"The bad news is, Elizabeth Warren has some barmy ideas about raising your taxes. The good news is, she's a proven coward. She says she likes to 'nerd out' on the policy details. Okay, let's do that.

"Warren estimates that her health-care scheme would cost about $2 trillion -- every year, forever. As often is the case when we are talking about the federal budget, the numbers sound incomprehensible to many people: millions, billions, trillions, squidillions, whatever. To put that $2 trillion a year into perspective, a comparison: That is more money than the federal government collects annually in all of the personal and corporate income taxes combined. Put another way, even if the federal government were able to successfully double the revenue it gets from personal and corporate income taxes, the additional revenue would not pay for Warren's health-care plan.

"In fiscal year 2019, all federal tax revenue from all sources combined amounted to $3.4 trillion. If a Warren administration and a Democratic Congress were successful in raising Americans' taxes by 50 percent, the extra revenue still wouldn't be enough to fund Warren's health-care program.

"And that does not take into account the rest of the fiscal scene, which is pretty grim. While Warren talks about Medicare for All, as it is the unfunded liability of Medicare over the next 75 years already tops $42 trillion, or just over twelve years' worth of total federal tax revenue. Put another way: If the federal government continued collecting taxes at the current rate, stopped spending even a nickel on anything else, and put all of that money into Medicare, it would have to do so for twelve years just in order to cover the difference between what Medicare already has promised to pay out and what dedicated Medicare taxes will actually fund. ...

"There is only one reason that Elizabeth Warren would proceed in this manner: She thinks her voters are stupid.

"There isn't any obvious reason to think she's wrong about that."

"President Trump said Tuesday the U.S. is ready to 'wage war' on the drug cartels and 'wipe them off the face of the earth' after at least 10 members of a prominent Mormon family were killed in an ambush attack near U.S.-Mexico border.

"In a series of tweets, Trump said the U.S. was willing to aid Mexico in 'cleaning out these monsters' and that 'sometimes you need an army to defeat an army.'

"'We merely await a call from your great new president!' he said. ...

"The offer for the U.S. military to intervene in Mexico's internal affairs -- a third rail in Mexican politics -- rattled an already-unsettled security apparatus."

"Several Wall Street Democratic megadonors are reportedly withholding donations for down-ballot Senate candidates due to their dissatisfaction with presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's rise in the polls.

"CNBC reports the Massachusetts senator's rise is hurting the party's fundraising efforts. 'Some finance executives have recently told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that they are, for the moment, holding back from donating to Democrats running for Senate in 2020,' the report says, 'due to their concerns with Warren becoming a front-runner in the race for the party's presidential nomination.'

"Warren has steadily climbed in the RealClearPolitics average of Democratic primary polls from a distant fifth in April to a close second in November, including a brief moment in October when she supplanted former vice president Joe Biden as the frontrunner."

"Democrats and the mainstream media keep underestimating the Trump boom. At this point, it's beginning to seem more like defensiveness than wishful thinking.

"Again and again, the experts get it wrong. Not unlike the political commentators who have been wishfully predicting 'the end of Trump' for the past four years, economic naysayers have been telling us that a 'Trump recession' is just around the corner. Clearly, it's not. ...

"Following dire predictions of a recession (two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth), preliminary numbers put third quarter GDP growth at 1.9 percent, 0.3 percentage points higher than the estimate from a Dow Jones poll of economists and roughly on par with growth in the previous quarter.

"The biggest factor the experts overlooked was consumer spending, which grew by an impressive 3.9 percent. Ordinary Americans, it seems, have the confidence in the Trump economy that the experts lack.

"On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed this confidence when it reported that the economy added 128,000 jobs in October. That helped keep the unemployment rate near a 50-year low of 3.6 percent in October, a negligible uptick from the 3.5 percent figure in September and despite the negative impact of 46,000 GM jobs lost due to the 40-day union strike (those jobs will be back in November). And, by the way, the jobs numbers for August and September were revised upward by an additional 95,000 jobs.

"The October data proves yet again that Trump is still presiding over the strongest jobs market since the 1960s. The high demand for workers is also driving the fastest wage increases in many years. Average hourly earnings are up 3 percent over the past 12 months, reaching $28.18 per hour. Yearly wage growth has now been at or above 3 percent for 15 consecutive months. That means real money for American workers."

Read entire article here.

"Another day, another giant step on the road to ruin. Either Nancy Pelosi has lost her mind or she really wants to dig America's grave.

"The vote to formalize the impeachment jihad is a great day for Trump haters and a tragedy for democracy and common sense. Coming a year before an election and without a compelling claim that the president committed anything remotely resembling 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' the action is an abuse of power for purely partisan purposes. ...

"Granted, Trump is not your ordinary president and there are few norms he hasn't shattered. But it remains a fact that his greatest sin was defeating Hillary Clinton and smashing the legacy of Barack Obama.

"For that, he must be destroyed. And if America goes down with him, that's fine with the far-left crazies. They never liked the country anyway."

"For a town that leaks like a sieve, Washington has done an astonishingly effective job keeping from the American public the name of the anonymous 'whistleblower' who triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump -- even though his identity is an open secret inside the Beltway.

"More than two months after the official filed his complaint, pretty much all that's known publicly about him is that he is a CIA analyst who at one point was detailed to the White House and is now back working at the CIA.

"But the name of a government official fitting that description -- Eric Ciaramella -- has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry. Fearing their anonymous witness could be exposed, Democrats this week blocked Republicans from asking more questions about him and intend to redact his name from all deposition transcripts.

"RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public's interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official's status as a 'whistleblower' is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has 'some indicia of an arguable political bias . . . in favor of a rival political candidate' -- as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.

"Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia 'collusion' investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

"Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left his National Security Council posting in the White House's West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia."

Read entire article here.

"Rep. Adam Schiff is a poor man's Harry Houdini. He is a cheap illusionist performing amateurish parlor tricks of deception in his quest to convince his audience that he possesses damning evidence of an impeachable offense committed by President Trump.

"Schiff, D-Calif., has no such evidence, of course. But like most illusionists, Schiff employs misdirection and confusion. He attempts to convince you that opinions are evidence, while facts are not. This is the stuff of rank political magic where perceptions are distorted through clever manipulation of the process.

"Schiff has become the master manipulator aided, in large part, by the secrecy of his faux magic act. He won't allow you to peek behind the curtain to see for yourself the witnesses he has called in his 'super top secret' impeachment inquisition. You are never permitted to view transcripts of depositions or examine testimony that purports to incriminate the president. That, of course, would ruin all the hocus-pocus."

Read entire article here.

"EXCLUSIVE -- Attorney General Bill Barr, in an interview with Fox News, defended the independence and integrity of the politically contentious probe being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham into the handling of the Russia investigation -- while taking a swipe at James Comey's past leadership of the FBI. ...

"Barr, speaking Monday to Fox News on the sidelines of a law enforcement event in Chicago, rejected Democrats' claims he is acting as Trump's personal lawyer.

"'That's completely wrong and there is no basis for it, and I act on behalf of the United States,' Barr said. ...

"Further, Barr took an implicit swipe at Comey as he maintained current FBI Director Christopher Wray is cooperating.

"'I do want to say that one of the reasons Mr. Durham is able to make the kind of progress he's making is because Director Wray and his team at the FBI have just been outstanding in support and responsiveness given to Mr. Durham,' Barr said. 'As you know, I've said previously that I felt there was a failure of leadership at the bureau in 2016 and part of 2017, but since Director Wray and his team have taken over there's been a world of change. I think that he is restoring the steady professionalism that's been a hallmark of the FBI. I really appreciate his leadership there.'"

"With no end in sight to the madness gripping Washington, it is wise to seize on any possible sign of humor to brighten the day. In that spirit, a statement by Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler qualifies as the mood booster of the week.

"Responding to reports that Attorney General William Barr's investigation into the 2016 spying on Donald Trump's campaign is now a criminal probe, Schiff and Nadler laid down their thumbscrews and emerged from their impeachment dungeon to express outrage. In unison, the twin Trump tormentors declared that partisanship has infected the Justice Department and 'the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage.'

"Despite stiff competition from two centuries of congressional hypocrisy, that is a first-rate howler. If you can't laugh at Schiff and Nadler accusing anyone else of damaging the rule of law for partisan purposes, you don't have a sense of humor."

Read entire article here.

"Quid pro no.

"The current impeachment debate is being framed in terms of whether or not there was a 'quid pro quo' -- as if that is the bar that will determine whether or not President Trump did something egregious.

"There are big flaws with this framing, as well as with the use of the term.

"Diplomatic quid pro quo -- requiring certain actions, behavior or 'conditions' in return for U.S. aid -- is common, according to current and former diplomats I spoke with, and foreign policy guidance. 'Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the President may determine the terms and conditions under which most forms of assistance are provided.'

"The notion that there's something inherently wrong with this sort of foreign-aid diplomacy is raising concern among some career diplomats. A former Obama administration State Department official told me that, by controversializing this common practice, 'the Democrats are basically hamstringing any future president.' He adds: 'That's why this is a constitutional moment.' ...

"All things considered, it begins to look like the quid pro quo accusations are an extension of the strategy that sought to keep President Trump from providing typical direction to the Justice Department for the better part of two years . . . because his critics cried that it would be obstruction of justice or interfering with the Mueller probe. With that investigation closed, Trump's enemies appear to be trying to keep him from digging into dark, uncomfortable places about how it all came about and who was behind it, from Washington, D.C., to Kyiv, Ukraine.

"Places where many Democrats and Republicans would rather he did not dig."

Read entire article here.