A daily roundup of great reads from around the web as selected by our editors.
—Julie Ponzi—
In addition to catching Victor Davis Hanson’s great post tonight at AG, “The Late, Great Russian Collusion Myth,” check out a piece by Daniel John Sobieski at The American Thinker called “Obama’s Criminal Enterprise Collapsing.” It’s all about the ways that the Democrats’ have been too clever by half and their plans for tripping up Trump are working now to backfire against them. One reason for this, of course, is the oft-noted and great Democratic propensity for projection. If a Democrat is accusing you of something outrageous, you can be fairly certain that the reason they’ve come up with the accusation is because it is floating close to the surface of their own guilty conscience.
Sobieski details the many instances of Democrat officials taking part in activities that are far more questionable than anything so far uncovered about Trump or his officials with respect to Russia. As he argues,
Of course, if Hillary Clinton had won, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But Hillary lost and the Democrats made a foolish strategic error in pursuing charges of collusion and obstruction of justice based on sheer vengeance. There was no evidence of Trump collusion or obstruction and now the tables are turned. The investigation of Loretta Lynch and other revelations could be the undoing of the Obama administration’s criminal enterprise, its trampling of our Constitution and our laws. Reopen the Hillary investigation and expand it to include the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One. Prosecute the lot of them – and lock them all up.
American Greatness readers also won’t want to miss Angelo Codevilla’s essay at Asia Times today in which he examines what happens to the U.S. foreign policy establishment when they hang on to old “truths” about the workings of the world that may, in fact, no longer be true. His case in point here is our relationship with Turkey (and also with Qatar, though for more on that read here). Old habits of mind seem to die hard and while these nations each harbor an air base for the United States, there is little doubt that the malignant nature of these regimes and the degree to which they have become mired in a global war between Muslim factions and are no longer reliable allies for promoting our interests.
A key graph:
Today, because of where Turkey is, because it is led by a Sunni Islamist government, because of the choices this government has made in the 21st Century, the country is literally in the middle of the Middle Eastern cauldron of terrorism, which cauldron its government stirs vigorously and incompetently. US foreign policy helps it stir, just as it abetted Turkey’s political change from ally to adversary and Western Europe’s turn from allies to drags, by pretending that today’s Turkey and Europe are what they once were.
—Brandon J. Weichert—
Democrat Dirty-tricks. Do you remember when former President Barack Obama promised us plebes that if we supported the Affordable Care Act nothing would change with our health insurance (other than a reduction in costs)? Well, Mr. Obama either lied or was taken for a ride by his health policy “experts,” but one thing is certain: healthcare insurance has gotten more complicated, more unaffordable, and our lives have been made more miserable since the ACA went into effect.
Now, the Democrats are yet again micturating in our ears about how, with the potential Republican-backed repeal of the ACA, thousands of people will die and millions more will suffer! Yet, today, Vice-President Mike Pence met with citizens from all over the country who are suffering due to the ACA. These people comprise the “silent majority” that President Trump spoke so fondly about during the 2016 campaign; they’re regular folks who pay their own way in life and who are, as per the usual these days, getting hosed by the twin-headed snake of Big Government and Big Business.
Of course, the Congressional Republicans are like the Keystone Cops when it comes to fulfilling a key campaign promise that they’ve been making (and making hay with) since the 2010 midterm elections—repealing Obamacare. Now, the GOP is saying that they won’t vote on the Senate version of the Obamacare repeal law until after the July Fourth holiday. Clearly, the Republicans in Congress are scared by the negative press that they’re getting. Some people, like Jeff Greenfield over at the Politico, have asserted that Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, will get the votes—just barely, though.
Meanwhile, Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic, argues that the reason the Senate GOP is skittish is because this repeal plan “strains” the old bargain made between blue blooded elite Republicans and blue collared white folks living in flyover country. According to Brownstein, the GOP bill actually does fund its tax cuts “by revoking aid for older and lower middle-income adults.” This is not the way to understand what the bill does, though. The Republican repeal bill will lower the national deficit by $321 billion over the next decade.
By removing the Obamacare mandate, the Republicans will be lowering insurance premiums. Also, the GOP will likely work to create a new piece of legislation that seeks to remedy the fallout from repealing (hence, repeal and replace). This is but the first step of many steps toward undoing the unnecessary economic damage that the “Affordable” Care Act has done to this country. Whatever comes after will be the will of the American voters and their elected representatives, not the will of the Democratic Party and their allies in the insurance lobby. That’s Making America Great Again; that’s returning power (and money) back to the silent majority of Americans who voted for Donald Trump.
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