There’s A Lot of News Today

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It’s a little bewildering just how many news stories are bursting out today. Mercer resigning from his hedge fund and selling his stake in Breitbart, albeit to his daughter. Is this just deciding it no fun becoming a public villain? Or is there more.

Sam Clovis has withdrawn his nomination at the AG Department. And people are starting to realize that the Papadopolous plea agreement puts renewed pressure, shall we say, on Jeff Sessions truthfulness about Russia in his confirmation hearings at the beginning of the year.

Then there’s tax reform. The House has finally released its tax reform bill. It includes a raft of provisions which should under normal circumstances amount to political suicide for any blue state politician. Punishment for blue states is hardly unexpected. But there are quite a few Republican Reps in California, New York, New Jersey and other states. And the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) isn’t even on board with the bill yet. They are the quintessential GOP tax-cutting lobby. Hard to imagine they don’t eventually support some iteration of the bill. But that and other signs makes me think that even doing something as easy as getting Republicans to vote for a massive tax cut may prove difficult.

And then there’s Gitmo. A marine general who serves as a defense attorney for detainees at Gitmo has himself been sentenced to 21 days confinement by an Air Force Colonel serving as a judge. The punishment is tied to a dispute over surveillance of detainees.

Also, there was a terrorist attack in New York City two days ago. Just flagging that since it was only two days ago.

Donna Brazile says the DNC was so far in debt in 2015 and 2016 that it signed an agreement with the Clinton campaign which gave the campaign functional control over the DNC as early as 2015.

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