THE OP-ED REVIEW
Damning new evidence appears to show that Hillary Clinton used her office as Secretary of State to confer benefits to Russia in exchange for millions of dollars in donations to her foundation and cash to her husband. But there’s more. It seems it was all covered up for years by the same three people who are now involved in the investigation of President Donald Trump over so-called Russian “collusion.
http://www.foxnews.com/
The corruption is extensive: Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
The new revelations have been utterly ignored by the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening or morning shows, since the story broke early Tuesday. In fact, the network evening shows have only spent only 3 minutes and 1 second on the Clinton Foundation scandal in more than two years.
https://www.newsbusters.org/
Hey, mainstream media! We finally found it — a real Russia scandal involving the 2016 election. With actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing and everything! So come on, New York Times, CNN and MSNBC, let’s ...Hey, where’d everybody go?
http://www.bostonherald.com/
This is what a Russian uranium executive told the Russian parliament after the deal: '"I am pleased to inform you that today we control 20 percent of uranium in the United States. If we need that uranium, we shall be able to use it any time."
https://www.steynonline.com/
A key informant in the Russian bribery and extortion scheme wants to tell Congress what he knows — but is legally barred from doing so by the Justice Department. ?? What’s wrong with Jeff Sessions?
http://nypost.com/2017/10/19/
GWB now a hero with the media: Christmas came early for the liberal Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) on Thursday when former President George W. Bush spoke out against the Donald Trump administration. In a disgusting display of sudden respect for a long time political foe, the networks championed Bush’s hammering of the current president.
https://www.newsbusters.org/
Mc Cain denounces Make America Great Again as ‘Half-Baked, Spurious Nationalism’ The media cheers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/
Cruz Stomps Sanders in debate: Cruz: ´What´s The Difference Between A Socialist And A Democrat?´ Bernie’s answer: “Well, I don’t know the answer to that.”
http://www.dailywire.com/news/
America great again: The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level in more than 44 years last week.
http://www.reuters.com/
President Trump said Monday that he’s eyeing another major government reform — this time tackling welfare. He said some recipients are taking advantage of public assistance while others in need don’t get it.
http://www.washingtontimes.
Obama’s fundamental restructuring: US immigrant population hits 60 million (one in 5 Americans). How do you assimilate these numbers?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.
Illegal aliens who have received temporary amnesty from the Obama administration are reportedly working as interns and aides in local California government on immigration issues.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-
President Trump has not yet pulled America out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But he just took a vital step toward doing so, in a landmark speech on Friday that in plain language dismantled the dangerous fictions on which the deal was built. Chief among these fictions is the notion that a nuclear program in the hands of Iran’s predatory, terror-sponsoring Islamist regime could ever be “exclusively peaceful.”
This was a phrase repeated endlessly by President Obama’s diplomatic team during the negotiating of the Iran nuclear deal, and it is enshrined in the final text, http://thehill.com/opinion/
National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch announced on Twitter that her family had been forced to move suddenly after she received multiple death threats from gun control advocates.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/
Harvey Weinstein Helped Pay for Bill Clinton’s Legal Fees During Monica Lewinsky Scandal http://www.thegatewaypundit.
Another academic year, another fattening of campus diversity bureaucracies. Most worrisomely, the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields are now prime targets for administrative diversity encroachment, with the commercial tech sector rapidly following suit. At UCLA the engineering school just minted its first associate dean of diversity and inclusion.
https://www.city-journal.org/
Bowe Bergdahl pleads guilty in desertion case. Mainstream media forgets that Obama championed Bergdahl as a ‘Hero’ Coming Home’.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/
If the NFL thought Americans would ease the backlash against the league — they were sadly mistaken. Photos of empty stadiums from around the league show how dire a situation kneelers have spurred.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.
New York Times explains: “A healthy economy is bad for your health…..pumps out more air pollution…..(a recession is better because) people without jobs may have more time to sleep and exercise and may eat more healthfully.” ??
https://www.msn.com/en-us/
The U.S. national debt recently surpassed $20 trillion. “Everyone who refuses to examine this issue and come up with constructive ways to cut federal government spending so we can balance our budget and minimize our risk of insolvency and bankruptcy, everyone who refuses to do that is betraying their country and betraying the future of our kids and grandkids….”
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
Brian C Joondeph, M.D, 10/2
Enough Already with ´Pay Your Fair Share´
President Trump's tax plan, on the table for only a few days, is already under fire. Of course, the media and their Democrat Party political arm are against anything and everything Trump. But once again, it's the president's own party grousing about the tax plan.
The tax plan ends deductions for state and local income taxes. This will significantly affect those states with high state income taxes, primarily blue, such as California at 13 percent; Oregon and Minnesota at 10 percent; and New York, New Jersey and D.C. at 9 percent. Boo-hoo. Aren't high taxes good and noble? Aren't Democrats always moaning that the rich don't pay their fair share? Blue states get what they ask for.
The "pay your fair share" canard is dragged out of the Democrat broom closet any time a Republican dares to propose tax cuts in any shape or form, much like a pull-string doll that has only a few phrases to utter each time the string is pulled. This one can join other phrases such as "Trump is a white supremacist," "Russia hacked the election," and "Republicans are racists." Expect to October media narrative to focus on "pay your fair share" rather than "Russian collusion," which is fizzling out faster than NFL players kneeling for social justice. What exactly is a "fair share"?
I once saw liberal pundit Juan Williams interviewed on this topic. The show host asked Juan what tax rate he proposes for the "rich" as a "fair share." Forty percent? Fifty percent? Seventy percent? Poor Juan got tongue-tied and couldn't come up with a number, proving that "fair share" is nothing more than a left-wing talking point.
Like asking a climate warrior what is "normal" for temperature, sea level, hurricane frequency, or any other aspect of climate that they insist is worsening. If they don't know what normal is, how can they know it's worsening? Maybe it's improving.
It's worth reviewing who actually pays income tax before making nonsensical claims about "fair share." IRS data from calendar year 2014 was compiled by the Tax Foundation. In 2014, 140 million taxpayers earned $9.7 trillion in income and paid $1.4 trillion in taxes – about a 14-percent overall tax rate. Seems fair.
What about the "rich," those in the top 1 percent? They paid 40 percent of income taxes. Is that fair? The bottom 90 percent of earners paid only 29 percent of taxes. Is that fair?
Let's leave the "rich" for a moment and look at the top 50 percent of all taxpayers. They paid 97 percent of all income taxes, virtually everything. The bottom 50 percent paid only 3 percent, virtually nothing. How does "fair share" fit into those statistics?
Who are these top 50 percent fat cats paying almost all the taxes? They have an income over $38,000 per year. This translates to an hourly wage of about $19 per hour – only a few dollars more than the $15 minimum wage being implemented around the country. Hardly rich.
Another way to look at is through average tax rates. The top 1 percent must give 27 percent of their income to the federal government. The top ten percent part with only 14 percent of their income. The top 50 percent pay only 8 percent while the bottom 50 percent pay 4 percent. So again, what is a "fair share"? Should the top 1 percent pay half of their income to the government? Why stop at 50 percent? Make the top 1 percent pay 80 or 90 percent of their income to Washington, D.C. Leave everyone with about $40,000 a year to live on. A living wage.
Why not the top 10 percent, too? Leaving little money left to purchase goods and services which in turn provide income to many others. Such as purchasing NFL tickets or merchandise so millionaire ball players can protest how unjust America is.
As predictable as sunrise and sunset, the left is playing the class warfare card. How about a real debate over what is a fair share? Or why only half of workers are paying almost all the income tax?
Will Republicans, afraid of their own shadows and what Chuck Todd or Jake Tapper will say about them, cave on tax reform? Rearranging the deck chairs and calling it a tax cut? Rather than looking at far fairer alternatives such as a flat tax or a consumption tax? Why aren't Republicans talking about historic tax cuts and the resulting economic growth? Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush 43 all cut taxes and unleashed the economy.
Are Republicans as eager as Democrats for Trump to fail? For another of his initiatives to fizzle out? The donor class may be happy, but the voters won't be. Republicans fear the former and loathe the latter. But voters will win in the end, as they did last November 8. Will Republicans dither and argue as they did over Obamacare repeal and replace, passing nothing, leaving President Trump with another goose egg rather than letting him fulfill another of his campaign pledges?
Trump may be stymied by his own party, but the voters are not. Trumpism is alive and well, hitting back against the Republican establishment. Ask Luther Strange. Or Bob Corker.
This is another golden opportunity for the GOP Congress – a slow pitch right down the middle. Rather than swinging for the fences, they will likely watch the plate for a strike. Again. Three strikes, and you're out.
http://www.americanthinker.
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OTHER COLUMNS
“It strains all credulity to think that Donald Trump wasn’t trying to be sympathetic and empathetic in that phone call. … The idea that he wasn’t somehow going into this in good faith just strikes me as bizarre and false on its face.”
-Jonah Goldberg
“My son knew what he signed up for. He signed up to be a Green Beret. He had no illusions about what that meant……My son came from a military family with a tradition that dates back to 1812. He fully knew what it means to serve and the risk involved.”
-Arnold Wright, whose son, Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, was one of the four killed in Niger
“Trump is a thin-skinned, unpolished guy, but we’d venture to say most military personnel and their families know they finally have a president who supports them. The rest of us should express our gratitude for the sacrifices made by military Patriots and their families, as well as offer our own prayers and support.”
-PatriotPost
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LEFTIST WATCH
Still smarting from Hillary Clinton´s unexpected election loss in 2016, the Soros crew at the Open Foundation Society has got to work looking for reasons to hammer it down and ensure it never happens again. A new study of 450 working class whites from five cities has come out, with the aim of finding out how these recalcitrants and deplorables can team up with other ethnic groups to elect Democrats.
http://www.americanthinker.
Leftie comic George Lopez was booed off stage at a gala for juvenile diabetes in Denver last week, over an anti-Donald Trump routine that fell flat with the crowd.
https://pagesix.com/2017/10/
“Are you weak if you make your man a sandwich? This is why real men don’t marry feminists”
http://www.foxnews.com/
Associated Press stylebook team re-jiggers their politically correct terminology again on transgender issues, in what they call "the journalist´s bible." Calling genital mutilation a "gender confirmation"
is purely Orwellian language. Once again, AP is all about bowing to the "social identity" lobbyists. "Avoid references to being born a boy or girl.”
https://www.newsbusters.org/
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MORE NFL
Lost in the uproar over the NFL sideline protests against police brutality are newly released statistics showing that the threat to black men is skyrocketing — not from trigger-happy or racist cops, but from crime. More than any other demographic group, black men are paying the price with their lives with a surging violent crime rate over the past two years, including a 20 percent jump in the overall homicide rate, even as the number of blacks killed by police declines.
http://www.washingtontimes.
“Some in the NFL realize they have a huge problem on their hands. Mark Lamping, president of the Jacksonville Jaguars, sent a letter to local military leaders in Jacksonville, Florida, which has a large military presence, apologizing for his team taking a knee overseas. Apparently they just didn’t realize how it would look to have players disrespecting our national anthem while standing for ‘God Save the Queen.’ I couldn’t help but think of the incredible irony. These players live in a country that has elected and re-elected a black president. We have had black attorneys general, black Supreme Court justices, black senators and representatives. We have revered black entertainers, business executives and academics. While I love history, I’m really not familiar with the first black prime minister of Great Britain. In fact, I’m not aware of any progressive European nation that has elected a black leader. Who was the first black president of France? Who was the first black German chancellor? America’s record looks good.”
-Gary Bauer
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ARTICLES
President Donald Trump’s proposal for comprehensive tax reform was almost immediately dismissed as heartless and impractical by his political opponents. When the same ideas are packaged under Bernie Sanders' name, however, liberal college students excitedly endorsed them.
https://www.campusreform.org/?
On the Corruption of the Military Academies https://amgreatness.com/2017/
Political correctness craziness: US Air Force edition.
http://www.americanthinker.
VDH: The Method to Trump’s Madness
https://amgreatness.com/2017/
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VIDEOS, PHOTOS, CHARTS, ETC
DailyMail.com has obtained a drone´s view of the fully completed border wall prototypes that are vying to be part of President Trump´s new Mexican border wall.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
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WISE WORDS
“Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.”
-Fisher Ames
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The Op-Ed Review is a compilation of the week’s news and opinions of interest to the conservative activist. I follow a variety of news sources and note what I think are the important events of the week that may be underreported in the mainstream media. I also read about 50 syndicated op-ed columns each week and reprint part of what I think is the best one. The goal is to help the reader be a more effective activist for the conservative cause. If you would like to receive this as an e-mail each weekend, click here to drop me a note.
mailto:garyfoss3@comcast.
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