Confused about the two tax cut bills?

art credit: economiapersonal.com.ar

Joseph Smith at the American Thinker blog helps to sort it out, and he includes links to Forbes:

. . . With the House bill weighing in at 429 pages and filled with many arcane tax reform provisions, perhaps the best summary comparison of the House and Senate bills is found at forbes.com, page 1 and page 2.

Among the major issues to be reconciled between the two versions are:

·         The repeal of the Obamacare mandate is in the Senate bill only and should be included in the reconciled bill.

·         The new tax provisions for individuals are permanent in the House bill but expire after 2025 in the Senate bill to meet budget reconciliation rules.

·         The mortgage interest deduction is different in the two versions, with the home-building industry expected to push for the higher deduction in the senate bill

·         The tax treatment of pass-through business income, a major issue for Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and others, differs in the two bills.

·         The corporate tax rate is cut from the current 35 percent to 20 percent beginning in 2018 in the House bill but is delayed until 2019 in the Senate bill.  Why would the Republicans have their biggest economy-booster kick in after the 2018 elections?  

·         While both versions contain a property tax deduction up to $10,000, the state and local income tax deduction has been eliminated from both bills.  Expect blue state House members to seek further compromise on that issue in the conference committee.

The two tax bills, which no Democrats have supported, must now be reconciled in a House-Senate conference committee, with the compromise bill to be voted on again in each body before being sent to the president for signing into law.

With deregulation and a resurgent economy paving the way for tax cuts, the Trump economic train is leaving the station without the Democrats.

Read the rest here.

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More on DACA & Dreamers Amnesty

image credit: wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com

Last week, Cleveland Tea Party blogged on the DACA / Dreamers’ Amnesty bill, urging Ohio AG Mike DeWine (now running for Governor) to stay away from the coalition of state Attorneys General suing the Trump administration and instead support the existing rule of law. That blog included phone numbers for an Action Alert.

Hans von Spakovsky at The Daily Signal outlines the pitfalls and downsides of DACA (useful analysis if you are making any calls now or later this week and needing information to counter the usual liberal talking points).

DACA had no requirement of English fluency either. In fact, the original application requested applicants to answer whether the form had been “read” to the alien by a translator “in a language in which [the applicant is] fluent.”

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that “perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only ‘basic’ English ability.”

This is a far cry from the image of DACA beneficiaries as all children who don’t speak the language of—and know nothing about the culture of—their native countries.

In fact, it seems rather that a significant percentage of DACA beneficiaries may have serious limitations in their education, experience, and English fluency that negatively affected their ability to function in American society.

Providing amnesty to low-skilled, low-educated aliens with marginal English language ability would impose large fiscal costs on American taxpayers resulting from increased government payouts and benefits, and would be unfair to legal immigrants who obeyed the law to come here.

. . .

Providing amnesty would simply attract even more illegal immigration and would not solve the myriad of enforcement problems we have along our borders and in the interior of the country. Congress should concentrate on giving the federal government (with the assistance and help of state and local governments) the resources to enforce existing immigration laws to reduce the illegal alien population in the U.S. and stem entry into the country.

Until those goals are accomplished, it is premature to even consider any DACA-type bill.

Read more here.

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Supermoon Sunday

plain old full moon over the Terminal Tower by Pat Dooley Photography

Should be clear skies!

cleveland.com reports:

The year's last supermoon will rise into the night sky Sunday, and Northeast Ohioans may actually be able to see this one, with favorable weather conditions.

The full moon officially peaks at 10:47 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, but it won't reach perigee, or the point in its orbit when it's closest to the Earth, until 3:45 a.m. the next day. Unless you're willing to stay awake all night, the best viewing for you will be Sunday night. In Northeast Ohio, that happens to coincide when cloud cover is expected to be at a minimum ...

More details here.

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Stop Mike DeWine from Suing President Trump over DACA

image credit: discussionist.com

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was an American immigration policy that allowed some individuals who entered the country as minors, and had either entered or remained in the country illegally, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit. As of 2017, approximately 800,000 individuals—referred to as Dreamers after the DREAM Act bill—were enrolled in the program created by DACA. The policy was established by the Obama administration in June 2012 and rescinded by the Trump administration in September 2017.

(from Ralph King, Cleveland Tea Party):

Call Mike DeWine and tell him to put Ohio citizens first - NO MORE Kate Steinle's!

 Mike DeWine: 800-282-0515

To date Ohio Attorney General and candidate for Governor Mike DeWine has REFUSED to come out and support President Trump's ending Obama's DACA program. We must STOP the soft-on-illegal immigration AG DeWine from joining AG's in 15 other states from suing President Trump!

Seeing that Mike DeWine has used Obama's original DACA ruling in allowing illegal immigrants to obtain an Ohio Driver License -- suing President Trump over DACA is not far off! Tell Mike DeWine to put Ohio citizens first and don't be like his buddy John Kasich!

Call Mike DeWine (800-282-0515) and tell him to put Ohio citizens first and respect the rule of law!

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More maneuvering on taxes, spending, and immigration ?

art credit: crooksandliars.com

What Is Little Marco Up to?

Sen. Marco Rubio was interviewed yesterday evening on Fox’s Ingraham Angle. Sundance @ ConservativeTreehouse explains why his alarm bells went off:

There’s a big con job just over the horizon.  All of the elements are there.  The timing, the platform, the personalities, the discussion topics, etc., it’s a familiar script.  CTH would like to direct attention to this interview which took place last night on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show.  Listen carefully to three elements:

·         On Tax Reform – on one side of Rubio’s ‘full-throated‘ mouth he wants higher taxes on corporations 22% -vs- 20%. In the almost the same breath, inside the same argument, he says “it’s not their (the government’s) money”.  Try to reconcile that.

·         On DACA – [Remember, three months ago President Trump gave congress six months to fix DACA]  Rubio says the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) program is not the “Dreamers”.  What? Yes it is. The childhood arrivals ARE the so-called ‘dreamers’.

·         However, much more importantly, listen to what is said on “chain migration“.  Ingraham asks if Rubio supports “chain migration”.   Rubio says no, then immediately says: “I’ve always agreed to limiting chain migration to immediate family members”. WHAT? That is chain migration.

. . .

Something is going on in DC that precipitated this interview.

The rest of Sundance’s analysis is here (includes video).

Here is what may be “going on in DC that precipitated this interview.” NumbersUSA, an immigration & amnesty legislation watchdog, sent out an alert today. It includes the following:

Congress loves to add unpopular provisions to must-pass spending bills, and that's why we're on high alert.

As most of you know, the Trump administration stopped accepting new applications for Pres. Obama's unconstitutional executive amnesty for young illegal aliens (DACA) in September. Since then, both Democrats and Republicans have introduced several proposals that would give a permanent amnesty to DACA recipients. The must-pass December spending bill provides the vehicle to do so.

We've seen this play out before. Congress has used massive spending bills to hide unpopular immigration provisions or tried to pass amnesty when voters were less engaged during the holiday season.

. . .

A handful of high-profile Democratic Senators have announced that they'll withhold support for the spending bill if it doesn't include an amnesty for DACA recipients. To support their efforts, the open-borders lobbying group Partnership for a New American Economy is investing heavily in grassroots lobbying efforts over the next few weeks.

So far, both Pres. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have said that they don't want DACA to be included in the December bill.

Which side wins could depend on how much opposition to adding a DACA amnesty to the spending bill lawmakers in Washington hear from their constituents.

And here is a NumbersUSA Action Alert:

Over the next several weeks, Members of Congress need to hear a constant beat of opposition to adding an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens to the must-pass spending bill. Here are two actions you can take to get you started:

1) Call Senate GOP Leaders

While Speaker Ryan has been vocal about his opposition to DACA's inclusion in the spending bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been quiet. However, the third ranking Senate Republican, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) did say over the weekend that he doesn't think DACA should be part of the spending deal, but fell short of saying it won't be part of the final package.

Please call the following GOP Leaders in the Senate and tell them that you oppose adding the DACA amnesty to any must-pass spending bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- (202) 224-2541

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn -- (202) 224-2934

Senate GOP Caucus Chair John Thune -- (202) 224-2321

The NumbersUSA website is here. I expect more Alerts over the next couple of weeks.

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Geronimo!

My Favorite tweet today: 

Clock to embiggen!

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Making Christmas great again

For the past eight years, the previous administration sent out politically correct "holiday" or "Season's Greetings" cards. Bah humbug! Here's President Trump & family's 2017 Christmas card:

via Fox News Twitter

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Christmas choo choo train

Video credit: Pat Dooley Photography

Yesterday, a huge crowd of Clevelanders descended on Public Square to enjoy the Winterfest and the lighting of the yyuuge Christmas tree. You’ve already seen photos of the Christmas lights, but I just got the video clip (maybe 5 seconds) of the fun chasing lights on the choo-choo train display, posted above.

For more photos, including that of the yuge tree, check out cleveland.com’s photo essay here.

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Trey Gowdy FAKE NEWS ALERT

ALERT! I wondered why the bigger blogs were not picking up this story. According to this Hoax website, the report below is 

FAKE NEWS!!! Sorry.

My blog post below went up this morning. I am re-blogging to correct the record. -Diana

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Image via C-Span

Trey Gowdy talks a great game, but just like all the other congressional investigations over the past eight years, the one he chaired (the Select Committee on Benghazi) went nowhere. A couple of days ago, The American News reported:

For five years, Trey Gowdy asked the Oval Office for the tools necessary to do his job properly, and for five years he was told “no” by the Obama administration.

One of the most difficult parts of Trey Gowdy’s job as congressional inquisitor is security clearance. When investigating people who held titles like “Secretary of State” and “Special Aide to the President” or even “President,” Gowdy runs into the issue of security clearance all the time.

“It’s a matter of national security” has become a term Mr. Gowdy hears far too often. It is the single-best excuse Hillary Clinton and her lawyers have been able to come up with when they don’t have an actual answer to his questions.

President Trump has just removed that blockade. By executive order, Trey Gowdy has been given the highest security clearance possible. He could now sit in on presidential intel briefings if he felt he needed to.

The first thing Gowdy did with his newfound ability to investigate is to re-open the Benghazi case. There was a 6-hour window that Clinton never answered for because she said she was in meetings with the president and joint chiefs that were highly classified. Gowdy will begin his investigation by revisiting those discussions and finding out exactly why four men were left to die.

Next, with his newfound freedom of information, he’ll look into just how far Obama went when he sent weapons and cash to the Muslim Brotherhood after they took Egypt by force.

Nothing about this wonderful new power is going to be good for Obama, Clinton or any other Demonrat that thinks they’re above the law.

Maybe now SOMETHING will happen. We live in hope.

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Trey Gowdy gets top security clearance UPDATE: FAKE NEWS

ALERT! I wondered why the bigger blogs were not picking up this story. According to this Hoax website, the report below is 

FAKE NEWS!!! Sorry.

Image via C-Span

Trey Gowdy talks a great game, but just like all the other congressional investigations over the past eight years, the one he chaired (the Select Committee on Benghazi) went nowhere. A couple of days ago, The American News reported:

For five years, Trey Gowdy asked the Oval Office for the tools necessary to do his job properly, and for five years he was told “no” by the Obama administration.

One of the most difficult parts of Trey Gowdy’s job as congressional inquisitor is security clearance. When investigating people who held titles like “Secretary of State” and “Special Aide to the President” or even “President,” Gowdy runs into the issue of security clearance all the time.

“It’s a matter of national security” has become a term Mr. Gowdy hears far too often. It is the single-best excuse Hillary Clinton and her lawyers have been able to come up with when they don’t have an actual answer to his questions.

President Trump has just removed that blockade. By executive order, Trey Gowdy has been given the highest security clearance possible. He could now sit in on presidential intel briefings if he felt he needed to.

The first thing Gowdy did with his newfound ability to investigate is to re-open the Benghazi case. There was a 6-hour window that Clinton never answered for because she said she was in meetings with the president and joint chiefs that were highly classified. Gowdy will begin his investigation by revisiting those discussions and finding out exactly why four men were left to die.

Next, with his newfound freedom of information, he’ll look into just how far Obama went when he sent weapons and cash to the Muslim Brotherhood after they took Egypt by force.

Nothing about this wonderful new power is going to be good for Obama, Clinton or any other Demonrat that thinks they’re above the law.

Maybe now SOMETHING will happen. We live in hope.

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Tomi Lahren's D-Day photoshop

h/t Instapundit
###

The Christmas lights are up in Public Square

 Photographs by Cleveland Tea Party’s roving photographer, Pat Dooley

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Bob Gorrell cartoon via Townhall blog

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Giving thanks for abundance is giving thanks for free enterprise

Image credit: en.wikipedia.org

Re-posted from earlier Cleveland Tea Party blogs:

What Thanksgiving really means To Americans

A couple of years ago, Jerry Bowyer, writing in Forbes Magazine, recounted the real significance of Thanksgiving, a significance that is too often lost among the turkey dinners, football games, and stories about Indians who befriended the early settlers. 

In 1620, the Plymouth pilgrims based their original community on Plato’s Republic, a collective model that appealed to their religious convictions and morality. But the communal model didn’t work for them. After over two years of failing harvests and resulting malnutrition, disease, starvation, and deaths, the pilgrims replaced the communal model with a model based on private property. The ensuing harvest was abundant, with surpluses available for trade.

Their Thanksgiving celebrated the triumph of the individual, private property, and incentive, over collectivism. At first, the pilgrims felt guilty because they were putting self-interest over the seeming altruism of socialism. Yet the devout survivors had learned two lessons: 1) that a theoretical and Utopian collective society fails, and (2) in real life, private property and capitalism produce prosperity. For them, God, not Plato, knew best. Accepting the principles of private property and self-interest was God’s way of harnessing self-interest to the greater good. We know all of this because an elder of the Plymouth plantation, William Bradford, kept a journal and it survives today. Mr. Bowyer’s earlier article, with additional historical background, is here.) 

Here’s Bowyer's “How A Failed Commune Gave Us What is Now Thanksgiving.”

It’s wrong to say that American was founded by capitalists. In fact, America was founded by socialists who had the humility to learn from their initial mistakes and embrace freedom. One of the earliest and arguably most historically significant North American colonies was Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620 in what is now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. As I’ve outlined in greater detail here before (Lessons From a Capitalist Thanksgiving), the original colony had written into its charter a system of communal property and labor. 

As William Bradford recorded in his Of Plymouth Plantation, a people who had formerly been known for their virtue and hard work became lazy and unproductive. Resources were squandered, vegetables were allowed to rot on the ground and mass starvation was the result. And where there is starvation, there is plague. 

After 2 1/2 years, the leaders of the colony decided to abandon their socialist mandate and create a system which honored private property. The colony survived and thrived and the abundance which resulted was what was celebrated at that iconic Thanksgiving feast.

As my friend Reuven Brenner has taught me, history is a series of experiments: The Human Gamble. Some gambles work and are adopted by history and some do not and should be abandoned by it. The problem is that the human gamble only works if there is a record of experimental outcomes and if decision makers consult that record. For many years, the story of the first failed commune of Plymouth Bay was part of the collective memory of American students. But Progressive Education found that story unhelpful and it has fallen into obscurity, which explains why (as I alluded to before) a well-educated establishment figure like Jared Bernstein would be unaware of it.

I’m often asked why our current leadership class forgets the lessons of the past so often. They are, after all, very smart men and women. Don’t they know that collectivism will fail?

No, they don’t. Not anymore. For much of our history, our leaders were educated in the principles which were to help them avoid errors once they have joined the ruling class. They studied to learn how to not misuse power. Now our leaders learn nothing of the dangers of abusing power: their education is entirely geared to its acquisition.  All of their neurons are trained on that one objective – to get to the top. What they do when they get there is a matter for later. And what happens to the country when they’re done with their experiments is beside the point: after all, their experiments will not really affect them personally. History is the story of the limitations of human power. But the limits of power is a topic for people who doubt themselves and their right to rule, not the self-anointed.

That’s how it is now, and that’s how it was in 1620. The charter of the Plymouth Colony reflected the most up-to-date economic, philosophical and religious thinking of the early 17th century. Plato was in vogue then, and Plato believed in central planning by intellectuals in the context of communal property, centralized state education, state centralized cultural offerings and communal family structure. For Plato, it literally did take a village to raise a child. This collectivist impulse reflected itself in various heretical offshoots of Protestant Christianity with names like The True Levelers, and the Diggers, mass movements of people who believed that property and income distinctions should be eliminated, that the wealthy should have their property expropriated and given to what we now call the 99%. This kind of thinking was rife in the 1600s and is perhaps why the Pilgrim settlers settled for a charter which did not create a private property system.

But the Pilgrims learned and prospered. And what they learned, we have forgotten and we fade.  Now, new waves of ignorant masses flood into parks and public squares. New Platonists demand control of other people’s property. New True Levelers legally occupy the prestige pulpits of our nation, secular and sacred. And now, as then, the productive class of our now gigantic, colony-turned-superpower, learn and teach again, the painful lessons of history. Collectivism violates the iron laws of human nature. It has always failed. It is always failing, and it will always fail. I thank God that it is failing now. Providence is teaching us once again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Starting the Christmas season with a smile

YouTube: The First Lady Receives the 2017 White House Christmas Tree

A short video clip (4 minutes) to put a smile on your face as we head into the holiday Christmas season (h/t Sundance)

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Department of Homeland Security nominee Kirstjen Nielsen

From Steve Salvi’s website Ohio Jobs &Justice Pac [posted yesterday]:

FEDERAL: CITIZEN ACTION ALERT!  

Warning: Pres. Trump's new nominee for DHS Secretary is an Obama holdover and open border/pro-amnesty sellout!

Help Stop Kirstjen Nielsen's confirmation and appointment!

What you can do:

1.    Call the White House--say you oppose Kirstjen Nielsen's nomination as DHS Secretary (see background articles below)

The White House Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

2.    Spread the word on social media.

For background, below are articles about Kirstjen Nielsen and immigration:

·         Ann Coulter: Trump’s Nominee for DHS Kirstjen Nielsen Is ‘An Open Borders Zealot’

·         Trump’s DHS Nominee: ‘Ready to Work with Congress’ on DACA Amnesty

·         Cheap Labor, Open Borders Swamp Embraces Trump’s DHS Pick: ‘Experience Being Valued over Outsiders’

And here’s Market Watch’s Nielson’s Commitment to the Trump Immigration Agenda Remains Questionable, cautions FAIR  

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Good news, bad news

image credit: wgme.com

Good news for our friends in coal country (via Selena Zito at New York Post):

Last weekend in Beijing, as part of his 12-day trip to Asia, President Trump announced that the US and China had signed an $83.7 billion memorandum of understanding to create a number of petrochemical projects in West Virginia over the next 20 years.

If the agreement holds tight, it is an economic game changer for the state.

Bad news for our friends in coal country (via Thomas Lifson at American Thinker):

the mainstream media are able to suppress life-changing news that could rescue the beleaguered economy of an entire state so thoroughly that ordinary folks in street are unaware of it.

. . .

So, this is a deal that would transform economic life for some of the most economically depressed people in the country, and they have no idea at all that it is in process, needs their support, and could be derailed. 

If you have family or friends in West Virginia, downstate Ohio, or western Pennsylvania, forward the news along!

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Update on Richard Cordray and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Dilbert (Scott Adams) cartoon via powerlineblog.com

Clarice Feldman closes her Sunday column at American Thinker with this summary:

Probably the most important development this week is the effective end of the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), a power grab by Democrats led by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, which gives a single director who can only be fired for cause by the president (a structure designed to operate outside Congressional or executive control) power to regulate mortgages, credit cards, and retirement and pension investments -- in sum, all consumer financial transactions. Warren originally wanted to run this outfit, but when it was clear she’d never get Congressional approval, Richard Cordray became the one-man credit czar. Last October the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that placing so much power in a single commissioner not answerable to the president was unconstitutional.

The Obama Administration sought en banc review by the entire Circuit Court Panel.  In March, the new administration reversed the government’s position. The entire panel heard the case in May. While the decision in that case is still pending, Cordray this week resigned, and the president appointed in his place OMB chief Mike Mulvaney as interim head. Mulvaney strongly opposed the creation of this bureau. The President thus has now put in place someone who can be counted on to undo the Democrats’ machinations to control all our financial transactions by the fiat of a single man. By their own hands, they created a situation they are powerless to undo -- just as by tarring Judge Moore with suspect accusations they open themselves to the same treatment. 

Richard Cordray has not yet confirmed his candidacy for Governor of Ohio, but the Cincinnati, Dayton, and Cleveland media expect him to announce soon.

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Another Anti-Trump Plot?

image credit: money.cnn.com

Some pundits in the blogosphere are looking at the allegations of sexual misconduct – re: Judge Roy Moore and Sen. Al Franken – through the prism of a deliberate anti-Trump strategy. Another crazy conspiracy theory? Well, it’s not like the mainstream media hasn’t moved in lockstep before to achieve a desired political outcome. We know most of the networks and big print media are still having their own temper tantrums over Trump’s win over Hillary - over a year ago. 

Here are three bloggers on the bigger picture behind the feeding frenzies over Judge Roy Moore / Sen. Al Franken / Harvey Weinstein --- as well as leading Democrats starting to throw the Clintons under the bus (starting with “Sen. Kirsten Gillibranddisavows Bill Clinton now that he can’t help her anymore”).  


From Thomas Lifson at American Thinker:

HEADLINE: Al Franken's career is collateral damage for the Dems on the way to getting Trump

Lifson outlines his hypothetical strategy:

The logical steps for getting Trump  are clear.

Step one: Establish that sexual harassment before taking office is sufficient grounds to remove someone from office.  This is the necessary predicate.  Franken's departure from office will establish the purported sincerity of the Democrats in establishing this brand-new principle.  As a number of observers point out, nobody has ever been thrown out of the Senate for actions prior to taking office.

Step two: Apply this doctrine to Roy Moore if he should win the Senate seat for which he running.  If he loses, triumphantly announce that even the reddest of red states agrees that previous misbehavior is dispositive in removing an incumbent.

Step three: Throw Bill Clinton under the bus.  Rend garments, pull hair out, and otherwise demonstrate what looks like sincere regret that Bill Clinton remained in office thanks to rock-solid Democrat solidarity, now that there is no incumbency to protect.  Hillary, who has become a drag on the party, is thus to be intimidated into quietly caring for her grandchildren.

This is a dangerous assumption, because Hillary will fight back, and thanks to her access to FBI files while living in the White House, she has access to a lot of dirt on many Democrats as well as Republicans, not to mention whatever other dirt she and her machine have come across in the intervening decades.  She fights dirty and still has plenty of friends in the media.

Step four: As the hysteria mounts, following the blood sacrifices, demand that President Trump be impeached for actions before he took office.  Failing that, tell voters that by hanging onto office, he is disgracing the nation and telling little boys to grope their little girl classmates in first grade.

. . .[Lifson concludes]

So we have a situation in which something approaching mutual assured destruction could be unleashed on Congress, but with heavier damage likely on the Democrats' side of the aisle.  In this circumstance, the only winners would be those Americans who want to drain the swamp.  A wholesale bloodletting on Capitol Hill would not be the worst possible outcome, so long as the new legislators are wisely chosen in sufficient numbers.

Now is the time to start planning those candidacies. 

From The Sparta Report:

There are lots of ways in which this could play out, of course, but we are certainly in for a ride over the coming days and weeks as the Democrats try to ride the current “sexual misconduct” hysteria, and turn it to their advantage in their relentless quest to destroy Trump by any means they can find.

From DC Whispers:

According to whispers, it wasn’t just taking “political shot” at Moore that motivating the McConnell camp. They want Roy Moore out of the way and replaced with someone of McConnell’s choosing, or even Moore’s Democrat opponent, Doug Jones, a man whose career is linked to the Bill Clinton administration. Moore would be a vehement defender of POTUS Trump and his policies. If McConnell is to succeed in laying the groundwork for an impeachment trial and vote in the Senate, he will need fewer senators like Roy Moore to contend with.

. . .

The motivation to go after Trump is there. What is left is a simple matter of numbers. Getting rid of a Roy Moore and replacing him with an anti-Trump senator would give McConnell that much more leverage to make his dreams of eliminating Trump a reality.

Don’t forget what Mitch McConnell and the GOPe did to Chris McDaniel vs Thad Cochran in Mississippi.

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