Most of us have heard the expression "when pigs fly," in reference to the impossibility of some event actually having a chance to happen, but over the past week we have noted a number of things many doubted they would ever see occur..... are happening right now.
It appears that some of the most virulent Trump haters are receiving a colossal reality check.
TAX REFORM PASSES
The huge news yesterday was the passage of a historic tax reform bill, one which was bitterly fought by Democrats in Congress and their sycophants in the media, calling it an apocalypse, swearing that once again that millions would die, when in reality the majority of Americans, rich and poor, would simply be allowed to keep more of their own money, which to liberals who think all your money belongs to the government, pretty much is Armageddon!
The hysteria was over the top even for liberals, with media talking heads publicly melting down throughout the last two days, feeding their audiences deliberate lies and false equivalence arguments, but we did note a flying pig, figuratively speaking of course, when a member of CNN actually admitted that the $1.5 trillion tax cut provides working families with "damn good money."
CNN host John King said, "The Republicans are making a big bet, taking a big risk."
King continued on to state "Will over time the American people say, 'Oh, actually I like having more money in my pocket. Oh, they did hire more people at the factory down the street.' That's their big bet."
"Not one Democrat has voted for a bill that cuts taxes by $1.5 trillion," King said. "To Abby’s point, if you’re a working class family, a lot of people say, 'Oh, it's only $200, $300,' but if you're a working class family living paycheck to paycheck, $200-$300 is damn good money and you are grateful for it."
The immediate effect for those living paycheck to paycheck is that starting in February, the IRS will be withholding less out of each paycheck, sending workers home with more of the money they earned.
AT&T - Immediately after the passage of Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, AT&T issued a statement: "Once tax reform is signed into law, AT&T* plans to invest an additional $1 billion in the United States in 2018 and pay a special $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 AT&T U.S. employees — all union-represented, non-management and front-line managers. If the President signs the bill before Christmas, employees will receive the bonus over the holidays."
Comcast has also announced they will be giving $1,000 to more than 100,000 of its employees as a result of the passing of the Tax reform bill, as well as investing $50 billion over the next five years in infrastructure toward its "broadband plant and capacity, and our television, film and theme park offerings."
Comcast statement:
Based on the passage of tax reform and the FCC’s action on broadband, Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast NBCUniversal, announced that the Company would award special $1,000 bonuses to more than one hundred thousand eligible frontline and non-executive employees. Roberts also announced that the Company expects to spend well in excess of $50 billion over the next five years investing in infrastructure to radically improve and extend our broadband plant and capacity, and our television, film and theme park offerings. With these investments, we expect to add thousands of new direct and indirect jobs. We will have more to say on capital at our upcoming January 24th earnings report.
Boeing announced $300 million in investments after the bill passed, with $100 million toward corporate giving including employee gift-match programs, $100 million toward workforce development, training and education and $100 million toward enhancing Boeing’s workplaces. (Source- Boeing Media Room)
Wells Fargo announced it would boost its minimum wage for workers to $15.00 an hour and pledged $400 million for philanthropic initiatives in 2018. Fox Business reports "Some $100 million of that total will be committed to boosting small businesses, while $75 million will support neighborhood revitalization efforts."
Fifth Third Bancorp is also increasing minimum wage for their workers to $15.00 and hour and giving $1,000 bonuses to their 13,500+ workers. (Source)
Before moving on to the next wave of flying pigs, one last note on the utter intellectual dishonesty coming from Democratic politicians as well as their puppets in the media, shown perfectly by Representative Ted Lieu, via Twitter when he claimed "GOP underestimates how people feel when they know others got a better deal. If Sally gets a tax cut of $380 but others get $200,000, she will be upset. And wait until Joe finds out he is getting a tax increase for residing in CA. That's why tax bill is so unpopular: human nature."
In response to his claim another Twitter user provided the context which makes a joke of his analogy, stating "Hey dip...t, If Sally pays 3K in taxes in gets $380 (12%) back, and Joe pays 3 million in taxes and gets 200K back (7%), how did Joe get a better deal? Maybe you really are too stupid to understand this."
This category isn't just like seeing pigs fly, but as Howard Kurtz describes it over at Fox News, it is like Hell Freezes Over, where we are seeing NeverTrump conservatives and some in the liberal media admit that Donald Trump is actually keeping his promises and *GASP* winning. The first two examples below were written before the tax reform was passed.
Of course his arrogance and tone of moral superiority still comes through in his terminology, but it is part of a pattern we have noted in December.
I mean the war against the Islamic State, whose expansion was the defining foreign policy calamity of Barack Obama’s second term, whose executions of Americans made the U.S.A. look impotent and whose utopian experiment drew volunteers drunk on world-historical ambitions and metaphysical dreams. Its defeat was begun under Obama, and the hardest fighting has been done by Iraqis — but this was an American war too, and we succeeded without massive infusions of ground troops, without accidentally getting into a war with Russia, and without inspiring a huge wave of terrorism in the West.
His point is that no one has seemed to notice the fall of ISIS, and while he lists a number of reasons he believes that is happening, he also acknowledges it is a press failure, including his own:
But this is also a press failure, a case where the media is not adequately reporting an important success because it does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested.
I include myself in this indictment. Foreign policy is the place where the risks of electing Trump seemed to me particularly unacceptable, and I’ve tended to focus on narratives that fit that fear, from the risk of regional war in Middle East to the perils in our North Korean brinksmanship.
Those fears are still reasonable. But all punditry is provisional, and for now, the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East has been moderately successful, and indeed close to what I would have hoped for from a normal Republican president following a realist-internationalist course.
He also manages to admit, with much gnashing of his teeth I would imagine, that President Trump's Israel and the Palestinian strategy, might just not have been as "crazy" as some thought.
Over at Huffington Post, oh wait, now they prefer the shortened version of HuffPost, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, bemoans "Sadly, Trump Is Winning," as he dramatically begins his explanation by stating "This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write and admit: Trump is winning."
At Axios, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, headline with "Trump triumphant: a consequential, lasting end to 2017," where they highlight the tax reform bill, the Neil Gorsuch pick for the Supreme Court, and acknowledges that President Trump has also named dozen new U.S. Circuit Court judges, admitting that is "the most during a president's first year in office in more than a century." They mention Douthat's NYT piece, and how ISIS is in retreat.
What each of those articles quoted, and what even Trump supporters ignore, is looking back through the months since President Trump was inaugurated and recognizing the sheer volume of his accomplishments. For Trump haters it something they deliberately refrain from doing because they do not see them as "accomplishments," despite the fact that promises were made, promises were kept. For Trump supporters the reasoning appears to be the constant hunt for what President Trump "hasn't" done, without looking for what he has done.
WND has a list of 167 accomplishments in the first 334 days, divided up into monthly categories with details of what has been accomplished and where applicable, how much money has been saved, how many jobs created, and a whole host of other issues that we rarely see Trump critics or supporters bother to acknowledge.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS SECRETLY INVESTIGATE DOJ, FBI CORRUPTION AND COLLUSION
While House members are not prosecutors, so they cannot actually bring charges against anyone, their goal is to compile their evidence into a detailed report to be released early next year. The information exposed in that report could have serious consequences for the integrity, or lack thereof, regarding Robert Mueller's investigation, since many of those exposed of late for corruption have been members of his team.
SESSIONS ORDERS PROSECUTORS TO INVESTIGATE URANIUM ONE
I saved the best for last because some truly believed they would see pigs fly long before seeing any type of further investigations into Clinton wrongdoing in regards to the Uranium One deal after The Hill exposed some very explosive new information back in October 2017.
On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News.
The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department's effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said. (Source)
Make no mistake, this does not automatically mean a special prosecutor will be charged with collecting evidence to prosecute Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, or Obama administration officials. It means they are determining if there is enough to meet the legal standard to name a special prosecutor. By rights, the DOJ should be able to investigate and take whatever actions are appropriate but this is a double edged sword. If Sessions appointed a career prosecutor within the DOJ to handle this, his choices are a Trump appointee, or someone that has been with the DOJ for years and could very well be compromised politically as we have seen with the recent revelations about members on Mueller's team.
Neither option looks good from an optics standpoint.
The general public also doesn't know what type of evidence the FBI informant whom the Obama DOJ placed a gag order on to prevent him from speaking to Congress, has. Session's rescinded that gag order, and journalists at The Hill have claimed to have spoken with his counsel and seen the documents he has, but again, we do not know if it meets the legal standard of enough to actually prosecute.
BOTTOM LINE
A CNN personality admitting President Trump and the GOP's tax reform will actually help working families, a hard look into deep state members within the intelligence community in regards to corruption and collusion, NeverTrumpers admitting the president is doing a good job, liberal media admitting he is "winning," and big businesses sharing a portion of the money they will save in taxes with their employees, their community and investing it into the U.S. economy and Sessions order prosecutors to investigate Uranium One.
That is a whole lot of "impossible" happening right now.
