"It won't be official until the House does its re-vote on Wednesday, but Senate passage of the tax-cut bill was the last real hurdle: Taxes are about to come down for all Americans except a few top earners in high-tax states.

"And the business tax cuts should get the US economy roaring again. The Obama doldrums are really, truly over.

"Hysterics from Democrats and most of the media have the public doubting it's a win for the average Joe. But moderates will come around when they see their first paycheck of the new year, get a new job or a raise or see other benefits of the coming boom."

"...[E]ven limiting oneself to contemplation of the most obvious accomplishments, Trump should be credited, in his first year, with cutting taxes, nearly wiping a potent foreign enemy off the map, and placing excellent jurists on the federal bench.

"The wails of his opponents, most comically and hyperbolically represented by the cry of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that the tax bill is 'Armageddon' and 'the end of the world,' amply demonstrate that Trump, far from having no accomplishments, is getting rather a lot done."

"In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

"The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

"Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah's illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

"They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

"But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests."

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"It's this close: Republicans in the House and Senate have struck a $1.5 trillion tax-cut deal that could put the economy on a fast track for years.

"All they need is to put the final touches on the bill and pass it in both chambers. President Trump could sign it by Christmas.

"That would be a major win -- not just for Trump and the GOP, but for America. ...

"This is no time for spoilers. Americans need this tax cut. Pass it, guys -- now."

"[Y]ounger readers may not recall how ruthless the Clinton administration was in attacking independent counsel Ken Starr, who investigated former President Bill Clinton's obvious perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. The Clintons were violent counterpunchers before Trump was, and they made sure anyone who tried to hold them accountable paid the price for such insolence.

"Clinton officials such as James Carville and Paul Begala regularly took to cable television shows to attack Starr personally and viciously. The Clinton White House polled daily on Starr's reputation and practiced every method to bring his approval down, effectively turning him into a partisan punching bag rather than a lawman.

"Trump and his White House have not stooped to the Clintons' level and we hope they don't."

"The co-founder of Trump dossier firm Fusion GPS confirmed in court filings on Tuesday that he met last year with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and hired Ohr's wife to help with the opposition research firm's investigation of Donald Trump.

"Glenn Simpson said in a declaration filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. that he met 'at [Ohr's] request' weeks after the presidential election. Simpson stated that Ohr, who recently held the position of deputy assistant attorney general, sought the meeting 'to discuss our findings regarding Russia and the election.'

"Simpson also disclosed that Fusion GPS hired Ohr's wife, Nellie, to serve as a subcontractor on Trump-related work."

"[T]he only remaining trajectory by which Mueller and his investigators can escape with their reputations intact is to dismiss those staff attorneys who have exhibited clear anti-Trump political sympathies, reboot the investigation, and then focus on what now seems the most likely criminal conduct: Russian and Clinton-campaign collusion in the creation of the anti-Trump Fusion GPS dossier and later possible U.S. government participation in the dissemination of it. If such a fraudulent document was used to gain court approval to surveil Trump associates, and under such cover to unmask and leak names of private U.S. citizens -- at first to warp a U.S. election, and then later to thwart the work of an incoming elected administration -- then Mueller will be tasked with getting to the bottom of one of the greatest political scandals in recent U.S. history. Indeed, his legacy may not be that he welcomed in known pro-Clinton, anti-Trump attorneys to investigate the Trump 2016 campaign where there was little likelihood of criminality, but that he ignored the most egregious case of government wrongdoing in the last half-century."

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"When the chips are down, Democrats care more about their wealthiest constituents than their poorer constituents. The latter group will benefit from the Republican tax bill's larger standard deduction. The truth is that the Democrats' populist tax rhetoric has been a complete fraud, a deceptive and self-serving camouflage for Republican promises to cut taxes, which would be widely and wildly popular if not so traduced.

"Especially on the state and local tax deduction, Democrats' rhetoric has been all about protecting their pals in Democrat-led state legislatures who favor high state and local taxes. Indeed, part of the case made for those high taxes is that are federally deductible, so other people will end up subsidizing the payment of the check. High taxes go to fund their pals in public sector labor unions, who in turn fund Democratic politicians, who in turn protect the state and local tax deduction, and so on in an unending and unvirtuous circle. ...

"If GOP tax reform passes, liberal states will finally have to pay the full burden of the high taxes that their Democratic politicians impose. Perhaps the loss of the deduction will at last do something to teach voters to elect fiscally responsible governments. In New Jersey, Democratic legislative leaders are already considering reforming their tax code to mitigate the damage. That sounds like good news. Just imagine the beneficial ripple effect if the tax bill passes and becomes law."

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"The House Ethics Committee on Thursday night cleared Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on allegations that he mishandled classified information when he said a Trump transition team member had their communications monitored by the U.S. intelligence community.

"A complaint was filed over the disclosed information, and Nunes announced he would step aside from leading the investigation into the Russia's meddling in the 2016 investigation.

"The Ethics Committee said that following the analysis from 'classification experts,' it has determined that what Nunes disclosed was not classified information, ending their investigation into the Republican lawmaker's comments."

"'This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality,' President Trump said in announcing America's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Never have truer words been spoken, and they were delivered in the best speech Trump has ever given.

"What Trump did was stunning. He could just have signed the waiver of the law passed in 1995 compelling the executive branch to move America's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He did it six months ago, just like his three immediate predecessors did every six months since 1996. Or he could have not signed the waiver and simply said he was going to start the process of building the new embassy.

"Instead, he called the international community's seven-decade bluff and ended a delusion about the future that has prevented Palestinians from seeing the world and their own geopolitical situation clearly. It is a bold shift."

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