DACA PROGRAM TO END IN 5 MOS IF CONGRESS DOESN'T FIX LEGALLY (CAMPAIGN PROMISES)

#DACA

DREAMERS PROGRAM TO END IN 5 MOS IF CONGRESS DOESN'T FIX LEGALLY (CAMPAIGN PROMISES):

MANY LEGAL LATINO, WHITE, BLACK, ASIAN & INDIAN STUDENTS ARE DENIED COLLEGE AID DUE TO ILLEGAL STUDENTS RECEIVING IT.

DEMOCRATS GAVE ILLEGALS EVERYTHING FOR THEIR 2016 VOTES BUT THE ILLEGALS VOTED FOR TRUMP.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT LEGAL CITIZENSHIP.

DEMOCRATS CAN'T KEEP USING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO REPLACE WHITE & BLACK LEGAL VOTERS.

ANOTHER REASON WHY DEMOCRATS LOST IN 2016.


Sources: AP, Michael Savage, CBS News, NY Daily News, Alex Jones, Reuters, Yahoo News, YouTube


**** AP sources: Trump expected to end 'Dreamers' program



........ From Sasuhou, Yahoo News Commenter

< "Per our local reports, there are over 500,000 illegals in the Houston area alone. They are all getting money for what happened because we are a state that will not leave you out alone, but most understand that the money they will take could easily be going to the USA legal victims of the hurricane. So, yes build the wall Mr. President! I am a disowned Latina, and I know my people. Once they are allowed to stay, you will see the border saturated with more minors trained in what to say when crossing and demanding every free benefit they can get. Smugglers read a single sentence like this to rapidly increase the number of young illegal immigrants they cross. For those illegals who personally argue of how hard they work, you have to be honest to yourself, and recognize that while you work, you are also trying to cheat the system because after all, “El que no tranza no avanza” right? This famous Mexican accepted phrase says basically that he, who doesn’t cheat, doesn’t advance. The fact is that illegal immigrants will pull at your heart's strings with scripted lines to make you feel guilty and sorry for them. They talk about families being separated when most already directly LEFT their children back in their countries for many years before bringing them here, also illegally. How can you wish rape upon your “loved” one when according to a stunning Fusion investigation, 80 percent of women and girls crossing into the U.S. by way of Mexico are raped during their journey. Many complain that the wall will be about 25 billion dollars, but the USA has been paying for it for the longest time. At least lets get back something physically solid for it. Year after year, we have paid well over the 25 billion on getting every illegal and their families food stamps, housing, health care, free child birth, welfare checks, almost free education that USA students don't get, scholarship money that should go to your children, some even free cell phone service, free entertainment in the case of the illegal minors who at least under Obama got taken to waterparks and movies for weekly fun time. Just by minimizing the money that Mexicans take from us when we spend on them, we will be getting the money back from Mexico. I am tired of seeing so many Mexican license plates, even luxury cars of known drug dealers’ daughters, outside the benefit offices of my border town. At least we need to lose less. Please, defend the young citizens of this our USA."

......... From Chris, Yahoo News Commenter

< "As a college educator, I have seen countless Dream Act recipients being awarded a higher education virtually for free while so many young people born in this country have been forced to put off their schooling or to work nearly full time schedules in order to finance their tuition. Not fair at all."

...........From Biagio, Yahoo News Commenter

"Shame on Obama for implementing this program that ignored Federal laws and causing inequality in immigration. I am for equality and believe all immigrants should go through the same equal system, no one is above the law and no one should circumvent the laws and put themselves in front of other LEGAL immigrants. I am an immigrant and I support equality in immigration!!"

............. From Koalasalad, Yahoo News Commenter

"I welcome all fellow immigrants with open arms. But illegals are not immigrants, they're intruders."



~~~ WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce that he will end protections for young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children, but with a six-month delay, people familiar with the plans said Sunday.

The delay in the formal dismantling of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program would be intended to give Congress time to decide whether it wants to address the status of the so-called Dreamers in legislation, according to two people familiar with the president's thinking. But it was not immediately clear how the six-month delay would work in practice and what would happen to people who currently have work permits under the program, or whose permits expire during the six-month stretch.

It also was unclear exactly what would happen if Congress failed to pass a measure by the considered deadline. Two people familiar with the president's thinking spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of a planned Tuesday announcement.

The president, who has been grappling with the issue for months, has been known to change his mind in the past and could still shift course. The plan was first reported by Politico Sunday evening.

Trump has been wrestling for months with what to do with the Obama-era DACA program, which has given nearly 800,000 young immigrants a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the form of two-year, renewable work permits.

The expected move would come as the White House faces a Tuesday deadline set by Republican state officials threatening to continue sue the Trump administration if the president did not end the program. It also would come as Trump digs in on appeals to his base as he finds himself increasingly under fire, with his poll numbers hanging at near-record lows.

Trump had been personally torn as late as last week over how to deal with what are undoubtedly the most sympathetic immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Many came to the U.S. as young children and have no memories of or connections to the countries they were born in.

During his campaign, Trump slammed DACA as illegal "amnesty" and vowed to eliminate the program the day he took office. But since his election, Trump has wavered on the issue, at one point telling The Associated Press that those covered could "rest easy."

Trump had been unusually candid as he wrestled with the decision in the early months of his administration. During a February press conference, he said the topic was "a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it's one of the most difficulty subjects I have."

"You have some absolutely incredible kids — I would say mostly," he said. adding: "I love these kids."

All the while, his administration continued to process applications and renew DACA work permits, to the dismay of immigration hard-liners.

News of the president's expected decision appeared to anger advocates on both sides of the issue.

"IF REPORTS ARE TRUE, Pres Trump better prepare for the civil rights fight of his admin. A clean DREAM Act is now a Nat Emergency #DefendDACA," tweeted New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat.

But Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has called DACA unconstitutional, warned that a delay in dismantling it would amount to "Republican suicide."

"Ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide," he wrote.

It would be up to congressional lawmakers to pass a measure to protect those who have been covered under the program. While there is considerable support for that prospect among Democrats and moderate Republicans, Congress is already facing a packed fall agenda and has had a poor track record in recent years in passing immigration-related bills.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and a number of other legislators urged Trump last week to hold off on scrapping DACA to give them time to come up with a legislative fix.

"These are kids who know no other country, who are brought here by their parents and don't know another home. And so I really do believe that there needs to be a legislative solution," Ryan told Wisconsin radio station WCLO.

The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 as a stopgap to protect some young immigrants from deportation as they pushed unsuccessfully for a broader immigration overhaul in Congress.

The program protected people in the country illegally who could prove they arrived before they were 16, had been in the United States for several years and had not committed a crime while being here. It mimicked versions of the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided legal status for young immigrants but was never passed by Congress.

As of July 31, 2015, more than 790,000 young immigrants had been approved under the program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The House under Democratic control passed a Dream Act in 2010 but it died in the Senate. But since Republicans retook control of the House in late 2010, it has grown increasingly hardline on immigration, killing the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill in 2013 and failing to even take up a GOP border security bill two years later because of objections from conservatives.

Many House Republicans represent highly conservative districts. The primary upset of the former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to a conservative challenger in 2014 in a campaign that cast him as soft on illegal immigration convinced many House Republicans that pro-immigrant stances could cost them politically.

So despite Ryan's personal commitment on the issue and his rhetoric in favor of the young immigrants, action to protect them may be unlikely in the House — absent intense lobbying from Trump.

51 - 50 JOHN MCCAIN RETURNS TO VOTE FOR REPEAL OF OBAMACARE (HISTORY)

51 - 50 JOHN MCCAIN RETURNS TO VOTE FOR REPEAL OF OBAMACARE (HISTORY):

US SENATE MAJORITY VOTES TO CLEAR TEST VOTE FOR FLOOR DEBATES.

AUTHENTIC AFFORDABLE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS POSSIBLE.

NOT TAXES AND POPULATION CONTROL DISGUISED AS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE BUT AUTHENTIC UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

GOP LEADERS MUST KEEP THEIR HEALTH CARE CAMPAIGN PROMISE TO AMERICAN VOTERS WHO GAVE THEM CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE.


Sources: Fox News, Euro News, Youtube


***** Senate health bill clears test vote, aided by McCain


Senate Republicans on Tuesday resuscitated their health care legislation for now, narrowly clearing it past a key hurdle with the help of Sen. John McCain’s dramatic return to the chamber for the first time since his brain cancer diagnosis.

The Senate voted 51-50 to start debate, with Vice President Pence casting the tie-breaker. The procedural vote once again brings the ObamaCare overhaul legislation back from the brink of collapse, after intense pressure from President Trump who had demanded senators skip recess until they act on health care.

The bill still faces a tough road ahead. But it was a heavy lift just to get to this point.

No Democrats supported the motion, leaving Republicans to corral the necessary 50 votes. They got exactly that, requiring Pence to break the tie, for the fifth time under the Trump administration.

The airtight vote made McCain’s return all the more significant, as the measure could not have advanced without him.

The result was kept in suspense for a while. Sens. Susan Collins, of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, voted no from the start. Several other Republican senators then delayed casting their vote, with no wiggle room left for additional defections on the GOP side.

Applause then broke out as McCain entered the chamber, pointing at his colleagues and shaking hands. As he joined, the last GOP holdout, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., voted with the Arizona senator to start debate.

Trump applauded the development in a statement, urging the Senate to follow through:

"I applaud the Senate for taking a giant step to end the Obamacare nightmare. As this vote shows, inaction is not an option, and now the legislative process can move forward as intended to produce a bill that lowers costs and increases options for all Americans. The Senate must now pass a bill and get it to my desk so we can finally end the Obamacare disaster once and for all."

Tuesday’s procedural vote kicks off what is likely to be another intense round of debate on health care, in which senators are sure to propose numerous changes to the plan – which could either boost or doom its chances. If a bill passes, it would still have to be reconciled with the House version.

McCain warned colleagues after the test vote that he would not support the bare-bones, “shell” bill in its current form as he urged lawmakers from both parties to reach across the aisle.

“We’re getting nothing done my friends,” McCain said from the floor, adding “something has to be done” on health care.

As the test vote began, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged his Republican colleagues to follow through on campaign promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

“We have a duty to act. … The president is ready with his pen,” he said. “We can’t let this moment slip by.”

Moments earlier, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., beseeched Republicans to “turn back.”

“We know the ACA is not perfect. But we also know what you’ve proposed is much worse,” he said.

A rowdy group of protesters also interrupted the start of proceedings, chanting, “kill the bill, don’t kill us” and “shame.”

For their part, Democrats uniformly oppose the effort to tear down President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement. Republicans control the chamber 52-48, meaning they could afford to lose just two Republicans with McCain around.

Trump had kept up the pressure on GOP lawmakers, tweeting that "After 7 years of talking, we will soon see whether or not Republicans are willing to step up to the plate!" He added: "ObamaCare is torturing the American People. The Democrats have fooled the people long enough. Repeal or Repeal & Replace! I have pen in hand."

McConnell's original bill would abolish much of Obama's law, eliminating its tax penalties on people not buying policies, cutting Medicaid, eliminating its tax boosts on medical companies and providing less generous health care subsidies for consumers. But at least a dozen GOP senators have openly said they oppose or criticized the measure, which McConnell revised as he's hunted Republican support.

For the time being, he won over Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who backed starting debate. He said McConnell told him the Senate would debate Paul's proposal to scuttle much of Obama's law and give Congress two years to enact a replacement -- an amendment that seemed certain to lose.

Moderates also were seeking additional money for states that would be hurt by cuts in Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, the disabled and nursing home patients. Conservatives wanted a vote on a proposal by Ted Cruz, R-Texas, letting insurers offer bare-bones policies with low premiums, which would be illegal under Obama's law.

With leaders still struggling to line up enough votes to approve a wide-ranging overhaul of Obama's law, there was talk of trying to pass a narrow bill -- details still unclear -- so House-Senate bargainers could craft a compromise.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION NUMBERS GREATLY REDUCED THANKS TO TRUMP'S BORDER CONTROL POLICIES (WHERE'S THE MSM?)

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION NUMBERS GREATLY REDUCED THANKS TO TRUMP'S BORDER CONTROL POLICIES (WHERE'S THE MSM?)

ANOTHER TRUMP CAMPAIGN PROMISE FULFILLED.

WHY WON'T MSM REPORT ON THIS POSITIVE NEWS?


Sources: The Blaze, Fox News, Youtube


****** New illegal immigration numbers reveal Trump’s incredible impact on the border


One of President Donald Trump’s central (and most controversial) campaign promises was to shut down the flow of immigrants illegally crossing into the United States, especially from Mexico.

Newly released figures show Trump appears to be making good on his promise.

An analysis by the Daily Caller News Foundation found that from February through May in 2016, 188,000 people were caught attempting to illegally enter the United States from Mexico.

During the same period in 2017, only 76,000 were captured or deemed inadmissible, a decline of 59 percent.

In May alone, the number caught in 2017 was less than half (19,967) that recorded in 2016 (55,442), a truly remarkable turnaround considering Trump’s much-talked-about border wall has still yet to be financed by Congress.

“They’ve done more than any administration in the history of the world,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told the Daily Caller.

“So, I’m pretty happy that they’ve done so much in such a short period of time so it would really be difficult for me to criticize them on that issue because there’s no comparison with any other administration as far as how quickly and effectively they’ve approached the problem on many different fronts,” Paxton also said.

In May, Ronald Vitiello, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee the decline is due to Trump’s January executive orders mandating a shift in policy and resources on the border.

“As a result of the executive orders issued by the president, and the implementing policies issued by the secretary, as well as earlier policy changes and the significant investments we have made in border-enforcement personnel, technology, and infrastructure, we are seeing a historic shift in illegal crossings along the southwest border,” Vitiello said, according to the Washington Examiner.

REPEAL & REPLACE OBAMACARE vs LYING GOP SENATORS (BROKEN CAMPAIGN PROMISES)

REPEAL & REPLACE OBAMACARE vs LYING GOP SENATORS (BROKEN CAMPAIGN PROMISES):

GOP SENATORS PUSHED "REPEAL OBAMACARE" AGENDA TO WIN CONGRESS & WHITE HOUSE.

NOW THEY DON'T WANT TO KEEP THEIR VOWS.

REPLACING OBAMACARE WITH TRUE UNIVERSAL AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE.

IT JUST REQUIRES HARD WORK AND WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM.


Sources: AP, Fox News, The Hill, Youtube


**** Trump plays hardball on ObamaCare repeal


President Trump on Wednesday admonished Republican senators over their stalled healthcare push and demanded they resume work on a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare, setting up a last-ditch attempt to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

Trump invited Republican senators to the White House for lunch a day after their healthcare legislation appeared dead, telling lawmakers they should not leave Washington before reaching a solution, even if it means scrapping their already-delayed August recess.

"Frankly, I don't think we should leave town unless we have a health insurance plan," the president said at the start of the lunch in the State Dining Room. "Because we're close; we're very close."

The president's public tongue-lashing appeared to produce results. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the luncheon that he would forge ahead with the repeal-and-replace negotiations.

"Next week, we'll be voting on the motion to proceed, and I have every expectation that we'll be able to get on the bill," McConnell told reporters on the White House driveway.

But success is far from guaranteed. Following the meeting, it wasn't immediately clear whether McConnell would move to a straight repeal of ObamaCare - something the White House had urged earlier in the week - or the repeal-and-replace bill. As of Wednesday, both measures lacked the votes necessary to advance.

The initial collapse of the repeal-and-replace plan was a major failure for both Trump and McConnell and sparked mutual recriminations on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, including complaints from senators that the president did little to sell the initiative.

Trump on Wednesday appeared hell-bent on making up for lost time. As television cameras rolled, the president personally challenged GOP senators to get on board, reminding them of their campaign promises to overturn President Obama's signature healthcare law.

He seated himself next to Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), a vulnerable incumbent who opposed the legislation, and ticked off what he said were the benefits of the plan, promising it would stabilize individual insurance markets and lower premiums by "60 and 70 percent."

Trump made it clear that he isn't afraid to use strong-arm tactics to persuade the holdouts.

"Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn't he?" Trump said of Heller. "I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think they're going to appreciate what you hopefully will do."

The president added, "Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that you're fine with ObamaCare."

Heller appeared to take the ribbing in stride, tilting his head back and chuckling.

"That's just President Trump being President Trump," Heller told reporters at the Capitol following the lunch.
Trump also took a swipe at Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), the two conservatives who announced their opposition to the repeal-and-replace bill Monday night, stopping it dead in its tracks.

"The other night I was surprised when I heard a couple of my friends - my friends, they really were and are. They might not be very much longer, but that's OK," he said.

While the president seemed recommitted to using the bully pulpit to advance the healthcare effort, it's unclear whether it will be enough to get wavering senators behind a bill that is deeply unpopular with the public.

Only 17 percent of Americans approve of the Senate GOP legislation, while 55 percent disapprove, according to a late June NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed the measure had only 12 percent support in key counties won by Trump in 2016.

Trump's own approval rating has plummeted - down to only 36 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll - raising the possibility that vulnerable senators such as Heller will feel emboldened to ignore his pleas.

The president has offered mixed messages on healthcare, and his demand on Wednesday for a repeal-and-replace bill may have added even more confusion to the process.

Just one day earlier, he said that Republicans in Congress should simply abandon their legislative effort and "let Obamacare fail."

That came after a Monday tweet in which Trump appeared to endorse the repeal-without-replace option.

"Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!" he wrote.

White House legislative director Marc Short denied that Trump's message has been inconsistent.

"I think the president has been clear that what he wants is repeal and replace," he said, adding that the president believes that if that doesn't work, "we should at least deliver on the promise to repeal."

Short said that during the lunch, "there was a general enthusiasm for recognizing that this is not something we can walk away from."

But senators acknowledged that they still face a heavy lift.

"It is ... sort of revived," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said of the repeal-and-replace bill.

"I think we don't have any delusions about the fact that this is going to be very hard and we still have members who are not there yet."Three top Trump administration officials - Vice President Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma - were scheduled to meet Wednesday evening on Capitol Hill with fence-sitting GOP senators to discuss a path forward.

McConnell repeatedly refused to say if he would cancel recess to continue work on healthcare.

TAX REFORM PLAN IS ANOTHER TRUMP CAMPAIGN PROMISE KEPT (100 DAYS)

TAX REFORM PLAN IS ANOTHER TRUMP CAMPAIGN PROMISE KEPT:

TRUMP'S TAX PLAN ELIMINATES DEATH TAX.

TRUMP'S TAX PLAN WILL ALSO CREATE JOBS, HELP MARRIED COUPLES, SINGLE WORKING MOTHERS & SMALL BUSINESSES.


Sources: Donald Trump, ABC News, Fox News, Washington Examiner, Youtube


**** Give Trump 130 days: President's tax plan is his biggest test (and biggest opportunity)
Forget the 100 day reckoning; let’s give President Trump 130 days instead.

Here’s why: the president is on the cusp of achieving nothing less than a once-in-a-generation tax cut that will boost the U.S. economy out of its 8-year rut and restore the nation’s competitiveness.

It won’t pass in the next four weeks, but if Trump throws himself into selling the plan over the next month, and it catches the country’s imagination, “Resisting” Democrats will have to climb aboard. The buoyant stock market will continue its run, optimism will rise yet again, and Donald Trump will be well on his way to a successful presidency.

Trump himself will have to hit the campaign trail, dig out those red MAGA hats, and convince the country that this program will create jobs, boost wages, help middle-class families and put the nation on the right track. He must sell it not as a tax cut, but as a jobs bill – something the country has hungered for ever since the Great Recession. Something President Obama failed to deliver.

This is the biggest test yet for the young Trump presidency. It isn’t Paul Ryan’s plan or Kevin Brady’s plan; it’s the Trump tax plan. He owns it, he campaigned on it, and if he can get it done his backers will be thrilled.

It will especially please small business owners, who pay taxes today at over 50 percent in some states, and who are among Trump’s most enthusiastic backers. As one participant in a recent small-biz roundtable with the president wrote in The Hill, “Former President Barack Obama was an almost-daily insult for eight years, telling us the economy was doing great while business owners struggled keep their doors open.” Small firms account for nearly half the nation’s private workforce; they need lighter regulation and a tax break; Trump is serving up both, as promised.

Oh, and by the way, if Trump succeeds in pushing through his tax plan, those deriding the White House as inept and Republicans as unable to govern will develop a sudden case of laryngitis.

Bringing the party together to cut taxes for millions won’t have happened in the first 100 days. Who’s counting? If significant progress is posted in the next few weeks, Trump wins.

The Tax Foundation last year analyzed Trump’s tax plan, and estimated it would boost economic growth, create 5.3 million new jobs, and kick wages up by 6.5 percent. Notwithstanding the benefits that will accrue to U.S. workers, Democrats will fight Trump’s tax plan tooth and nail.
They don’t believe that lower taxes spur growth, even though tax cuts pushed through by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan most definitely did. They don’t want to “starve the beast” of the ever-expanding federal government, because they don’t think that Americans are wiser about investing our money that the bureaucrats in Washington.

Adding to their hypocrisy is a new-found concern about the federal debt. Democrats complained for years that the Stimulus passed in 2009 wasn’t big enough; they are fans of deficit spending – as long as it grows the swamp and not the private sector.

The battle is joined, as we saw from the next-day treatment from the media.

The New York Times banner read: “Tax Overhaul Would Aid Wealthiest”. The paper followed up with: “Trump’s Plan Shifts Trillion to Wealthiest.” Fact: the top 20 percent of earners in U.S. pay 84 percent of the country’s income taxes. Yes, those folks, the ones paying the lion’s share of our taxes, will get a break.

In numerous articles, the Grey Lady has hinted recently that Trump’s tax policy is especially crafted to benefiting himself – by retaining the mortgage interest deduction, for instance. Yes, real estate developers benefit from that deduction; so do tens of millions of American homeowners. Since the current plan includes eliminating the ability to deduct state and local taxes, which would pummel wealthy New Yorkers like Trump, that particular story line was muted.

The facts are clear: the United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Nearly every one of our major competitors has cut their corporate tax burden in recent years; we are the outliers. While it is true that businesses take advantage of numerous loopholes and pay less than the statutory rate of 35 percent (39 percent for companies operating in high-tax states), it is also true that even adjusting for deductions and carve-outs, American businesses still pay the second-highest actual rate among developed countries.

A CATO study some years ago argued that in today’s interconnected world, it is workers who ultimately pay business taxes. “The burden of corporate taxes in the globalized economy,” senior fellows Chris Edwards and Daniel J. Mitchell wrote in Global Tax Revolution, “mainly falls on average workers in the form of lower wages. If U.S. and foreign semiconductor and pharmaceutical companies are not building factories in America because of higher taxes, it is American workers who lose.”

We need to do better. Donald Trump sometimes says “We don’t win anymore.” His supporters get that. Businesses want to move out of the U.S. to take advantage of low tax rates elsewhere, but our country should press our many advantages. We are a rule of law nation, we speak English and we have vast energy resources that over time will become a significant competitive advantage. While labor rates in manufacturing, for instance, are cheaper elsewhere, automation means that wages are becoming a smaller part of total costs.

If tax breaks spur investment, U.S. firms will become ever more competitive. Most important, we are still the world’s largest consumer market – right here.

Why on earth wouldn’t companies want to locate here? Let’s make it easy for them.
The plan rolled out by the White House is an opening bid. There will be negotiations over the top rates, the repatriation on overseas-held cash and other particulars. Trump could mollify deficit hawks by eliminating the tax break on carried interest, for instance, which mainly benefits private equity and hedge fund managers. Even many industry participants think that hand-out should disappear. He also could pressure Democrats by rolling out an infrastructure plan to be seeded by the proceeds of a one-time repatriation of foreign earnings stashed overseas by U.S. companies. That’s the Art of the Deal.

But the main message is this: lowering corporate and individual rates will gin up growth, create jobs and raise wages. Astonishingly, even the prospect of this tax plan set the stock market soaring and boosted consumer and business confidence. That’s how hopeful people are, and how potent this medicine will be for our ailing economy. This is Trump’s big moment; I’ll give him a few more weeks.



**** TAX REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
(The Goals Of Donald J. Trump’s Tax Plan)

~ Too few Americans are working, too many jobs have been shipped overseas, and too many
middle class families cannot make ends meet. This tax plan directly meets these challenges with
four simple goals:
1. Tax relief for middle class Americans: In order to achieve the American dream, let people
keep more money in their pockets and increase after-tax wages.
2. Simplify the tax code to reduce the headaches Americans face in preparing their taxes and
let everyone keep more of their money.
3. Grow the American economy by discouraging corporate inversions, adding a huge number
of new jobs, and making America globally competitive again.
4. Doesn’t add to our debt and deficit, which are already too large.


~ The Trump Tax Plan Achieves These Goals
1. If you are single and earn less than $25,000, or married and jointly earn less than $50,000,
you will not owe any income tax. That removes nearly 75 million households – over 50% –
from the income tax rolls. They get a new one page form to send the IRS saying, “I win,”
those who would otherwise owe income taxes will save an average of nearly $1,000 each.
2. All other Americans will get a simpler tax code with four brackets – 0%, 10%, 20% and 25%
– instead of the current seven. This new tax code eliminates the marriage penalty and the
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) while providing the lowest tax rate since before World
War II.
3. No business of any size, from a Fortune 500 to a mom and pop shop to a freelancer living job
to job, will pay more than 15% of their business income in taxes. This lower rate makes
corporate inversions unnecessary by making America’s tax rate one of the best in the world.
4. No family will have to pay the death tax. You earned and saved that money for your family,
not the government. You paid taxes on it when you earned it.


~ The Trump Tax Plan Is Revenue Neutral
The Trump tax cuts are fully paid for by:
1. Reducing or eliminating most deductions and loopholes available to the very rich.
2. A one-time deemed repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a significantly discounted
10% tax rate, followed by an end to the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad.
3. Reducing or eliminating corporate loopholes that cater to special interests, as well as
deductions made unnecessary or redundant by the new lower tax rate on corporations and
business income. We will also phase in a reasonable cap on the deductibility of business
interest expenses.


~ DETAILS OF DONALD J. TRUMP’S TAX PLAN

America needs a bold, simple and achievable plan based on conservative economic principles.
This plan does that with needed tax relief for all Americans, especially the working poor and
middle class, pro-growth tax reform for all sizes of businesses, and fiscally responsible steps to
ensure this plan does not add to our enormous debt and deficit.
This plan simplifies the tax code by taking nearly 50% of current filers off the income tax rolls
entirely and reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to four for everyone else.
This plan also reduces or eliminates loopholes used by the very rich and special interests made unnecessary
or redundant by the new lower tax rates on individuals and companies.
The Trump Tax Plan: A Simpler Tax Code For All Americans
When the income tax was first introduced, just one percent of Americans had to pay it.
It was never intended as a tax most Americans would pay. The Trump plan eliminates the income tax
for over 73 million households.
42 million households that currently file complex forms to
determine they don’t owe any income taxes will now file a one page form saving them time,
stress, uncertainty and an average of $110 in preparation costs.
Over 31 million households get the same simplification and keep on average nearly $1,000 of their hard-earned money.
For those Americans who will still pay the income tax, the tax rates will go from the current
seven brackets to four simpler, fairer brackets that eliminate the marriage penalty and the AMT
while providing the lowest tax rate since before World War II:

Income
Tax
Rate
Long Term Cap
Gains/
Dividends Rate
Single Filers Married Filers Heads of Household
0% 0% $0 to $25,000 $0 to $50,000 $0 to $37,500
10% 0% $25,001 to $50,000 $50,001 to $100,000 $37,501 to $75,000
20% 15% $50,001 to $150,000 $100,001 to $300,000 $75,001 to $225,000
25% 20% $150,001 and up $300,001 and up $225,001 and up

With this huge reduction in rates, many of the current exemptions and deductions will become
unnecessary or redundant.

Those within the 10% bracket will keep all or most of their current deductions. Those within the 20% bracket will keep more than half of their current deductions.

Those within the 25% bracket will keep fewer deductions. Charitable giving and mortgage
interest deductions will remain unchanged for all taxpayers.
Simplifying the tax code and cutting every American’s taxes will boost consumer spending,
encourage savings and investment, and maximize economic growth.


~ Business Tax Reform To Encourage Jobs And Spur Economic Growth

Too many companies – from great American brands to innovative startups – are leaving
America, either directly or through corporate inversions. The Democrats want to outlaw
inversions, but that will never work. Companies leaving is not the disease, it is the symptom.
Politicians in Washington have let America fall from the best corporate tax rate in the
industrialized world in the 1980’s (thanks to Ronald Reagan) to the worst rate in the
industrialized world.

That is unacceptable. Under the Trump plan, America will compete with
the world and win by cutting the corporate tax rate to 15%, taking our rate from one of the worst
to one of the best.

This lower tax rate cannot be for big business alone; it needs to help the small businesses that are
the true engine of our economy. Right now, freelancers, sole proprietors, unincorporated small
businesses and pass-through entities are taxed at the high personal income tax rates.

This treatment stifles small businesses. It also stifles tax reform because efforts to reduce loopholes
and deductions available to the very rich and special interests end up hitting small businesses and
job creators as well.

The Trump plan addresses this challenge head on with a new business
income tax rate within the personal income tax code that matches the 15% corporate tax rate to
help these businesses, entrepreneurs and freelancers grow and prosper.

These lower rates will provide a tremendous stimulus for the economy – significant GDP
growth, a huge number of new jobs and an increase in after-tax wages for workers.


~ The Trump Tax Plan Ends The Unfair Death Tax
The death tax punishes families for achieving the American dream. Therefore, the Trump plan
eliminates the death tax.


~ The Trump Tax Plan Is Fiscally Responsible
The Trump tax cuts are fully paid for by:

1. Reducing or eliminating deductions and loopholes available to the very rich, starting by
steepening the curve of the Personal Exemption Phaseout and the Pease Limitation on
itemized deductions. The Trump plan also phases out the tax exemption on life insurance
interest for high-income earners, ends the current tax treatment of carried interest for
speculative partnerships that do not grow businesses or create jobs and are not risking their
own capital, and reduces or eliminates other loopholes for the very rich and special interests.
These reductions and eliminations will not harm the economy or hurt the middle class.
Because the Trump plan introduces a new business income rate within the personal income
tax code, they will not harm small businesses either.

2. A one-time deemed repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a significantly discounted
10% tax rate. Since we are making America’s corporate tax rate globally competitive, it is
only fair that corporations help make that move fiscally responsible. U.S.-owned
corporations have as much as $2.5 trillion in cash sitting overseas. Some companies have
been leaving cash overseas as a tax maneuver. Under this plan, they can bring their cash
home and put it to work in America while benefitting from the newly-lowered corporate tax
rate that is globally competitive and no longer requires parking cash overseas. Other
companies have cash overseas for specific business units or activities. They can leave that
cash overseas, but they will still have to pay the one-time repatriation fee.

3. An end to the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad. Corporations will no
longer be allowed to defer taxes on income earned abroad, but the foreign tax credit will
remain in place because no company should face double taxation.

4. Reducing or eliminating some corporate loopholes that cater to special interests, as well as
deductions made unnecessary or redundant by the new lower tax rate on corporations and
business income. We will also phase in a reasonable cap on the deductibility of business
interest expenses.

NO MORE UNNECESSARY GOVT REGULATIONS (TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PROMISES)

NO MORE UNNECESSARY GOVT REGULATIONS (TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PROMISES):

TRUMP KEEPS ANOTHER CAMPAIGN PROMISE TO CREATE MORE JOBS & HELP SMALL BUSINESSES.


Sources: Fox News, Reuters, Youtube


***** Trump orders new task force push to eliminate red tape


President Trump took another step Friday to roll back government red tape, signing an executive order requiring every federal agency to form a “regulatory reform task force” that would root out regulations for repeal.

A day after chief strategist Steve Bannon vowed a "deconstruction of the administrative state," Trump directed each agency's task force to evaluate existing rules and identify which ones should be modified or sent to the chopping block.

Joined in the Oval Office by business executives, Trump said "unnecessary” and “burdensome" regulations are “killing jobs” and “driving companies out of our country like never before."

Those regulations, according to the White House, will be a focus of the new task forces.

Trump said reducing the regulatory burden will “unleash economic activity.”

Trump signed the order after delivering a rousing address to party faithful at the nearby Conservative Political Action Conference. The order builds on previous directives to find two regulations to cut for every new one proposed, and to freeze pending regulations.

While the latest measure takes this a step further, stripping existing regulations could ultimately require congressional involvement.

Trump's new order calls for each task force to document and report their progress toward meeting the president’s directives.

In the first 30 days of his term, Trump has overseen a considerable slowdown in regulations, according to an analysis by The Hill.

There has been a 72 percent decline in regulatory activity during the first month of the Trump administration compared with the last two months of then-President Barack Obama’s term.

Trump also has signed several bills passed by Congress aimed at specific regulations.

They include a resolution to mitigate the harm done to the coal industry by the Stream Protection Rule, and another measure to eliminate a reporting regulation that Republicans argue placed American mining and energy companies and their employees at an unfair disadvantage because their foreign competitors do not have similar requirements.

According to the White House, the Obama administration finalized more than 3,000 regulations that cost American taxpayers $873 billion.

Speaking Thursday at the annual CPAC, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus characterized Trump’s regulatory reform efforts as a “big deal.”

Bannon echoed Priebus, saying the earlier executive action was the first step towards the "deconstruction of the administrative state."

Not everyone is on board Trump’s regulatory reform train.

On February 8, Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Communications Workers of America jointly filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the action calling for two regulations to be stripped for every one proposed.

The three liberal groups argue that complying with the executive order would force government agencies to violate the 1946 Administrative Procedures Act, the federal statute which governs the way regulations are established.

TRUMP USES PRESIDENTIAL PEN TO VOID OBAMA'S CORRUPT TPP DEAL AS PROMISED

TRUMP USES PRESIDENTIAL PEN TO VOID OBAMA'S CORRUPT TPP DEAL:

ANOTHER TRUMP CAMPAIGN PROMISE ENACTED WITHOUT LONG SPEECHES.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THE U.S. MILITARY.


Sources: C-SPAN, Fox News, NY Times, YouTube


**** Trump Abandons Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s Signature Trade Deal


President Trump upended America’s traditional, bi-partisan trade policy on Monday as he formally abandoned the ambitious, 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership brokered by his predecessor and declared an end to the era of multinational trade agreements that defined global economics for decades.


With the stroke of a pen on his first full weekday in office, Mr. Trump signaled that he plans to follow through on promises to take a more aggressive stance against foreign competitors as part of his “America First” approach.


In doing so, he demonstrated that he would not follow old rules, effectively discarding longstanding Republican orthodoxy that expanding global trade was good for the world and America — and that the United States should help write the rules of international commerce.


Although the Trans-Pacific Partnership had not been approved by Congress, Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw not only doomed former President Barack Obama’s signature trade achievement, but also carried broad geopolitical implications in a fast-growing region.

The deal, which was to link a dozen nations from Canada and Chile to Australia and Japan in a complex web of trade rules, was sold as a way to permanently tie the United States to East Asia and create an economic bulwark against a rising China.

Instead, Mr. Trump said American workers would be protected against competition from low-wage countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, also parties to the deal.


But some in both parties worry that China will move to fill the economic vacuum as America looks inward, and will expand its sway over Asia and beyond.


Monday was a busy day for the new president. In addition to abandoning the trade deal, he ordered a freeze on federal government hiring, except for the military and other security agencies.

He reinstituted a ban on federal funding for overseas family planning groups that assist or counsel women seeking abortions. He met with congressional, labor and business leaders. And he promised to cut up to 75 percent of federal regulations.

Mr. Trump’s decision to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or T.P.P., reversed a free-trade strategy adopted by presidents of both parties dating back to the Cold War, and aligned him more with the political left.


When he told a meeting of union leaders at the White House on Monday that he had just terminated the pact, they broke into applause.


“We’re going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taken companies out of our country, and it’s going to be reversed,” Mr. Trump told them, saying that from now on, the United States would sign trade deals only with individual allies. “I think you’re going to have a lot of companies come back to our country.”

Mr. Trump may also move quickly to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. He is scheduling meetings with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, the two main partners in that pact, which was negotiated by President George Bush and pushed through Congress by President Bill Clinton.


While Nafta has been a major driver of American trade for nearly two decades, it has long been divisive, with critics blaming it for lost jobs and lower wages.

But free-trade advocates said that in canceling the Pacific pact, Mr. Trump lost an agreement that had already renegotiated Nafta under more modern rules governing intellectual property, internet access and agriculture, since both Mexico and Canada were signatories.

He also undercut Mr. Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia and, critics said, essentially ceded the field to China, which was not part of the agreement.


“There’s no doubt that this action will be seen as a huge, huge win for China,” Michael B. Froman, the trade representative who negotiated the pact for Mr. Obama, said in an interview. “For the Trump administration, after all this talk about being tough on China, for their first action to basically hand the keys to China and say we’re withdrawing from our leadership position in this region is geostrategically damaging.”

Some Republicans agreed, but only a few would publicly challenge the president. Senator John McCain of Arizona called the decision “a serious mistake” that would hurt America. “It will send a troubling signal of American disengagement in the Asia-Pacific region at a time we can least afford it,” he said in a statement.


The Obama administration negotiated the trade pact for nearly eight years. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other congressional Republicans worked with Mr. Obama to pass legislation granting so-called fast-track authority to negotiate it over Democratic objections.

But Mr. Obama never submitted the final agreement for approval amid vocal opposition.

The agreement, the largest regional trade accord ever, brought together the United States and 11 other nations in a free-trade zone for about 40 percent of the world’s economy. It was intended to lower tariffs while establishing rules for resolving trade disputes, setting patents and protecting intellectual property.

Obama officials argued that it benefited the United States by opening markets while giving up very little in return. In particular, it finally brought the United States and Japan, the world’s largest and third-largest economies, together in a free-trade pact.

Mr. Trump’s decision was crushing for Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spent considerable political capital to get the agreement through Parliament, which ratified it Friday.


Just hours before Mr. Trump dispensed with it, Mr. Abe told Parliament that Tokyo would lobby the new administration on the merits of the deal.

Japan was the last to join the pact, which would give its manufacturers tariff-free access to export markets in the United States and other Asian countries, but would bring its automakers into competition with lower-wage countries like Mexico.

Mr. Abe became a strong enthusiast after making politically painful concessions on agricultural imports that the United States had sought.


China, by contrast, welcomed Mr. Trump’s move, although its leaders will probably relish the moment quietly.

Given Mr. Trump’s harsh attacks on China and his appointment of a leading China critic, Peter Navarro, to the new post of trade council director, Beijing is bracing for a potentially combative relationship.

Victor Shih, an expert on China’s political economy at the University of California, San Diego, said withdrawing from the T.P.P. would alter America’s image in the region. “The U.S. will be seen as an unreliable partner both economically and perhaps even in the security arena,” he said. “While some countries in Asia have no choice but to be close to the U.S., others may begin to look to China.”


China has already sought to capitalize by making a push to complete an alternative pact, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which aims to unite 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.

Australia’s trade minister, Steven Ciobo, said on Monday that other members of the trade pact were exploring whether to create a “T.P.P. minus one,” without the United States.


“The T.P.P. offers very material benefits for all parties that signed up for the agreement,” he said in an interview. “It would be a great shame to lose those benefits. Notwithstanding President Trump’s decision, there’s still a lot of merits to capturing those gains.”

If Mr. Trump scrambled coalitions overseas, he did so at home, too.


Democrats and labor groups praised his move. James P. Hoffa, general president of the Teamsters union, said Mr. Trump had “taken the first step toward fixing 30 years of bad trade policies.” Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said it would “bury the moldering corpse” of the Pacific deal, though she expressed concern about how Nafta would be renegotiated.


Some people emerging from the union meeting with Mr. Trump, who won surprising victories in Midwestern labor strongholds, expressed enthusiasm for both his trade action and his promise to build new roads, bridges and other infrastructure.


“We just had probably the most incredible meeting of our careers,” Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, said. “We will work with him and his administration to help him implement his plans on infrastructure, trade and energy policy, so we really do put America back to work.”

TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PROMISES (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION)

"You look at our Borders, they're like Swiss cheese."
Donald J. Trump, 2016


TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PROMISES (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION):

HE FOCUSES ON PROTECTING AMERICA'S BORDERS.

CRITICIZES GENERAL MOTORS FOR MANUFACTURING CARS IN MEXICO.

PLEASE PRAY FOR ALL U.S. MILITARY TROOPS & VETS.


Sources: DonaldTrump.com, CNBC, Fox News, Reuters, Youtube



***** Donald J. Trump’s 10 Point Plan to Put America First


1. Begin working on an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on day one. Mexico will pay for the wall.

2. End catch-and-release. Under a Trump administration, anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country.

3. Move criminal aliens out day one, in joint operations with local, state, and federal law enforcement. We will terminate the Obama administration’s deadly, non-enforcement policies that allow thousands of criminal aliens to freely roam our streets.

4. End sanctuary cities.

5. Immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties. All immigration laws will be enforced - we will triple the number of ICE agents. Anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country.

6. Suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur, until proven and effective vetting mechanisms can be put into place.

7. Ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported.

8. Ensure that a biometric entry-exit visa tracking system is fully implemented at all land, air, and sea ports.

9. Turn off the jobs and benefits magnet. Many immigrants come to the U.S. illegally in search of jobs, even though federal law prohibits the employment of illegal immigrants.

10. Reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, keeping immigration levels within historic norms.

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



**** Trump team seeks agency records on border barriers, surveillance

In a wide-ranging request for documents and analysis, President-elect Donald Trump's transition team asked the Department of Homeland Security last month to assess all assets available for border wall and barrier construction.

The team also asked about the department's capacity for expanding immigrant detention and about an aerial surveillance program that was scaled back by the Obama administration but remains popular with immigration hardliners. And it asked whether federal workers have altered biographic information kept by the department about immigrants out of concern for their civil liberties.

The requests were made in a Dec. 5 meeting between Trump's transition team and Department of Homeland Security officials, according to an internal agency memo reviewed by Reuters. The document offers a glimpse into the president-elect's strategy for securing the U.S. borders and reversing polices put in place by the Obama administration.

Trump's transition team did not comment in response to Reuters inquiries. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment.

In response to the transition team request, U.S. Customs and Border Protection staffers identified more than 400 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, and about the same distance along the U.S.-Canada border, where new fencing could be erected, according to a document seen by Reuters.

Reuters could not determine whether the Trump team is considering a northern border barrier. During the campaign, Trump pledged to build a wall and expand fencing on parts of the U.S.-Mexico border but said he sees no need to build a wall on the border with Canada.

One program the transition team asked about, according to the email summary, was Operation Phalanx, an aerial surveillance program that authorizes 1,200 Army National Guard airmen to monitor the southern border for drug trafficking and illegal migration.

The program once deployed 6,000 airmen under President George W. Bush but was downsized by Barack Obama, a move blasted by some conservatives who argue the surveillance is vital to border security.

POLICY SHIFT

The transition team also asked for copies of every executive order and directive sent to immigration agents since Obama took office in 2009, according to the memo summarizing the meeting.

Trump has said he intends to undo Obama's executive actions on immigration, including a 2012 order to allow children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents to remain in the country on temporary authorizations that allow them to attend college and work.

The program, known as DACA, collected information including participants' addresses that could theoretically be used to locate and deport them if the policy is reversed. Another request of the transition team was for information about whether any migrant records have been changed for any reason, including for civil rights or civil liberties concerns, according to the internal memo seen by Reuters.

OBAMACARE UPDATE: Why Are Hospitals Turning Patients Away?? Can't Confirm COVERAGE!

#OBAMACARE

OBAMACARE UPDATE: So why are Patients being turned away at Hospitals??

Hospitals are claiming they can't Confirm proof of Coverage.

BUT WHERE IS THE GOP'S ALTERNATIVE??


ARTICLE: "Obamacare Patients Socked With Huge Cash Bills Flee Hospitals"


Staffers with at least one hospital in Northern Virginia turned away several patients this week due to confusion about Obamacare:

Were the patients covered by insurance or not?

Some patients walked away when they learned that the hospital would be charging them hundreds of dollars for treatment because they couldn’t prove their enrollment in the federal health care system.

“They had no idea if my insurance was active or not,” one woman, Maria Galvez, said to The Daily Mail, outside the Inova Healthplex facility in Springfield, Va. So instead of paying the $500 or more for her needed chest x-ray, she left – untreated, the paper reported.

“The people in there told me that since I didn’t have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,” she said. “It’s not fair. You know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.”

Ms. Galvez said she had enrolled in Carefirst Blue Cross three days before Christmas, for $450 per month.

At the same time, she said, in The Daily Mail, “no one has sent me a bill.”

Ms. Galvez’s experience was shared by others.

A woman who asked to be published only by the name Mary said she couldn’t receive emergency services at the Inova Alexandria Hospital down the road, in Alexandria, Va., for the same reason.

“I had chest pains last night,” she said to The Daily Mail, on Thursday. “They took me in the emergency room. They told me they were going to admit me, but when I told them I hadn’t heard from my insurance company since I signed up, they changed their tune.”

She said that a nurse told her that her hospital bill would be at least $3,000 a day if she stayed, due to her inability to prove insurance coverage.

Rather than stay and pay, she left.

“Should I be in the hospital? Probably,” she said, The Daily Mail reported.

“Maybe it’s one of those borderline cases. I have to think that if I were really in danger, they wouldn’t give me the choice. But what if I think I’m covered and I’m really not? The emergency room bill is going to bad enough.”

Source: Daily Mail, Washington Times

AL QAEDA & MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD Regaining Control Of The MIDDLE EAST (They Are NOT "On The Run"!)

#ALQAEDA

AL QAEDA & the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD is gaining Strength in the MIDDLE EAST.

I thought in 2012 while on the campaign trail Pres OBAMA claimed "AL QAEDA was on the run".





ARTICLE: "The Muslim Brotherhood, Back In A Fight To Survive"


They hide in safe houses on the outskirts of this city, talk only fleetingly on cellphones and avoid the cafes where they used to meet. Heavy scarves obscure their identities when they venture out to join protests.


The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, now outlawed, have adjusted to life underground, even while hundreds of their fellow members have been arrested in this city since the military deposed President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, and the Egyptian government branded the group a terrorist movement.

Yet, rather than crack and disintegrate under the pressure, members say, the group has fallen back on the organizational structure that sustained it for decades as a banned and secretive movement. It is becoming more decentralized, but also more cohesive and rigid, as its members abandon activities like preaching and social work and shift their attention to a virtually singular goal: resistance to the military-backed government.

Their focus, many Brotherhood members say, is a protracted, grinding struggle.

“There is a vision of a political confrontation that can go on for years,” said one leader, a 33-year-old architect in Fayoum, an Islamist stronghold. He, along with other members, spoke in a cafe for a time, but changed locations after suspecting the employees were eavesdropping.

“This is our persistence stage,” he said. “We are trying to stand up as long as we can.”

The Brotherhood’s endurance so far all but ensures that Egypt will continue to be troubled by civil conflict. And it raises further doubts about the government’s attempts to extinguish a movement that has resisted such efforts since its founding more than 80 years ago and that draws support from hundreds of thousands of members and millions of affiliates and sympathizers throughout the country.

Although leaders of the group say they remain committed to protests to express their activism, some members said that many of its sympathizers were increasingly talking of violence.

“I know people who are not Muslim brothers who say, ‘We’ll get your rights back for you,’ ” said Ramadan Fadel, a 27-year-old member in Fayoum who said that an acquaintance had told him that people were ready to take up arms to protect the group.

In places like Mansoura, north of Cairo, where the Brotherhood’s footprint is smaller, there was less talk of confrontation than of survival, beginning with the difficulty of attracting new recruits. “Who would want to undergo this repression?” asked a doctor who lives just outside the city and who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

Some members described the conflict as a zero-sum game between the military and the Brotherhood. Underscoring the perils of that conflict, at least 13 people were killed on Friday during Brotherhood marches throughout the country in some of the deadliest clashes in months.

“Our backs are against the wall,” the doctor said. The military, he added, “has left us only one path.”

After the ouster of Mr. Morsi, the few government ministers who spoke of reconciliation complained that the Brotherhood was unyielding in its demands, even as hard-liners escalated a crackdown on the movement, killing hundreds of protesters and imprisoning almost every senior leader. Now the hawks are ascendant, no one talks of compromise and officials openly accuse the Brotherhood of carrying out deadly and spectacular attacks on the security services, even when unrelated militant groups claim responsibility for such attacks.

Last week, for instance, Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, a government hard-liner, accused the Brotherhood of conspiring to carry out “hostile schemes” over the years with “extremist factions,” including Palestinian militants.

In reality, though, the roots of the government’s problems are much closer to home.

In cities like Mansoura, the doctor said, members have continued to attend the small, weekly “family” meetings that are considered the most critical building blocks of the organization, and the wellspring of the brotherhood’s cohesion and its ideology.

In many neighborhoods in Fayoum, campaign posters for Mr. Morsi still hang on the walls, evidence of the futility of the government’s campaign, Brotherhood members say.

For now, Brotherhood members in Fayoum said they were concentrating on replenishing their ranks, reaching out to new recruits while trying to coax lapsed, older members into more active service. Four of the members, including a senior leader, detailed the movement’s strategy, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared drawing further attention from the authorities.

Efforts to keep the movement alive began after Mr. Morsi’s ouster in July, the members said, when leaders appointed deputies, who in turn appointed their own deputies, to ensure a continuity of leadership as the crackdown on protests intensified. As thousands of Islamists from across the country demonstrated in Cairo for the return of Mr. Morsi, meetings were held in the squares where the protests occurred, near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque and at Cairo University.

When the authorities stormed the squares on Aug. 14, killing hundreds of protesters, the Brotherhood faced its greatest organizational crisis, the members said. “It took about 15 days to absorb the shock, and get back to our grass roots,” said one member, a 26-year-old veterinarian. “Now we’re expanding.”

Still, a growing pressure on the Brotherhood has forced adjustments. Meetings are now held in private homes, and members approach security checkpoints and attend protests assuming they will be arrested. Some of the protests have become more like flash mobs, with demonstrators scattering quickly to avoid a heavy security response.

Some of the older Brotherhood leaders, for whom living under repression had become a way of life, boasted about the movement’s tenacity.

But for younger members, facing the wrath of the state was still a shock. Mr. Fadel, the 27-year-old, said he had become terrified of being singled out as a member of the Brotherhood by people on the street. His family has also pressured him to leave the movement.

Having been wounded by birdshot during protests, he said, he had prepared himself for the likelihood that he would be killed. “For now I see no future,” he said. “I fear for my family.”

With the group’s narrow focus on survival, there was little talk about the long-term direction of the movement, or the mistakes during Mr. Morsi’s time in power, a tenure that ended with millions of angry Egyptians on the streets demanding his ouster. The Brotherhood members talked about a few “errors” but mostly complained about what they said were conspiracies that doomed their rule.

Their official demand, that the military takeover be reversed, has not changed since July. On the horizon were nothing but protests and some unspecified type of resistance that the leaders in Fayoum promised to unveil on Jan. 25, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

In Mansoura, where a bombing last month was followed by retaliatory violence against the Brotherhood, the members of the movement have faced greater difficulties. The doctor said he and other members had learned to live by new rules.

“Don’t stand in the street together for too long,” the doctor said. “If you have money, gold or documents that are important for you or the Muslim Brotherhood, take them to a relative or a friend you trust.”

“We’re now placed in the same boat,” he said. “We must be tighter together than we were before, so the crisis passes.”


Sources: Fox News, NY Times, Youtube

MILLIONAIRE TAX: France's Pres Francois Hollande Keeps His Campaign Promise ("FAIR SHARE")

#MillionaireTAX

MILLIONAIRE TAX: FRANCE MAKES RICH PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE

PRES HOLLANDE KEEPS HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE (WHERE'S PRES OBAMA??)


"France's 75% Millionaire Tax To Become Law"

French President François Hollande had been pushing for a 75% tax on the super-rich since his 2012 presidential campaign.

France's controversial "millionaire tax" is set to become law, allowing the government to levy a 75% tax on companies that pay salaries in excess of €1 million.

The tax was approved by France's constitutional council on Sunday after an earlier version was deemed unconstitutional last year.

President François Hollande introduced the tax as a way to force the rich to help France shrink its massive budget deficit and support the sagging economy.

It had originally been created as a tax on individuals, but was eventually shifted to a tax on companies paying high annual salaries.

According to the constitutional council, employers must pay the levy on salaries exceeding €1 million ($1.4 million) a year.

The tax will apply for two years -- 2013 and 2014 -- and will not be allowed to surpass 5% of a company's annual revenue.

Hollande has said the new tax is "symbolic" and designed to make a political statement about economic fairness.

The tax is not ultimately expected to be a big money-maker, with the French government estimating the tax will affect roughly 470 companies.

"This tax was born in the heat of Hollande's [2012] presidential campaign," said James Shields, a professor of French politics at Aston University in the U.K. "It's only a tax for two years. It's temporary. So yes, this is highly symbolic."

The tax proposals prompted a severe backlash from high-profile business people, movie stars and soccer clubs.

Earlier this year, French soccer clubs had threatened to boycott a number of matches after learning they would not be exempt from the tax, though the boycotts were later called off.

The initial tax proposal also prompted famous French actor Gerard Depardieu to take up Russian citizenship to protest against the tax.

Source: CNN Money

Pat McCrory Unveils His 2012 NC Gubernatorial Campaign Agenda: Education, Jobs, Small Business & Transportation!

McCrory says 2012 campaign message won't change


Hours from formally entering the race, Republican candidate Pat McCrory said Monday that the departure of Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue from the 2012 gubernatorial campaign won't alter his message of overhauling North Carolina state government.

McCrory, who will kick off his campaign Tuesday at a Guilford County meeting hall, said he's sticking with the same plan he had before Perdue announced last week that she won't seek re-election a move that's created a Democratic primary race and sent other potential candidates scrambling.

McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor who narrowly lost to Perdue in the 2008 general election, said it wasn't a total shock that he would no longer face a once-likely rematch with Perdue this fall.

"Our schedule has not changed. Our message won't change and our strategy won't change," McCrory said. "This scenario is one we saw potentially happening, so it didn't come as a huge surprise because we knew she's been in trouble for various reasons, and part of it was me being a strong candidate."

McCrory said Perdue's departure would allow many Democrats who felt obliged to support their party's incumbent to back his campaign, noting that "phones have been ringing off the hook" in recent days.

He had already found some success during 2011 with receiving contributions from Democrats who had supported Perdue in 2008.

Still, he said, he expects the campaign to be hard-fought, regardless of his eventual opponent.

Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and state Rep. Bill Faison of Orange County already are running in the Democratic primary, and a half dozen others are considering whether to become gubernatorial candidates in a compressed time schedule filing starts in two weeks and the primary is May 8.

Thirteenth District Congressman Brad Miller and former State Treasurer Richard Moore released statements Monday that they're still considering bids, while Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said he will not run.

Democrats also are encouraging former University of North Carolina President Erskine Bowles to run.

McCrory took aim at Perdue's plan to press lawmakers for more education spending, including her call for a 0.75-cent increase to the state sales tax rate to help restore some of the funds schools lost in last year's budget battle.

"She's asking for a 15 percent sales tax increase during one of the worst recessions and highest unemployment rates this state has seen (in) decades," he said. "That's the last thing we need to do.

"We need to reform and fix the (tax) system we have now before we ask the public and struggling businesses for any more money," he said.

He also began laying out his legislative priorities, such as paying teachers for performance, opening up North Carolina for more energy exploration and changing the system of incentives the state uses to attract businesses.

"It's gotten so bad that we have to offer cash upfront for outside companies to come to North Carolina, and there is no guarantee (of jobs), regardless of what they say," he said. "We should have a consistent policy for the whole team, including existing businesses."

McCrory declined to single out any potential Democratic opponent, but he said he believes all of the possible candidates have a common thread they enabled the Democratic policies of the past dozen years under Perdue and predecessor Mike Easley that he insists have broken state government.

"All of them have been closely linked with the Easley-Perdue culture and policy," he said, adding that he hopes to change the culture of state government.

"The only thing I take to my grave is my ethics," he said. "I take those values to the executive branch of North Carolina government as I did to the mayor's office in Charlotte."

If McCrory gets a clear path to the primary he's spent the past year trying to close out potential GOP competitors by running a quasi-campaign of speeches and fundraising he'll keep accumulating money while Democrats battle it out for at least three months to win their nomination.

McCrory "has the ability to focus on the November election and not the primary," said Paul Shumaker, a longtime Republican consultant whose clients have included U.S. Sen. Richard Burr. And with more than $2 million in his campaign coffers at the end of last year, McCrory has a definite money advantage over all of the announced candidates, Shumaker said.

But McCrory's campaign will have to do some retooling for another candidate, and the uncertainty of who that person will be could take him out of his comfort zone, said Dennis Wicker, the Democratic lieutenant governor from 1993 to 2001.

"It's a game change for Pat," Wicker said of Perdue's decision. "I'm sure it's thrown them off stride a little."


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Sources: WRAL, Google Maps

Obama Vows To Protect Social Security & Medicare: 2008 Campaign Promises!

Obama to shield Social Security in deficit-reduction

President Barack Obama will shield Social Security from cuts in his new deficit-reduction plan, the White House said Thursday, pulling back on a key concession from his failed “grand bargain” negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner.

“The president’s recommendation for deficit reduction will not include any changes to Social Security because, as the president has consistently said, he does not believe that Social Security is a driver of our near and medium term deficits,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement. “He believes that both parties need to work together on a parallel track to strengthen Social Security for future generations rather than taking a piecemeal approach as part of a deficit reduction plan.”

Obama’s decision means changes to the inflation calculator for Social Security will not be in the package, according to the White House.

It also will allow him to avoid a clash with his Democratic base over the popular retirement program at a time when he needs their support more than ever, both to push for his $447 billion jobs program and to buck up his lagging poll numbers.

Medicare could be a different story, though, as the White House revisits some unpopular ideas from the talks with Boehner (R-Ohio).

Obama angered Democrats when he agreed to slice more than $250 billion from Medicare, in part by gradually raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 and hiking premiums for wealthier recipients. Those ideas remain under discussion, according to officials familiar with the White House deliberations, but progressives have been pressing the White House to avoid addressing Medicare all together.

The president’s political challenge is acute. He has pledged repeatedly to offer a “very specific” plan Monday, but that means touching popular entitlement programs, infuriating his Democratic base and diverting attention once again from his jobs push.

Senior administration officials said this week that the deficit plan would not resemble a legislative compromise. Instead, it would follow the framework Obama released in April, a proposal that detailed only in broad strokes how he would cut $4 trillion over 12 years. It did not include specific recommendations on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Only a few weeks ago, the White House had signaled that Obama could endorse some controversial deficit-cutting measures that he had previously backed only behind closed doors, the officials said.

As part of those talks, Obama and Boehner decided that Congress would make changes to Social Security that boosted its solvency. They also agreed to modify the inflation calculator — a move that Democratic critics cast as a benefits cut.

If he sidesteps the most divisive issues, Obama would face a fresh wave of criticism from Republicans, who have needled him for months to go on the record with his plan — a bid to draw him into the entitlement debate, which has stung the GOP after it passed a budget phasing out traditional Medicare.

Presenting his $447 billion jobs bill to a joint session of Congress last Thursday, Obama said his deficit reduction plan would be “ambitious.”

“It’s a balanced plan that would reduce the deficit by making additional spending cuts, by making modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and by reforming our tax code in a way that asks the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share,” Obama said.

The president is also likely to renew his call to raise new revenues by increasing taxes on high-end earners and overhauling the tax code. Before the “grand bargain” talks fell apart, Boehner and Obama agreed to raise $800 billion in new revenues over the next decade.

The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post first reported details of the emerging deficit plan.


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Sources: Americas Future, Politico, Youtube, Google Maps