"President Donald Trump's tax reform framework could raise GDP by as much as 5 percent and wages by as much as 7 percent, according to a new study from Boston University economists.

"'We find that, depending on the year considered, the new Republican tax plan raises GDP by between 3 and 5 percent and real wages by between 4 and 7 percent,' the economists explain. 'This translates into roughly $3,500 annually more annual real take-home pay for the average American household.'

"Economists believe this growth can happen due to the plan's aim to reduce the marginal effective corporate tax rate from 34.6 percent to 18.6 percent, which they believe will grow the capital stock by 12 to 20 percent."

"At last America is once again unified. We are, it turns out, all racists.

"Because if retired Marine General and current White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a Gold Star dad among so many other distinctions, is a racist, then every last one of us is.

"This is according to the great titan of objective intellect, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson of South Florida. Somewhere, one of the buffoonish characters of a Carl Hiaasen novel jumped out of the pages and ran for Congress.

"Congresswoman Wilson is living proof that, literally, anyone -- no matter how stupid -- can get elected to Congress. And the fact that there is actually a party in American politics that would allow someone so dumb in their caucus only proves how unseriously Democrats take themselves and how much contempt party leaders have for innocent American voters. ...

"For the good of humanity -- not to mention the notion of self-governance in America -- this woman must be removed from office."

"History will record that the Islamic State caliphate -- a bizarre pseudo-state founded on illusory goals, created by a global horde of jihadis, and enforced with perverted viciousness -- survived for three years, three months and some eighteen days. The fall of Raqqa, the nominal ISIS capital, was proclaimed on Tuesday by the U.S.-backed militia that spearheaded the offensive, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias advised by U.S. Special Forces. Mopping-up operations were still going on (especially around the Raqqa stadium, which ISIS fighters had converted into an arms depot and prison), but the liberation of Raqqa marked the symbolic demise of the Islamic State's rule.

"'How far they've fallen. It's a striking contrast to three years ago, when they planted the flag, in the summer of 2014, and proclaimed God's kingdom on Earth had come again -- and now they've evaporated,' Will McCants, the author of the best-selling book 'The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State,' told me.

"'There are other places for ISIS to go and survive, but there's something special about Syria and Iraq and the Fertile Crescent,' McCants, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said. 'It's the theatre of prophecy. It's where the apocalyptic drama unfolds. It's the heartland of the historic caliphate, and it's the scene of the final end-of-times drama, as predicted by Islamic scripture. Nowhere else in the Islamic world compares with it.'

"McCants said that the fall of Raqqa, a city that was once home to more than two hundred thousand Syrians but is now mostly destroyed, will weaken the group's ability to recruit fighters and inspire attacks. 'The fight will go on, and ISIS will morph into an insurgency and may try to re-establish another state, but, for now, it's a crushing blow,' he said. 'ISIS put all its chips on creating a state and taking territory as proof of its divine mandate. Some of its followers now have to have doubts.'"

"No one really knows all that much about North Korea's nuclear or conventional military capability or its strategic agenda. Are its nuclear missiles reliably lethal, are they as long-ranged and accurate as hyped, and are they under secure command and control?

"Conventional wisdom states that Seoul would be destroyed in minutes by at least 10,000 North Korean artillery and rocket batteries that are now aimed from right across the Demilitarized Zone. Such guns are said to be capable of firing 500,000 rounds within a few minutes.

"As a result, South Korea and its allies are supposed to be veritable hostages, with no strategic choices in countering North Korea's newly enhanced nuclear threat.

"But is Seoul really being held hostage, and would it be doomed if war broke out?

"In fact, no one can be sure of the actual size, nature, and readiness of the North Korea arsenal -- or the degree to which it is coordinated and effectively aimed. Much less does anyone know how well North Korea's guns have been pre-targeted by American and South Korean planes, counter-batteries, and missiles."

Read entire article here.

"Nearly half of voters, 46 percent, believe the news media fabricate news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

"Just 37 percent of voters think the media do not fabricate stories, the poll shows, while the remaining 17 percent are undecided.

"More than three-quarters of Republican voters, 76 percent, think the news media invent stories about Trump and his administration, compared with only 11 percent who don't think so. Among Democrats, one-in-five think the media make up stories, but a 65 percent majority think they do not. Forty-four percent of independent voters think the media make up stories about Trump, and 31 percent think they do not.

"Among the voters who strongly approve of Trump's job performance in the poll, 85 percent believe the media fabricate stories about the president and his administration."

"Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin's atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.

"Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.

"They also obtained an eyewitness account -- backed by documents -- indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill."

Read entire article here.

"Let's view President Trump's executive orders as a kick in the rear of Congress to finally act on health care, and in a way that benefits consumers more than insurance companies. ...

"President Obama conspired with Congress to allow its members and staff to buy insurance under ObamaCare though the District of Columbia's small-business exchange, where they received the same employer subsidies they had gotten before the Affordable Care Act.

"In 2014, a federal judge concluded the 'executive branch has rewritten a key provision of the Affordable Care Act so as to render it essentially meaningless in order to save members of Congress and their staffs.' But the judge then concluded that those fighting to overturn the exemption for Congress lacked standing to sue because they hadn't been personally injured by it.

"President Trump can follow up on his cancellation of the bailout to Big Insurance by telling members of Congress his next step will be to zero out their exemption, an action which would throw both members and staff on the individual ObamaCare exchanges. Now that would finally put a fire under Congress for real action."

Read entire article here.

"Gen. John Kelly stepped to the podium in the White House briefing room and delivered a bare-bottom, wire-brush, red-rash public spanking of the political press Thursday -- the likes of which we have never seen in the age of modern media. Except, perhaps, every single time President Trump addresses the media or hurls fiery bolts of Twitter lightning in their general direction.

"But as mere mortals go -- even the U.S. Marine general variety -- Mr. Kelly's was a virtuoso performance.

"Blunt where bluntness was needed. Elegant where elegance was warranted. And throughout, incredibly funny and brutally scathing, even in his kindness.

"'You need to develop better sources,' he told reporters flatly, without a hint of gaiety. Nervous laughter from the assembled press corps."

"Many people seem shocked by claims from a former New York Times reporter who says the newspaper sat on her 2004 information exposing alleged sexual misconduct by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. (The Times told Newsweek they would have only withheld information for good reason.)

"The Weinstein question aside, I can tell you that every day, in newsrooms around the country, stories are killed because powerful people know how to get them killed.

"Recently, a former managing editor of Time magazine said that the only bias reporters have is their bias to get a great story on the front page. That may be true of good journalists -- and there are many. But good journalists' intentions are impacted by managers and editors with authority to shape and censor; by managers and editors who are lobbied, enticed, pushed, pressed, cajoled and threatened by PR companies, crisis management specialists, global law firms, super PACs, advertisers, 'nonprofits,' business interests, political figures, famous people, important people, wealthy people, and their own corporate bosses.

"An entire industry has been built around companies and operatives that work to get stories placed, discredited or wiped. They obfuscate, confuse and attack. Their targets include ideas they oppose, whistleblowers and advocates who are exposing the truth, journalists uncovering the facts, and news outlets publishing the stories."

"'There must be some kind of way outta here' said the joker to the thief in Bob Dylan's song, adding, 'There's too much confusion / I can't get no relief.' Dylan could hardly have chosen better words if he'd been writing about Obamacare and Republican efforts to repeal the confusing web of regulations, taxes, and mandates.

"The Trump administration, thankfully, is poised to grant some relief through executive action later this week. The president's action should give health insurance customers at least a few ways outta the Obamacare confusion by allowing them sometimes to buy insurance across state lines, by expanding health savings accounts, and by quadrupling the upper limit on short-term health insurance plans from three months to nearly a year.

"Best of all, Trump will use 'association health plans' to sell insurance across state lines. This unconfirmed but promising modification would allow people or small groups to join association plans, which carry the privileges and benefits of an employer-sponsored plan. Those benefits include group pricing, which is cheaper, and exemption from most of Obamacare's costly mandates. These plans could be sold by providers in one state to buyers in another state, meaning they'd generally be less regulated than today's plans. ...

"So yes, Trump should sign this executive order, and it will be celebrated not just by the administration but by all those who suffer under Obamacare. But Republicans in Congress must pass reform legislation or get their just deserts at the ballot box.

"As Bob Dylan wrote, 'The hour is getting late.'"

Read entire article here.