok and Andrew Weissman.

CNN’s Not-So “Exclusive” Inability to Read or Tell Time: Trump and WikiLeaks

In December, CNN reported an “exclusive” piece of fake news garbage alleging the Trump campaign, including President Trump himself, received WikiLeaks material from an unknown sender before it was public on September 4, 2016. MSNBC and CBS News claimed to have confirmed the story separately, proving they too do not know how to read or fact-check.

The story collapsed within hours on Twitter, and officially at the hands of the fellow-liberal Washington Post. The email was in fact sent ten days later on September 14 and linked to scores of documents that WikiLeaks had already publicly released a day earlier.

Put simply, the emailed information in question was already public before being emailed to the campaign. CNN also assumed the email sender, Michael J. Erickson, who offered a decryption key and access, worked for WikiLeaks and, by extension, the Russians.

In reality, he was just a person from the public who felt compelled to give the Trump campaign his suggestion — to look at publicly available emails.

Anthony Scaramucci Under Nonexistent Investigation

In this fake news story from late June to early July, which is no longer available online, CNN claimed that the Senate Intelligence Committee and U.S. Treasury Department were investigating a Russian investment fund with ties to individuals on Team Trump.

The central figure in this fake investigation: Anthony Scaramucci.

Using a single anonymous source, Thomas Frank at CNN wrote in the now retracted fake news article: “Two Democratic senators had asked Treasury to investigate whether Scaramucci promised to lift sanctions — a policy shift that would help the fund attract more international investment to Russia.”

The “two Democratic senators” pushed (planted) the fake news story and the investigation was based on a fake “meeting” Mr. Scaramucci supposedly had with the investment fund executive. They’ve been identified as Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

The admission by CNN came only after a Breitbart News investigation revealed the Treasury Department closed the matter after it was “determined to be without merit.”

ABC News’ Brian Ross Sends U.S. Markets Into Spiral

Brian Ross, the chief investigative correspondent at ABC News, singlehandedly sent U.S. stocks plunging on December 1. Ross falsely claimed on live television Lt. General Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that then-candidate Donald Trump instructed him to reach out to Russia. Joy Behar hysterically repeated the report in celebratory announcement to her audience live on “The View.”

Multiple aspects of the report were completely false, including the key point that the direction came from Mr. Trump, himself.

As People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) and others have reported — and court documents back up — it was a “senior” official whom we now know to be Jared Kushner. More importantly, it took place during the transition, which is normal behavior for incoming administrations who always aim to “reset” foreign relations with countries.

In other words, then-President-elect Trump’s team got to work on the agenda he ran on. That’s exactly what transition teams do. There’s nothing odd and certainly nothing illegal about it. But one day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared above 24,000 for the first time ever, this fake news bombshell sent it and other major indices into a spiral.

Worth noting, obfuscating the timeline has become a consistent theme with collapsed Trump-Russia collusion stories. Also worth noting, Brian Ross has a long history of pushing fake news, and ABC News has a long history of pretending his “sources” later “clarify” false information.

John Cook at Gawker once said this about Brian Ross: “When there’s breaking news, especially about terrorism and national security, ABC News’ Brian Ross is there. And under no circumstances should you listen to anything he says.”

ABC News also has a long history of letting him get away with it, as they did in this case. Mr. Ross was given a vacation over the holidays and is slated to reappear on the network after New Year’s Day. However, he is prohibited from covering the president when he returns.

Final Thoughts

There were numerous other articles we could’ve included in this list. CNN’s Jeremy Diamond claimed that President Trump was the first president since George H.W. Bush to fail to take questions from reporters alongside the Chinese president (Xi Jinping) on his first visit to China. That’s false. Barack Obama didn’t take questions with his Chinese counterpart, either.

Also not on the list is when Fortune was forced to retract claims that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN’s network. We also didn’t include any of the crazy conspiracy theories from Louise Mensch and Claude “TrueFactsStated” Taylor, one of whom still refuses to admit her information came from a hoaxer.

The bottom line is that the stories meant to paint President Trump as illegitimate are not only false, but dangerous to the political stability of our nation. News consumers should understand that these aren’t largely the product of “honest mistakes,” as CNN’s political editor Chris Cillizza claims.

They are largely the result of a combination of “reporters” wanting claims to be true, flagrant dishonesty and blatant ignorance.

Too many modern “mainstream media” journalists are lazy, bias and pretend to be something they are not — smart.

They’re not smart at Newsweek when they claim “Watergate investigator Kenneth Starr predicts indictments over the Russia investigation” because, as we all should know, he didn’t work on Watergate. They’re not smart at Newsweek when they claim Ivanka Trump plagiarized her own speech because, as we all should know, that isn’t the definition of plagiarism.

We could go on and on with these examples. But when Polish President Andrzej Duda has to issue a call to “Fight Fake News” because Big Media lied about him snubbing President Trump over a handshake, it’s time to recognize “journalists” have a serious problem.

They have become willing patsies for corrupt members of a permanent government who believe they are unaccountable to the American voters. They despise American voters, as their text messages reveal.

Most pundits and journalists are invested in the failure of the Trump presidency because it’s the only way they can become relevant again. They’re losers; losers who lost their credibility and integrity when President Trump got elected. They can only reclaim their relevance if President Trump turns out to be everything they said he was, and more.

Hillary Clinton had all but one of the Corporate Big Media outlets working to get her elected. She had all the local television affiliates and regional papers owned by those companies — for instance, the Gainesville Sun owned by The New York Times — and half of Fox News.

Yet, we’re supposed to believe RT, Sputnik News and various other unnamed “fake news” sites somehow swayed public opinion?

She had all of Big Tech in Silicon Valley and Big Social rigging their “Trending” and “Trending News” sections. Yet, we’re supposed to believe $100,000 worth of Facebook ads in Michigan and Wisconsin — most of which were pro-Hillary Clinton anyway — somehow outweighed the bombardment of ads pushed by her Wall Street-funded, billion-dollar campaign?

That’s how stupid these people truly believe you are.

In 2017, a complete disregard for evidentiary

Politics

In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, anti-riot Iranian police prevent university students to join other protesters over Iran weak economy, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017. A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran’s weak economy swept into Tehran on Saturday, with college students and others chanting against the government just hours after hard-liners held their own rally in support of the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment. (Photo: AP)

The Trump Administration “strongly condemns” Tehran for their treatment of “peaceful protestors,” including at least 200 who have reportedly been arrested and 2 killed. Protests in Iran broke out on Thursday in Mashhad over economic grievances and have since spread to cities across the Islamic Republic.

“We are following reports of multiple peaceful protests by Iranian citizens in cities across the country,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement to People’s Pundit Daily (PPD). “Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos. As President Trump has said, the longest-suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are Iran’s own people.”

Habibollah Khojastepour, the security deputy of Lorestan’s governor, was quoted by the semi-official news agency Mehr as saying an illegal gathering in Doroud took place on Saturday night and “two of our dear Doroudi citizens were killed.”

The Mehr news agency reported on Sunday that the two protesters were killed in Doroud, located in Lorestan province.

“The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters,” Ms. Nauert added. “We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.”

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced on Twitter Sunday that Iran was “blocking access” to the popular messaging app “for the majority of Iranians.” Shortly after, Iran state TV reported that authorities have blocked Instagram and confirmed the block on Telegram, citing an anonymous source who said it was “in line with maintaining peace and security of the citizens.”

“With a decision by the Supreme National Security Council, activities of Telegram and Instagram are temporarily limited,” the source said.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to cheer on and defend the protestors, something his predecessor did not do when similiar developments took place from 2009 to 2010, known as the Green Revolution. As a result, hundreds of protestors and journalists were arrested and many of both are still listed as missing.

“Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism,” President Trump tweeted. “Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!”

President Trump’s tweets naturally angered Iranian government, drawing a response. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the “Iranian people give no credit to the deceitful and opportunist remarks of U.S. officials or Mr. Trump.”

On June 14, 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified before the U.S. Congress that he supports “those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of government. Those elements are there, certainly as we know.”

The Trump Administration "strongly condemns" Tehran for

Policy

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Reuters)

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Reuters)

When I criticize America’s wretched tax code — now slightly less worse because of the recent tax bill– I generally focus my ire on the politicians who have spent more than 100 years creating an insanely complicated and convoluted system.

The Internal Revenue Service, by contrast, is simply the bureaucracy that is charged with enforcing the code.

But that doesn’t mean the IRS should escape criticism. The bureaucrats have some leeway and that discretion sometimes gets abused. The most glaring example in recent years was the agency’s despicable attempt to tilt the political playing field and influence elections by discriminating against Tea Party groups.

Yet not everyone thinks the IRS misbehaved. The Washington Post actually published an editorial that tries to portray the IRS as a victim. Seriously. I’m not joking.

Conservatives who long sought to restrain the Internal Revenue Service have managed to throw a wrench into an IRS division that is supposed to regulate tax-exempt nonprofits and charities, just at a time when these groups are becoming more partisan and complex.

The number of applications from new charities has exploded in recent years, and the law is a bit of a gray zone — vaguely written and hard to enforce. In recent years, overwhelmed by applications, the …division seems to have lost its will to scrutinize charities. According to Mr. O’Harrow, last year the division rejected just 37 of the 79,582 applications on which it made a final determination. He reported that charities have now begun to recognize they face little or no chance of examination or sanction. The division’s budget has declined from a peak of $102 million in 2011 to $82 million last year. The number of division employees has fallen from 889 to 642.

I have a modest bit of sympathy for the IRS. As the editorial notes, the tax code is “vaguely written and hard to enforce.”

But my solution is to remove IRS discretion. In the long run, that can happen with a simple and fair flat tax that does away with the deduction for charitable contributions and thus removes any need for monitoring and enforcement.

In the short run, the easy answer is that charitable status should be automatic and the 642 bureaucrats should concentrate on finding and punishing nonprofit groups that violate the law.

But here’s the part of the editorial that is delusional.

…the division and its then-leader, Lois Lerner, fell into the crosshairs of the conservative tea party movement for the slow pace of approvals of tea party groups, which they claimed was due to a conspiracy by the Obama administration to target them. Subsequent investigations found mismanagement — the IRS was taking shortcuts and using keywords to deal with the mountain of applications — but not deliberate targeting.

Wow. I wonder if the person who wrote this editorial is ignorant or mendacious. The IRS admitted that it targeted Tea Party groups! The bias was in the keywords.

And that wasn’t even the first time the Post tried to make excuses for the IRS.

Investor’s Business Daily opined on this issue over the summer.

This is one of the most serious abuses of power by a federal agency in decades. That no one really lost a job and no one has been prosecuted for abusing the powers of the federal government to harass groups for their political beliefs — the kind of thing routinely done in places such as Russia and Venezuela, not in the U.S. — is nothing less than shocking. For those who need a reminder and without getting too deep in the weeds, the scandal involves IRS bureaucrats denying tax-exempt status to groups apparently solely due to their conservative political beliefs. This is clearly highly illegal. the Nonprofit Quarterly notes that,

”Various congressional committees attempted to ferret out what happened and who did it but were stymied by the IRS’ slow responses to records requests and, in some cases, destruction of computer media (that) might have contained important information.” In short, it looks like a classic case of a gross violation of federal law followed by a possibly criminal cover-up. …This is unconscionable behavior by a federal agency that is governed by that very same Constitution.

Amen.

This is why I agreed with George Will about the impeachment of the IRS Commissioner and also argued in favor of budgetary consequences for the agency.

Sadly, the Trump Administration has basically gone to bat for the IRS when it should be pushing for transparency and reform.

By the way, my complaints about the IRS go way beyond the fact that the bureaucrats persecuted the Tea Party.

Let’s look at a recent story about a dodgy contract the IRS recently issued.

The IRS will pay Equifax $7.25 million to verify taxpayer identities and help prevent fraud under a no-bid contract issued last week, even as lawmakers lash the embattled company about a massive security breach that exposed personal information of as many as 145.5 million Americans. A contract award for Equifax’s data services was posted to the Federal Business Opportunities database Sept. 30 — the final day of the fiscal year.

The notice describes the contract as a “sole source order,” meaning Equifax is the only company deemed capable of providing the service.

What mostly bothers me is not that the IRS gave a contract to a company that had just suffered a major data leak. Instead, I’m very suspicious about it being a no-bid contract issued on the last day of the fiscal year.

Sounds like the bureaucrats had some use-it-or-lose-it funds and they decided to screw taxpayers.

And here’s another story that’s worth sharing.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees have backed Democrats over Republicans by 2-1 in their political donations over the last 25 years. Donors listing the IRS as their employer have donated roughly $453,800 to Democratic candidates and causes and $221,400 to Republican candidates and causes since 1990. About one in four of the dollars for Democrats, or roughly $117,500, went to President Barack Obama. But IRS employees since 1990 have also donated $203,000 to the National Treasury Employees Union, which in turn has given about 95 percent of its $6 million in political contributions to Democrats over the last 25 years, OpenSecrets.org data shows. Disclosure of the huge bias among IRS employees for Democrats won’t help an agency under fire for years for illegally targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

To be sure, bureaucrats can give political contributions and remain honest and fair in their dealings with the public.

Nonetheless, I suspect Lois Lerner wasn’t the only partisan hack who tried to interfere with the political process.

Let’s now end where we started. The Washington Post editorial implied that the IRS deserved a bigger budget and more staff so bureaucrats could investigate each application.

I’ve already explained why that’s not the right approach from a compliance perspective, but there’s also a moral argument against further expanding the IRS budget (something Republicans sadly don’t understand).

Several editorials in The Washington Post and

Opinion

U.S. President Donald Trump, center, celebrates with Congressional Republicans in the Rose Garden of the White House after the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate approved the American Healthcare Act, to repeal major parts of ObamaCare and replace it with the Republican healthcare plan, in Washington, U.S., May 4, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

U.S. President Donald Trump, center, celebrates with Congressional Republicans in the Rose Garden of the White House after the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate approved the American Healthcare Act, to repeal major parts of ObamaCare and replace it with the Republican healthcare plan, in Washington, U.S., May 4, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

Since it’s the last day of the year, let’s look back on 2017 and highlight the biggest victories and losses for liberty.

For last year’s column, we had an impressive list of overseas victories in 2016, including the United Kingdom’s Brexit from the European Union, the vote against basic income in Switzerland, the adoption of constitutional spending caps in Brazil, and even the abolition of the income tax in Antigua and Barbuda.

The only good policies I could find in the United States, by contrast, were food stamp reforms in Maine, Wisconsin, and Kansas.

This year has a depressingly small list of victories. Indeed, the only good thing I had on my initial list was the tax bill. So to make 2017 appear better, I’m turning that victory into three victories.

  • A lower corporate tax rate – Dropping the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent will boost investment, wages, and competitiveness, while also pressuring other nations to drop their corporate rates in a virtuous cycle of tax competition. An unambiguous victory.
  • Limits on the deductibility of state and local taxes – It would have been preferable to totally abolish the deduction for state and local taxes, but a $10,000 cap will substantially curtail the federal tax subsidy for higher taxes by state and local government. The provision is only temporary, so it’s not an unambiguous win, but the whining and complaining from class-warfare politicians in New York and California is music to my ears.
  • No border-adjustment tax – Early in 2017, I was worried that tax reform was going to be tax deform. House Republicans may have had good intentions, but their proposed border-adjustment tax would have set the stage for a value-added tax. I like to think I played at least a small role in killing this bad idea.
  • Regulatory Rollback – The other bit of (modest) good news is that the Trump Administration has taken some steps to curtail and limit red tape. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.

Now let’s look elsewhere in the world for a victory. Once again, there’s not much.

  • Macron’s election in France – As I scoured my archives for some good foreign news, the only thing I could find was that a socialist beat a socialist in the French presidential election. But since I have some vague hope that Emanuel Macron will cut red tape and reduce the fiscal burden in France, I’m going to list this as good news. Yes, I’m grading on a curve.

Now let’s look at the bad news.

Last year, my list included growing GOP support for a VAT, eroding support for open trade, and the leftward shift of the Democratic Party.

Here are five examples of policy defeats in 2017.

  • Illinois tax increase – If there was a contest for bad state fiscal policy, Illinois would be a strong contender. That was true even before 2017. And now that the state legislature rammed through a big tax increase, Illinois is trying even harder to be the nation’s most uncompetitive state.
  • Kansas tax clawback – The big-government wing of the Kansas Republican Party joined forces with Democrats to undo a significant portion of the Brownback tax cuts. Since this was really a fight over whether there would be spending restraint or business-as-usual in Kansas, this was a double defeat.
  • Botched Obamacare repeal – After winning numerous elections by promising to repeal ObamaCare, Republicans finally got total control of Washington and then proceeded to produce a bill that repealed only portions. And even that effort flopped. This was a very sad confirmation of my Second Theorem of Government.
  • Failure to control spending – I pointed out early in the year that it would be easy to cut taxes, control spending, and balance the budget. And I did the same thing late in the year. Unfortunately, there is no desire in Washington to restrain the growth of Leviathan. Sooner or later, this is going to generate very bad economic and political developments.
  • Venezuela’s tyrannical regime is still standing – Since I had hoped the awful socialist government would collapse, the fact that nothing has changed in Venezuela counts as bad news. Actually, some things have changed. The economy is getting worse and worse.
  • The Export-Import Bank is still alive – With total GOP control of Washington, one would hope this egregious dispenser of corporate welfare would be gone. Sadly, the swamp is winning this battle.

Tomorrow, I’ll do a new version of my annual hopes-and-fears column.

CATO economist Daniel Mitchell outlines the best

Markets

The Dow Jones financial electronic ticker is seen at Times Square in New York July 17, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)

The Dow Jones financial electronic ticker is seen at Times Square in New York July 17, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX: .DJI) closed out the final day of trading for 2017 down, but broke its 71st record Thursday and soared 25.08% this year. The Blue Chip index closed down 118.29 points, or 0.48% to 24,719.22 on Friday.

On Thursday, the Dow ended the trading day at 24,833.62, the 71st record close during a year that opened at 19,881.75.

“Clearly there is positive expectations and rising confidence from both the business community and the consumer,” TJM Investments analyst Tim Anderson said. “But stocks have not hit dangerous levels of over bot valuations by historical measures.”

Had it ended the week up, it would’ve been the first time since 1954 it ended the final six weeks of the year with gains.

The Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ: .IXIC) closed down 46.77 (.67%) to 6903.39, but rallied 28.24% this year. The S&P 500 (INDEXCBOE: .INX) was down 13.93, or 0.52% to 2673.61, ending the year 19.42% higher.

In February, Dow Chemical (NYSE: DWDP) CEO Andrew Liveris said that the Trump Administration is “probably the most pro-business administration since the founding fathers.” Roughly 10 months later, forecast models project the U.S. economy to grow by 3% or higher in the fourth quarter (4Q) 2017. The New York Federal Reserve forecast pegs 4Q GDP at nearly 4%.

If the 4Q forecasts are matched or exceeded, it’ll mark the third straight quarter of economic growth at or above 3% for the first time since 2004. It also means the first year of economic growth under President Donald Trump is certain to surpass the strongest under his predecessor Barack Obama.

Looking ahead to 2018, President Trump’s policies have fueled historic levels of optimism among consumers and businesses.

“Six to 8 weeks ago, the tax plan looked like a stretch. Now, it’s likely we get an infrastructure spending plan on top if it,” Mr. Anderson added. “That will help maintain confidence levels as we move through the first quarter next year.”

The first quarter (1Q) 2018 will be the real test for the U.S. economy. During the Obama Administration, economists and market analysts were baffled by the first-quarter fizzle effect, as forecasts repeatedly missed the mark and the economy disappointed. They blamed the strike at the Port of Los Angeles, and for several years even blamed the weather.

This time, analysts have reason to be optimistic about sustained growth for at least the first 6 weeks of the new year. Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) is forecasting the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite to rise at least another 12% and 16%, respectively, in 2018.

“By mid-February, the consumer will see his take home pay increase from the tax reform plan,” Mr. Anderson noted. “That will help consumer spending during what is typically a seasonally, weak post-holiday period.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX: .DJI)

Economy

The U.S. flag is displayed at Tesoro's Los Angeles oil refinery in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Reuters)

The U.S. flag is displayed at Tesoro’s Los Angeles oil refinery in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Reuters)

The Baker Hughes North American Rig Count for December 29, 2017 plummeted by 76 to 1065, slightly higher than the 815 it was at this time last year. Canada drove large declines for the second week in a row. The U.S. rig count was down by only 2, also for the second week in a row.

The Canadian count now stands at 136, which is lower than the total 157 a year ago and the first time it has been below the annual in 2017. Rigs classified as drilling for oil fell from 120 by a whopping 58 to only 62, while those classified as gas fell 16 from 90 to 74.

U.S. oil rigs remained unchanged at 747, while gas rigs fell from 184 to 182. At a total 929, the U.S. rig count is still higher than the 658 it was one year ago. Gains in Colorado (1) and Ohio (1) help to offset losses in Texas (-2), North Dakota (-2) and Utah (-1).

The rig count for the Gulf of Mexico fell by just 1 to 18 and is lower than the 22 it was one year ago.

The Baker Hughes North American Rig Count

People's Pundit Daily
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