Archive for the ‘Newt’ Category

This morning, Attorney General William Barr will testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Lindsey Graham. Less than 12 hours before Barr testifies, a supposed bombshell letter was leaked to the Washington Post.

The headline for the article was “Mueller complained that Barr’s letter did not capture ‘context’ of Trump probe.” As usual, the headline isn’t what’s important. That’s the clickbait portion of the article. The important portion of the article is where it says “A day after the letter was sent, Barr and Mueller spoke by phone for about 15 minutes, according to law enforcement officials. In that call, Mueller said he was concerned that news coverage of the obstruction investigation was misguided and creating public misunderstandings about the office’s work, according to Justice Department officials. When Barr pressed him whether he thought Barr’s letter was inaccurate, Mueller said he did not, but felt that the media coverage of the letter was misinterpreting the investigation, officials said.”

To be clear, there were some professional disagreements between Barr and Mueller, starting with this:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.

As with most supposed bombshells, this article is more dud than bombshell. Still, it’s sure to cause Senate Democrats to rattle their sabers this morning.

Let’s be clear about something. Newt Gingrich is right in calling the Caravan coming up from Central America an invasion. Gingrich also calls it an attack, which it most certainly is. Later in his op-ed, Gingrich warns Republicans what to expect:

The caravan of about 4,000 migrants from Central America seeking to enter Mexico and then the United States illegally is attempting to invade and attack the U.S. This assertion will almost certainly be denounced by the usual sources as being hateful or offensive, but it is long past time we stop letting the left prevent us from using words that clearly communicate reality.

I hate the Left’s euphemisms. When Antifa riots on the UCal-Berkeley campus, we’re told that they’re protesters.

That’s BS. When people get injured by mask-wearing haters, that’s a riot, not a protest. When ricin gets sent to Susan Collins’ home, that’s an attack. That isn’t a passive action. When Black Lives Matter throws concrete blocks at the police from a bridge in Minnesota, that’s a riot, not a protest.

The harsh lesson of 1986 was that liberals took the amnesty for 3 million illegal immigrants and then broke their word on controlling the border and creating an effective guest worker program.

That’s why Republicans should force Democrats to fully fund the wall once the election is over. Anything short of that is worth shutting the government over. Here’s why:

MS-13, the vicious El Salvadoran gang, killed 17 people on Long Island in New York in a 17-month period in 2016. The gang has an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 members in the United States. Fentanyl and opioids also come across the uncontrolled southern border. Last year, more than 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses – more than the number of Americans killed during the eight years of the Vietnam War.

Finally, it’s indisputable that walls work:

The construction of Israel’s security fence put an immediate and dramatic end to the Palestinian campaign of suicide bombing. By 2009, only 15 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorism, compared with 452 murdered in 2002, the year before construction began.

Then, let’s think of this:

Israel has demonstrated that a security barrier can be close to 100 percent effective in stopping illegal entry by migrants, terrorists, and drug traffickers. She has also shown how to build such barriers quickly and at surprisingly low cost. Soon after his inauguration, President Trump pointed out the effectiveness of Israel’s border fence to the President of Mexico, saying: “Israel has a wall and everyone said do not build a wall, walls do not work — 99.9 percent of people trying to come across that wall cannot get across.”

It’s time to build the wall and stop the flow of human traffickers, lethal drugs like Fentanyl and violent gangs like MS-13 into our country. If Democrats attempt to block that project, then it’s time to obliterate them in the next election. Period.

Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi made one of the most tone-deaf statements she’s ever made. That’s saying something, considering the amount of tone-deaf statements she’s made in her lifetime. With a new raft of illegal immigrants heading towards the US-Mexico border, she said “It happens to be like a manhood issue for the president, building a wall, and I’m not interested in that.”

Further, she said “We can’t allow him to say we’re not interested in protecting the border,” Pelosi said, adding that the wall is “probably the worst way to protect the border.”

That’s a lie. Just ask Israel if their wall has stopped terrorist attacks. (It’s stopped them cold.) For that matter, ask many limousine liberals who live in gated communities if walls work. Democrats know that walls work. Democrats just oppose walls because they prefer open borders. To be specific, one of their funders, George Soros, demands open borders.

Newt Gingrich brings the hammer down during this interview:

Newt’s right. This isn’t just about border security or Trump. This, in Newt’s words, is “about jobs vs. mobs”, too.

I’ve said this for months. Democrats are nuts beyond belief. Check out this article, then tell me that Democrats just want to represent people who work hard and play by the rules. Simply put, Democrats want to push their extremist agenda.

They had a chance to do something constructive. They had a chance to make deal with President Trump on DACA in exchange for funding the wall. Instead of Democrats saying yes, we got the #SchumerShutdown. Republicans should think about that before the election. Democrats picked shutting down the government over making a reasonable compromise.

Staying home is like voting for a radical Democrat. It’s that simple. If that’s what you want, stay home. If you’d prefer a continuation of this prosperity, you’d better get to your local polling station and vote Republican. Period.

IBD’s editorial on the state of the economy is great news for Republicans’ midterm hopes. It opens by saying “A new report shows that the median household income has climbed 3% since President Trump took office. It’s another sign of a strong economy, and at least one poll shows the public credits Trump for the good news. Should Democrats wave bye to the Blue Wave?”

After that, it mixes in statistics to strengthen its point. For instance, included in the article is the fact that the “latest IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index is 53.6. This index has been in positive territory (anything over 50 is optimistic) since Trump took office. The Quality of Life Index, meanwhile, hit a 14-year high in May and the Financial Stress Index is at an all-time low. Gallup’s tracking poll shows that 67% now say it’s a good time to find “a quality job in the U.S.,” which is the highest since Gallup started asking this question 17 years ago. The best this measure ever got under Obama was a paltry 45%. CNN’s poll finds that 57% now say ‘things are going well in the U.S.,’ up from just 49% in February. The latest CBS News/YouGov poll found that 64% rate the economy as somewhat or very good.”

This isn’t cherrypicking the only good news out of a gloomy economic report. This is reporting one bit of economic good news after another. The most important part is that President Trump and Republicans are getting the credit for these improvements:

But what must really concern Democrats is that 68% of the public now says Trump’s policies deserve at least some of the credit, according to the CBS poll. Thirty-five percent say he deserves a ‘great deal’ of credit for the current economy, while only 11% say he deserves none at all.

That isn’t good news for Democrats but that isn’t what should worry Democrats most. Here’s what Democrats should be most worried about. They don’t have a defense for unanimously voting against the Trump/GOP tax cuts. When the calendar flips to October and politicians make their final push towards the election, Democrats won’t have a legitimate defense for voting against the tax cuts. That’s precisely when most voters will finally start paying attention to the election and making their final decisions.

By the time the polls register that change, it’ll be too late for Democrats. Their political ship will have already hit the proverbial iceberg. Good luck with that.

That same poll found the Democratic advantage in the “generic ballot” at only +2 points. The latest Reuters poll has Republicans up by almost 6 points. As recently as March, Democrats had an average 9-point lead on this question, which is seen as an indicator of the enthusiasm for the two parties going into the midterm elections in November.

We’re heading into Memorial weekend. By the time Labor Day weekend rolls around, we’ll likely be looking at a significantly improved situation — for Republicans.

Technorati: Donald Trump, Generic Ballot Polling, Newt Gingrich, Economy, Tax Cuts, Republicans, Polling, Democrats, Midterm Elections

Newt Gingrich has always been good at shocking people. That isn’t to say that he’s wrong with these predictions. It’s just that Mr. Gingrich’s predictions don’t comply with the MSM’s predictions from within the DC echochamber.

Speaker Gingrich’s shocking predictions start virtually in the first paragraph when he said “The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory. After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.”

Saying that those predictions run contrary to conventional wisdom is understatement. Nonetheless, it’s worth looking at Gingrich’s logic. Specifically, Gingrich focused on a CBS News article featuring a “North Carolina single mother with an income slightly under $40,000 who didn’t think she would be affected will keep about $1,300 more per year under the GOP bill.” Then the article focused on two “college teachers in Rhode Island with a joint income of over $150,000 a year thought they would pay more taxes, but they will actually pay about $650 less under the GOP tax cut.” The article finished with “a California couple with three children, a small business, and earning an income of approximately $300,000. The family believed that because California is a high-tax state, that capping state and local tax deductions would really hurt them. Instead, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will save them nearly $13,000 in taxes.”

Imagine if people in the Midwest find out that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer lied to them about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Imagine what will happen when people find out that their Democrat representative or senator voted against these tax cuts. Finally, imagine how those people will feel if they find out that Democrats put a higher priority on winning political battles than they put on doing the right thing for families.

The gap between the news media falsehoods and the dramatically better reality of the GOP tax cuts will have three huge effects on the 2018 campaign:
1. The American people will be positively surprised and pleased by the degree to which Republicans kept their word and actually put more money in taxpayer pockets. After 10 months of frustration from trying to repeal Obamacare, Republicans have proven they can get big things done.
2. The news media’s dishonesty will be vivid at a personal level. People will be able to compare their personal experience with the news media’s fake reporting and endless bias. As the truth sinks in, the ability of the liberal media to shape opinion will decline even further.
3. Democrats who voted against the bill will live to regret it as people look at their family budgets and realize Democrats in the House and Senate wanted Washington bureaucrats to have more money, rather than hard-working Americans. This will certainly be a losing proposition for the 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states President Trump won in 2016.

I haven’t bought into the MSM’s doom-and-gloom-for-Republicans predictions, mostly because I still think people will change their mind when they find the outcome from this tax reform is significantly different than they were told it would be. I’m a firm believer in the old cliché that says “when the facts change, I change, too. What do you do, Sir?”

It isn’t stretch to think that people don’t like the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act because they’ve been told that it’s raising their taxes. Imagine what happens when people find that their taxes are actually getting cut. First, that’ll lead to a serious erosion of trust of Democrats.

There’s no doubt that this is contrarian stuff. Still, Gingrich has held awfully contrarian views for quite some time. In 1994, he told the world that Republicans would retake the House. Democrats, especially Vic Fazio, laughed. That November, Republicans won the House majority for the first time in 40 years.

I’m not predicting Republican gains in the House but I won’t bet against Gingrich, either.

The once-anticipated Democrat wave appears to be off to a bumpy start. Sen. Schumer said that Republicans will “rue the day” they pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Earlier this afternoon, Nancy Pelosi said that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the “worst bill in history.” If drama queen antics translate into votes, Democrats will have a supermajority in the House and a filibuster-proof Senate.

The bad news for Democrats is that drama queen antics don’t translate into votes. John Daniel Davidson’s article for the Federalist highlights the Democrats’ problem. In his article, Davidson wrote that “the main problem with the blue wave theory of 2018 is that it asks too much of the Democratic Party, which is riven by as much division and confusion as the GOP is, if not more. As Ed O’Keefe and Dave Weigel reported recently in The Washington Post, Democrats ‘can’t agree on what the party stands for. From immigration to banking reform to taxes to sexual harassment, many in the party say it does not have a unified message to spread around the country.’ The left-wing base of the Democratic Party seems content to go out and run on a promise to impeach the president on some grounds or other, even as centrist Democratic candidates that don’t toe the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren line on everything from health care to Wall Street regulations are left to fend for themselves. What’s worse, they have no economic message.”

In other words, the Democrats still have lots of problems. That’s been verified by this:

It’s pretty pathetic when Democrat protesters don’t show up for an anti-tax cut protest. It’s beyond pathetic when the protesters and Ms. Pelosi don’t show up for an anti-tax cut protest.

House Republicans, for all their difficulties this year, passed the bill 227-203 this afternoon. Tonight, Senate Republicans are expected to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 51-48, with all Republican senators still in DC voting for it. Sen. McCain is in Arizona getting treated at the Mayo Clinic for complications arising from his cancer treatment. In the first half of this video, Newt Gingrich lays out what’s likely to happen in 2018:

Once the tax tables get updated and people start seeing their paychecks get bigger and people who are currently unemployed get good-paying full-time jobs, reality will crush the Democrats because every Democrat in the House and Senate will have voted against tax cuts and more jobs.

When Sen. Schumer and Nancy Pelosi skipped their meeting with President Trump, they handed President Trump the easiest PR victory of his presidency. This picture is worth half a dozen Senate seats and a dozen House seats:

Ainsley Earhardt asked Newt Gingrich if it was genius on Trump’s part, to which Gingrich replied “It’s not genius walks up to you and hands you a big, easy win”:

Newt laid it out perfectly at the start of the interview, saying “Trump’s sitting there, saying ‘I’m trying to solve it; I wonder where they are.'” ‘Chuck and Nancy’ were literally nowhere to be found. That picture will be used against Democrat incumbents and challengers alike next fall. The message that picture will send is ‘we’re working for the American people. The Democrats are no-shows.’ Being a no-show is infinitely worse than being a do-nothing politician.

Later, Chuck and Nancy issued a joint statement, saying “Given that the president doesn’t see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead. Rather than going to the White House for a show meeting that won’t result in an agreement, we’ve asked Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan to meet this afternoon.” Speaker Ryan and Sen. McConnell sent their own message by showing up for the meeting with President Trump but rejected meeting with Chuck and Nancy.

Still later, Pelosi posted this tweet:

.@realDonaldTrump now knows that his verbal abuse will no longer be tolerated. His empty chair photo opp showed he’s more interested in stunts than in addressing the needs of the American people. Poor Ryan and McConnell relegated to props. Sad!

Pelosi and Schumer haven’t figured it out that their nonparticipation in negotiations is proof of their unseriousness. Acting like a pair of spoiled brats won’t win the fight with President Trump. He’s defeated them without them showing up. That’s too easy.

Once the tax bill is passed (yes, it’s happening) and the government is funded and the debt ceiling is raised, Republicans will return to tormenting Democrats, especially on the campaign trail.

If there’s a message coming from Newt Gingrich’s op-ed, it’s that Republicans must put together a compelling message to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Gingrich reminds Republicans that “passing serious legislation is very hard work. There is still a great deal to do, and the timeline is incredibly tight”, adding that “The Joint Committee on Taxation has already provided preliminary analysis for the bill. Its estimates are static and assume tax cuts will have no impact on growth. As a result of this bad assumption, the JCT incorrectly estimates the bill would create a significant budget shortfall, $1.43 trillion over 10 years.”

Gingrich continued, saying “The truth is, our gross domestic product is growing at 3 percent, largely due to deregulatory efforts by the Trump administration and the expectation of tax cuts. Passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would further spur GDP growth, so the bill should be scored dynamically. The Tax Foundation has made dynamic estimates on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which show the bill would ‘significantly lower marginal tax rates and the cost of capital, which would lead to 3.9 percent higher GDP over the long term, 3.1 percent higher wages, and an additional 975,000 full-time equivalent jobs.’ This economic growth would raise federal revenues by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years, according to the Tax Foundation. In the end, this new revenue could bring the bill close to neutral, depending on what baseline is used to score it.”

Let’s get serious about something. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will speed up the economy. That’s indisputable even though Nancy Pelosi insisted in this speech that it would kill jobs. Ms. Pelosi has told lots of whoppers in the past. This is another whopper. Republicans seem interested in self-destruction.

Sen. Lankford has announced his opposition to it because it supposedly increases the deficit. Here’s a simple question for Sen. Lankford. If Republicans fail to pass this bill, what’s the likelihood they’ll have to vote on a Democrat budget that would hurt job creation and economic growth? What’s the likelihood that a Democrat budget would increase the deficit more than this bill would?

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act isn’t perfect but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. There’s economic growth happening right now. This isn’t just the right time to pass tax cuts. It’s the best time to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Technorati: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Dynamic Scoring, Static Scoring, James Lankford, Job Creation, Economic Growth, Republicans, Deficits, Nancy Pelosi, Democrats

Much internet bandwidth has been used on who won Monday night’s presidential debate. Two of the best political thinkers think that Trump won. Pat Caddell, Jimmy Carter’s pollster, has some interesting statistics that indicate some interesting things that contradict conventional wisdom. In this article, Caddell notes that “48 percent said Clinton did a better job, compared to 43 percent, who said Trump did the better job” before noting “95 percent of the people we contacted told us they were not going to change their vote based on the debate.”

Caddell then noted that “Trump won on the most critical factor, on whether Clinton or Trump was more ‘plausible’ as president, 46 percent to her 42 percent,” saying that “that, for him, was what this debate was really about.” Dovetailing off of that is the fact that, according to Caddell, “forty-eight percent of respondents said in the debate Trump showed he would be a strong leader, compared with 44 percent for Clinton.”

That’s the statistical side of things. Newt Gingrich’s op-ed provides the analysis:

The Intellectual Yet Idiot class that dominates our news media fell all over themselves critiquing Trump and praising Holt and Clinton. In doing so, they repeated the mistake they have made about every debate since August 2015.

Trump wins strategically because in a blunt, clear style, he is saying things most Americans believe.

With 70% of the country thinking that we’re heading in the wrong direction, it’s a major victory for a candidate to win the people’s trust. That’s confirmed by Salena Zito’s reporting, which Gingrich cited here:

Salena Zito is one of the country’s most perceptive journalists, in part because she is grounded outside of Washington and New York. Her column about the debate, “How Trump Won Over a Bar of Undecideds and Democrats,” should be required reading for everyone who wants to understand why Trump strategically won the debate.

After that, Gingrich mocked the elitists:

Trump has a hard time with media elites because they earn a living by talking. The media values glibness. In their world you can speak nonsense if you do it smoothly and convincingly. Trump is a blunt, let’s-make-a-deal, let’s-get-the-building-built, let’s-sell-our-product businessman. The first debate showcased a blunt, plain spoken businessman and a polished professional politician.

In other words, the fight was word salad vs. leadership. Here’s how that worked out:

Time: Trump 55 Clinton 45
Fortune: Trump 53, Clinton 47
N.J.com (New Jersey): Trump 57.5, Clinton 37.78
CNBC: Trump 68, Clinton 32
WCPO Cincinnati: Trump 57, Clinton 37
Variety: Trump 58.12, Clinton 41.88
Slate: Trump 55.18, Clinton 44.82
WKRN Nashville: Trump 64.58, Clinton 35.42
Las Vegas Sun: Trump 82, Clinton 18
Fox5 San Diego: Trump 61.45, Clinton 33.69
San Diego Tribune: Trump 65, Clinton 35

Technorati: Polling, Pat Caddell, Presidential Debate, Hillary Clinton, Word Salad, Democrats, Media, Salena Zito, Battleground States, Pennsylvania, Undecided Voters, Donald Trump, Leadership, Republicans, Election 2016

Last night, Newt Gingrich was on Hannity’s TV show after Hannity interviewed Sen. Cruz. Newt’s words should serve as a wake-up call to Trump. Among the things that Gingrich said was that Trump getting down in the mud over Sen. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, would hurt Trump in California.

Gingrich said that Trump’s ratings were already bad with women, that Trump can’t afford further erosion of support with women and that women make up a “huge” part of the GOP electorate in California. According to this LA Times poll, Trump leads Sen. Cruz with likely primary voters by a 36%-35% margin.

According to Gingrich, Trump will be in trouble if Trump doesn’t start acting more stable and being more of a gentleman. The odds of that happening are roughly equivalent to the odds that Hillary Clinton will walk into FBI headquarters this week and signing a confession that she lied to FBI investigators. In other words, there’s no chance of Trump starting to act like a gentleman.

Newt said that he thinks Sen. Cruz will do pretty well in Wisconsin and that “this ought to be a wake-up call to Trump, that he’d better rethink some of the underlying patterns of his campaign.” I think that’s the right advice. I don’t think, though, that Trump will pay much attention to Newt’s advice. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that Trump’s ego is bigger than the Grand Canyon and that it might be as big as the state of Texas.

Rethinking things isn’t Trump’s strength.

Newt explains things perfectly here:

Look, Donald Trump had a very easy answer to that truly stupid — I think it was actually a Facebook ad that was sent out. The answer was simple. Melania was a supermodel on a professional shoot for a very famous magazine. He’s very proud of her and she’ll be a very beautiful first lady. Now, if he had just said that and moved on, then the Cruz campaign would’ve looked stupid. The issue would’ve been over. He would’ve seemed more disciplined and more pleasant and a gentleman. Instead, he gets down into this mud that I really think has hurt him. I’m not sure that anyone in the Trump campaign understands yet what a big mistake this is and they can’t keep doing this stuff and expect to win this nomination.

Gingrich thinks that Trump’s threatening Heidi Cruz will hurt him with women, especially in California. I’ll simplify this for the Trump campaign. If Trump doesn’t win California, he won’t be the GOP nominee. Sen. Cruz has outhustled him in too many states. If Trump isn’t the nominee on the first ballot, he’s history.

Technorati: Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz, Gender Gap, California Primary, GOP, Election 2016