Trump is scrambling to deal with a not physically fit Navy he inherited from Obama

From the story here:

The Navy will grant a clean slate to nearly 50,000 sailors with fitness failures in their records, part of new shakeup for fleet-wide fitness rules announced Thursday.

A new Navy-wide message instructs commands to immediately stop discharging sailors for fitness failures and to cancel any pending discharges for sailors slated to be kicked out after March 31. The change applies to both enlisted and officers.

The message also unveils a new set of rules for the Physical Fitness Assessment, bringing to an end the rules forcing sailors to leave the Navy if they failed two fitness assessment tests in a three-year period. ...

The new Physical Fitness Assessment rules are part of a broader effort to keep more sailors in uniform at a time when the Navy is trying to increase end strength by over 4,100 by the end of the current fiscal year in September 2018. ...

As of July 2017, the end of the last official PFA cycle, more than 43,000 sailors have at least one failure in the past three years; another 5,477 have at least two failures on the books, according to the chief of naval personnel.

Obama Justice Dept. and FBI implicated in colluding with anti-Trump dossier author

Byron York reports here:

Knowledge of the dossier project, during the campaign, extended into the highest levels of the Obama Justice Department.

The department's Bruce Ohr, a career official, served as associate deputy attorney general at the time of the campaign. That placed him just below the deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, who ran the day-to-day operations of the department. In 2016, Ohr's office was just steps away from Yates, who was later fired for defying President Trump's initial travel ban executive order and still later became a prominent anti-Trump voice upon leaving the Justice Department.

Unbeknownst to investigators until recently, Ohr knew [Christopher] Steele and had repeated contacts with Steele when Steele was working on the dossier. Ohr also met after the election with Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, the opposition research company that was paid by the Clinton campaign to compile the dossier. ... 

Ohr's contacts with Steele and Simpson were covered by a subpoena [Congressman] Nunes issued to the FBI and the Justice Department on Aug. 24. Yet as recently as Tuesday, when Nunes, along with House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., met with deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, the department said nothing about Ohr's role.

I don't remember anyone who complains now about deficits complaining about Obama's then

                          revenues...........outlays............deficits

$7.312 trillion worth!

NYT claims 2010 Obama Paygo law would require mandatory spending cuts under the Republican tax bill

From the story here:

The biggest program affected would be Medicare, the health insurance program for older people and the disabled. But the law allows Medicare to take only a relatively small cut: 4 percent. Other programs have no such protection. ... [Paygo] requires that legislation that adds to the federal deficit be paid for with spending cuts, increases in revenue or other offsets.

It takes CNBC article 13 paragraphs before admitting repeal of Obamacare mandate would result in loss of coverage for millions BY CHOICE

Here:

"Most of the losses [in insurance coverage] are due to the fact that people are not getting pushed into getting coverage," Levitt said.

Hillary and Obama's legacy in Libya: Blacks being sold as slaves in open air markets

From the story here:

Black Africans are being sold in open-air slave markets right now, and it’s Hillary Clinton’s fault. ... Footage from Libya, released last week by CNN, showed young men from sub-Saharan Africa being auctioned off as farm workers in slave markets.

And how did we get to this point? As the BBC reported back in May, “Libya has been beset by chaos since NATO-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Oct. 2011.” And who was behind that overthrow? None other than then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Over 64,000 Minnesotans making less than $50k paid over $30 million in Obamacare penalties in 2015

Nearly 82,000 Minnesotans paid over $38 million in federal penalties in 2015 for not having health insurance.

That's how much repealing the Obamacare mandate would have saved those Minnesotans in 2015, the vast majority of whom made less than the national average wage of $46,000.

The national average penalty in 2015 was $470.

I'll entertain the notion of the US Senate's integrity when it repeals Obamacare, builds The Wall, and cuts spending

Until then, STFU.

Republican war on itemized deductions eliminates medical expense deduction

From the story here:

Under current law, the IRS allows individuals to deduct qualified medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income for the year. The bill would repeal that itemized deduction, effective in 2018.

This is part of The Swamp's incremental war against taxpayer deductions.

For decades the threshold was 7.5% of AGI. Then under Obamacare it became 10%. Now it's gone entirely.

These greedy bastards must be stopped.

If you're among the 59% who think this is the lowest point in American history, you're a dumbass

In 2009 in Obama's America, nearly 30 million people filed first time claims for unemployment. That high point is the lowest point in recent memory. And if you can't remember that, you're either a moron, on drugs, or NINE.

Story here.

Strike Three and You're Out: Both National Associations, of Homebuilders and of Realtors, pull support from House tax plan

Trump looks set to be defeated on tax reform as 2017 winds down, just as he has failed to overturn Obamacare and build The Wall. And considering what the tax reform is looking like, it's just as well.

The tax plan as it stands this weekend eliminates the itemized deductions for mortgage interest and state income taxes, keeping only the deduction for property taxes.

Reported here:

[I]n a sign of the complex balancing act that [House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin] Brady must perform to produce a tax-overhaul bill this week, the property-tax announcement came on the same day that the National Association of Home Builders pulled its support for the legislation. The group’s chief cited concerns that the bill might undermine existing tax breaks that support the housing market. Likewise, a coalition that includes the National Association of Realtors said in an emailed statement that it “will vigorously oppose this plan.” ... It would appear that deductions for state and local income taxes and sales taxes would still be repealed under the planned House bill.

This is all the fault of our so-called conservatives in the US House. They aren't conservatives. They're doctrinaire libertarians who HATE people who want to get married, settle down and buy a house and have children. They view people as CAPITAL, whose value only decreases if it is too difficult to move them around at the whim of GLOBAL BUSINESS. That's why you'll never hear these people target the tax revenue lost to the lower capital gains and dividend tax rates, which are almost TWICE those lost to the mortgage interest deduction. These people are the enemies of localism and are instead the champions of the homogenization of society with its bland sameness everywhere. They are the ones who've shipped our jobs overseas and let in the tens of millions of immigrants who've further reduced our wages and opportunities.

One year from now you'll have another chance to send them packing.

I'll be voting for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck before voting for a libertarian in 2018.

Mark Levin did a great job eviscerating Republican hypocrite Bob Corker in the show's first hour tonight

As Levin says, we have Bob Corker's defiance of the constitution to thank for Obama's Iran deal.

The Washington Times had a nice summary of Corker's malfeasance from Jed Babbin, here:

He sponsored a measure that required the president to submit the agreement to the Senate but turned the Constitution upside down. Under Article 2, Section 2 the president must get a two-thirds vote in favor of any treaty to make it a part of the law of the land. Instead, Mr. Corker’s provision required opponents of the deal to muster a two-thirds vote — 66 senators — to vote against it. It was a pretense to conceal another Republican cave-in to Mr. Obama. Mr. Corker’s provision passed the Senate by a vote of 98-1, Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, being the only negative vote. In an entirely predictable result, when the time came for a disapproval vote, Republicans couldn’t even overcome the Democrats’ filibuster to get a final vote on disapproval. After that, it was a small matter for the president to take the Iran deal to the U.N. Security Council, which eagerly approved it. What Mr. Corker had done was to enable Mr. Obama to claim Senate approval of his deal even though the Senate hadn’t done anything of the sort.

Like Jeff Flake, Corker won't be standing next year for reelection to the Senate.

Job creation in 2016 is the closest we've come to "robust" since the year 2000

The W-2 data clearly show that the vast majority of the job losses during the crisis occurred under Obama, not Bush

Trump action against Obamacare is angering the correct people

"Trump’s Executive Order on Health Care Is Flat-Out Disgusting"

Jonathan Turley: Trump's order ending healthcare subsidies overturns Obama's original unconstitutional order

Read about it and watch here.

Real winning, but how vulnerable the constitution has been to the executive.

More good news: Trump ends effective immediately $7 billion in funding for out-of-pocket medical expenses for low income insured under Obamacare

From the story here:

The cost-sharing funds, estimated at roughly $7 billion for this year, pays for low-income consumers' out-of-pocket medical expenses. Under Obamacare, insurers are required to offer lower costs for these services, for which the government then reimburses them. If they do not receive the funding, they must still offer discounts, and without an action from Congress they would be likely to sue for the money.

Good news: Trump does end run around Obamacare, expands ability of more associations to offer plans using Executive Order

From the story here:

The president signed an executive order "to promote healthcare choice and competition" Thursday morning at the White House. 

It is said to expand access to "association health plans" – group plans written by trade associations, small businesses, and other groups. Such large group plans do not have to abide by all the requirements of individual plans under 'Obamacare.' The order also tasks administration officials to develop policies to increase competition in the health insurance industry.

Illegal Treasury Dept. financial spying on Americans began under Obama and Jack Lew

From the story here:

Sources said the spying had been going on under President Barack Obama . . .. In October of 2016, Rep. Sean Duffy, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, sent a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asking for OIA’s legal authority to collect and retain domestic information.

Nearly one year later, the Congressman has yet to receive an answer, according to a committee staffer.

Told ya: Trump to raise lowest tax bracket from 10% to 12%

Story here:

Top White House and GOP leaders have agreed to raise the lowest individual tax rate from 10 to 12 percent, paired with doubling the standard deduction, 5 senior Republicans tell us.

The standard deduction becomes the football in this scheme. If the doubling survives intact, which is hardly certain, down the line someone can say it must be reduced, without advocating a change in the bracket percentage and voila, you've got a nice little tax increase on the poorest members of society without directly raising taxes.

This ridiculous tinkering with rates and deductions just continues ad infinitum since 1913.

As with the Obamacare repeal efforts, there are no guiding principles informing the tax reform debate.

Mandating health coverage at the federal level is tyrannical, and so is the income tax, quite apart from its deliberate inequalities.

Trump kept insisting on a replacement for Obamacare as well as a system of progressive taxation during his speechifying.

There's no there there. 

Jack Lew, who presided over an 87% increase in the national debt as Treasury Secretary, is suddenly worried about the debt implications of tax reform

From the election of Obama in 2008 until the election of Trump in 2016, $9.2 trillion were added to the total public debt. We've gone from $10.6 trillion in the hole to $19.8 trillion over the period.

Yet now we hear from Jack Lew in The New York Times here that

"digging a deep hole of debt by cutting taxes will make it harder to pay for other priorities. And when that debt makes deficits skyrocket in the future, policy makers would have to choose between raising taxes and cutting investments and vital benefits. ... Some Republican policy makers suggest they may reject mainstream approaches and assume positive economic effects that go far beyond those normally projected by the budget office and the tax committee. ... Such a reckless move would almost surely produce an explosion of debt."

Actually, the Obama Administration dug a deep hole of debt right off the bat by spending money it didn't have, tacking on $600 billion of spending to Bush's last fiscal year, and then regularizing the increase by avoiding the budget process in favor of continuing resolutions, the Congress' new bipartisan method of fleecing the American people. Deficits skyrocketed contemporaneously, and then Democrat policy makers recklessly passed Obamacare with its spendthrift Medicaid expansion. They didn't have to choose between anything.

The only people more full of horseshit than the Republicans are the Democrat engineers of the Obama economic catastrophe.