Trump ends 2017 with big wins on economy, taxes, ISIS and more

When congressional Republicans joined President Trump for a tax bill celebration at the White House just before Christmas, a triumphant Mitch McConnell began ticking off the president’s first-year accomplishments. 

The boasts from the Kentucky Republican, who's had a rocky relationship with Trump at times, underscored how – despite the internal squabbles that captivated the media – the Trump administration has given his party plenty to crow about in 2017.

From the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to regulation rollbacks to Wall Street gains to the passage of the tax bill and the routing of ISIS in the Middle East – as McConnell put it, “This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment for the Trump administration.”
To be sure, there have been plenty of campaign promises that Trump did not fulfill in his first year: a wall has not yet been built on the border with Mexico, ObamaCare hasn’t been repealed (though the individual mandate has) and an infrastructure package hasn’t yet passed in Congress. Meanwhile, Trump's White House has been hampered at times by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and daily drama, often the result of tweets fired off by the president himself.

“This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment for the Trump administration,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.  (AP)

But Republicans inside and outside of the White House contend that the media, which hammer Trump on every misstep, aren't giving him due credit for the 2017 gains his administration has made in a combative political environment.
A senior administration official said that while tax reform has been widely described as Trump’s first major legislative win, they have counted 81 pieces of Trump-backed legislation that are now law.
“That's in addition to 15 congressional review acts whereby the president took a look at laws that were passed without the benefit of congressional review, and decided to reverse or undo them,” the official said.
Before leaving for Florida for the holidays, Trump took to Twitter to tout his administration's “long & beautiful list” of accomplishments. He predicted the “Fake Mainstream Media will NEVER talk about our accomplishments in their end of year reviews.”
Here’s a look at some of the president’s biggest policy victories in his first year in office:
TAX CODE OVERHAUL
With just days left in the year, Congress handed Trump his biggest legislative win by sending a $1.5-trillion tax package to his desk. He signed it in the Oval Office just before leaving Washington for the holidays. Trump, who had been traveling the country for months calling on Congress to act on taxes, calls it “the largest tax cut in the history of our country.”
WHAT THE TAX OVERHAUL MEANS FOR YOU

President Trump signed the tax bill in the Oval Office just before leaving Washington for the holidays.  (AP)

The tax bill cuts the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and reduces the rates for most of the seven individual tax brackets.
While critics panned the law as a big tax break for the wealthy and corporations, the overhaul doubles the standard deduction, which the Trump administration argues is a boon for the middle class.
TRUMP PREDICTS MANDATE REPEAL WILL KILL OBAMACARE
The legislation also allows Trump to say he’s working to dismantle ObamaCare: the bill includes a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance or face a penalty.
REGULATORY ROLLBACK

President Trump holds up a chart on highway regulations during an event on federal regulations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, in Washington.  (AP)

Gridlock in Congress has not stopped the president from unraveling former President Barack Obama’s executive action legacy, especially through regulatory rollbacks.
“You've ended the overregulation of the American economy,” McConnell told him during the White House celebration.
Trump's EPA has moved to roll back the Clean Power Plan and he has used the Congressional Review Act, an obscure rule-killing law, to wipe out a wave of last-minute regulations pushed through before he took office.
STUDIES BEHIND OBAMA REGS UNDER FIRE
After taking office, the president signed an executive order mandating that two regulations must be eliminated for every one created. The White House says the administration has surpassed that ratio, claiming to have eliminated 22 regulations for every new regulation.
Trump has taken other actions to please conservatives, including moving to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, green-lighting the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
PACKING THE COURTS

Trump often cites his successful nomination of Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch when discussing his accomplishments as president.  (AP)

Trump often cites his successful nomination of Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch when discussing his accomplishments as president. Gorsuch had been on the list of potential nominees that Trump released during the campaign, after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
TRUMP MAKES HISTORIC MARK ON FEDERAL BENCH
But Republicans are also thrilled about his nominations to lower courts. The Trump administration has been intentionally choosing young conservative judicial nominees who could stay on the bench for many years to come. As of mid-December, 19 of Trump's 66 total nominees this year have been confirmed by the Senate.
“We've cemented the Supreme Court right-of-center for a generation,” McConnell said. “Mr. President, thanks to your nominees, we've put 12 circuit court judges in place -- the most since the circuit court system was established in 1891.”
DECIMATING ISIS

In this Nov. 9, 2017 photo, aerial view of the damaged hospital complex and surrounding areas in Mosul, Iraq. The complex, located in Mosul’s al-Shifaa neighborhood, was the main medical center for the Islamic State group during its rule and was heavily damaged during fighting when Iraqi forces wrested Mosul back from the militants.  (AP)

As the Islamic State orchestrated terror attacks and established a caliphate in Iraq and Syria during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump famously promised during to “bomb the sh-t” out of ISIS.
The gains cannot be ignored.
U.S. military officials said this week that ISIS has lost 98 percent of the territory it once held -- with half of the terror group's "caliphate" having been recaptured since Trump took office. The latest American intelligence assessment says fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters now remain in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago.
ISIS HAS LOST 98 PERCENT OF ITS TERRITORY, OFFICIALS SAY
In October, after the liberation of Raqqa in Syria, the president boasted that “more progress” had been made “against these evil terrorists in the past several months than in the past several years.”
Earlier this month, Iraq’s leaders declared victory over ISIS.
The White House recently credited Trump’s “leadership” in noting that ISIS has “lost nearly all of its territory and its most important cities and towns in Iraq and Syria, including Mosul and ISIS’s declared capital in Raqqa.”
ECONOMY GROWING

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit record highs more than 60 times during Trump’s presidency.  (AP)

Trump is never shy about taking credit when the stock market is doing well, and closed the year by predicting the tax bill will spur another year of growth in 2018.
"Will be a great year for Companies and JOBS! Stock Market is poised for another year of SUCCESS!" he tweeted Tuesday.
The Trump administration has indeed been good for Wall Street: the Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit record highs more than 60 times during Trump’s presidency.
The White House cites statistics saying more than $5 trillion in wealth has been added to the U.S. economy since Trump’s election.
Other indicators show the economy has improved under Trump.
The country’s 4.1 percent unemployment rate is the lowest since December 2000.
And the economy grew 3.2 percent from July through September, the highest quarterly economic growth in three years.
CONSERVATIVE-PLEASING MOVES

Trump has pleased his base by appointing conservatives like EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.  (AP)

Trump has pleased his base by appointing people like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy Devos and Energy Secretary Rick Perry to high-profile government positions. In a less than a year, these officials have enacted conservative policy at departments and agencies after eight years of liberal governance under the Obama administration.
The president also officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital earlier this month, following through on a promise to put in place a plan to move the United States embassy to the holy city.
He pardoned ex-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in June, a move that was welcomed by supporters of a tough stance on illegal immigration.
In October, Trump decertified the 2015 Iran nuclear deal -- though did not kill it -- calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”

Gun Control Cartoons 2017

Pres. Trump Predicts Dems, GOP Will Work Together on Health Care

President Donald Trump turns to talk to the gathered media during a Christmas Eve video teleconference with members of the mIlitary at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, Dec. 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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President Trump is predicting Democrats and Republicans will come up with a new Obamacare replacement after the passing of the tax reform bill.
He made the remarks on Twitter Tuesday, saying the tax law will eventually terminate Obamacare because of the repeal of the individual mandate.

Based on the fact that the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate has been terminated as part of our Tax Cut Bill, which essentially Repeals (over time) ObamaCare, the Democrats & Republicans will eventually come together and develop a great new HealthCare plan!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017

The tax law would essentially force Democrats to come to the table — some of whom have already said the current health care law needs to be amended.
The individual mandate was a tax penalty which forced people to participate in Obamacare, a system plagued with rising costs and and dwindling choices.

Most top colleges still regulate campus speech, report says

More than 90 percent of top U.S. colleges have policies regulating campus free speech, with one-third applying severely restrictive policies, according to a recent study.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reported Tuesday that more than half of the 461 schools included in its annual year-end study limit free speech in some way. 

"Despite the critical importance of free speech on campus, too many universities — in policy and in practice — chill, censor and punish students’ and faculty members’ expressive activity," the study said. "One way that universities do this is through the use of speech codes: policies prohibiting speech that, outside the bounds of campus, would be protected by the First Amendment."
However, the study also found that for the 10th year in a row, the percentage of "red light" schools -- institutions FIRE says have severely restrictive policies -- has declined. And the group reported that an unprecedented number of schools have removed all of their speech codes, earning them a "green light" rating.
The majority of institutions surveyed -- 58.6 percent -- earned a "yellow light" rating, which means their policies "still chill or outright prohibit protected speech."

 (FIRE)

"We are happy to see that fewer schools are maintaining the most restrictive types of speech codes, but the fact that 90 percent of schools maintain a speech code of some kind is still a significant problem for free speech."

- Samantha Harris, vice president of policy research at FIRE

In its analysis, FIRE noted a difference in free speech at public universities versus private ones. The First Amendment generally does not apply to students at private colleges because its regulates government — not private — conduct, according to FIRE.
The group claims that while "most private universities explicitly promise freedom of speech and academic freedom," their policies often contradict such statements.
FIRE cites a 2017 statement from Georgetown University in which the school declares its commitment to free speech.
"As an institution of higher education, one specifically committed to the Catholic and Jesuit tradition, Georgetown University is committed to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate in all matters, and the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas," the university said in a June 2017 statement. "It is Georgetown University’s policy to provide all members of the university community, including faculty, students and staff, the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn."
However, Georgetown is labeled "red light" school by FIRE. The school has a ban on any language that disrespects individuals there: a "civility" requirement in the student code of conduct that FIRE deems restrictive to free speech. But all other policies at Georgetown are considered "yellow light" by FIRE.
Other schools deemed "red light" include American University, Boston College, the University of Notre Dame, Harvard, Wesleyan, the University of Texas at Austin, Rice University and Pennsylvania State University – University Park.
Schools listed as "yellow light" include Amherst College, Brown, Columbia and several state schools, like Colorado State University. "Green light" schools include University of Chicago, the University of Florida and Duke.
"We are happy to see that fewer schools are maintaining the most restrictive types of speech codes, but the fact that 90 percent of schools maintain a speech code of some kind is still a significant problem for free speech," Samantha Harris, vice president of policy research at FIRE, said Wednesday.
"In the coming year, we hope to work with more schools to eliminate their speech codes altogether," Harris said.

ISIS has lost 98 percent of its territory -- mostly since Trump took office, officials say

ISIS has lost 98 percent of the territory it once held -- with half of that terror group's so-called "caliphate" having been recaptured since President Trump took office less than a year ago, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.

The massive gains come after years of "onerous" rules, when critics say the Obama administration “micromanaged” the war and shunned a more intensive air strategy that could have ended the conflict much sooner.

“The rules of engagement under the Obama administration were onerous. I mean what are we doing having individual target determination being conducted in the White House, which in some cases adds weeks and weeks,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the former head of U.S. Air Force intelligence. “The limitations that were put on actually resulted in greater civilian casualties.”
But the senior director for counterterrorism in former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council pushed back on any criticism the former president didn’t do enough to defeat ISIS.
“This was a top priority from the early days of ISIS gaining the type of territorial safe haven in particular, there was recognition that safe havens for terrorist groups can mean terrorist plots that extend — not just into the region — but to Europe and conceivably into the United States,” said Joshua Geltzer, author of “US Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signalling and the Terrorist World-View,” now a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School.
The latest American intelligence assessment says fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters now remain in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago. U.S. officials credit nearly 30,000 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and regional partners on the ground for killing more than 70,000 jihadists. Meanwhile, only a few thousand have returned home.
The remaining ISIS strongholds are concentrated in a small area along the border of Syria and Iraq. ISIS, at one point, controlled an area the size of Ohio.
While ISIS has been largely defeated, it continues to call on followers around the world to conduct terror attacks during the holidays with a new message sprouting up on Tuesday, and a suicide attack in Kabul on Christmas with ISIS claiming responsibility. It’s part of the terror group’s effort to expand influence into Africa and Afghanistan. The U.S. envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition warned late last week not to expect a complete defeat anytime soon.
“ISIS became a brand, and a lot of pre-existing terrorist groups — you’ve seen this in the Sinai, for example — start to raise the flag of ISIS, mainly to recruit foreign fighters and other things,” said Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, in a press briefing Thursday with reporters at the State Department.
Deptula thinks the ISIS fight would have ended much sooner if then-President Obama had given his military commander in the field more authority. He compared President Obama’s actions to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War.
“Obama micromanaged the war,” Deptula said. “We could have accomplished our objectives through the use of overwhelming air power in three months not in three years.”
Deptula said ISIS-controlled oil supplies weren’t targeted for 15 months beginning in 2014, giving the terror group $800 million in much needed revenue to plot attacks and enslave millions of innocents.
In addition to ISIS, an old nemesis has taken root in Syria, and which might take on a bigger priority for the Trump administration next year, according to Geltzer.
“A lot of folks when they think about Al Qaeda probably still think of its center of gravity as being on that Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” he said. “But I would think of the center of gravity for Al Qaeda really having shifted to Syria at this point.”

Three US cities sue Pentagon over failure to report convictions

Three major U.S. cities on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department for allegedly failing to report criminal convictions of people in the military to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its national gun background check database.

The lawsuit – filed by officials in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco – seeks a court order to force the Pentagon to submit to federal court monitoring of its reporting requirements.

The Pentagon recently acknowledged it has failed to comply with requirements dating back to the 1990s.
“This failure on behalf of the Department of Defense has led to the loss of innocent lives by putting guns in the hands of criminals and those who wish to cause immeasurable harm,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
The suit argues that having a federal court oversee compliance would reduce the chance of a mass shooting like the recent tragedy in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
In that incident, former airman Devin Kelley shot 26 people to death in a Texas church. Kelley had been convicted in a military court of domestic violence but his case wasn’t reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which ideally would have prevented him from buying a gun, the complaint claims.
“We cannot accept the level of gun violence in our country as ‘just the way it is’,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement. “Twenty-six people being murdered at church can never be normal.”
The Pentagon had no comment on the lawsuit though its acting inspector general testified at a Senate committee earlier this month that there was “no excuse” for the military’s repeated failure to comply with reporting rules.
Most recently, military investigators found that nearly one in three court-martialed convictions that should have prevented defendants from purchasing guns had gone unreported.
NICS reporting is required for all federal agencies, including the military, and include regular mandatory compliance reports. The federal law was strengthened following the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech.
The case is City of New York v. U.S. Department of Defense.

Bernie Sanders Cartoons

Roseanne Barr slams 'bigot' Lorde for nixing Israel concert under BDS pressure

Roseanne Barr slams Lorde as "bigot" for cancelling concert in Israel.

Roseanne Barr took to Twitter to blast Lorde after the singer cancelled a performance in Israel scheduled for next summer following pressure from anti-Israel activists.

The New Zealand music star said in a statement that "the right decision at this time" was to cancel her June 2018 concert in Tel Aviv, which was announced earlier this month.

But Barr slammed her on Twitter:
“Boycott this bigot,” Barr wrote. “Lorde caves to BDS pressure, cancels Israel concert.”
Lorde’s announcement followed calls by proponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to cancel her performance over Israel's human rights record. Lorde joins artists including Roger Waters, Lauryn Hill and Elvis Costello in boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
Lorde said that after having "lots of discussions" about the matter, "I'm not too proud to admit I didn't make the right call on this one," referring to her initial decision to hold the concert.
Lorde's cancellation was welcomed by members of the BDS movement. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel posted a statement on Twitter thanking the artist for "heeding appeals from your fans against Israel's art-washing of its brutal oppression of Palestinians."

AP  (Lorde cacnelled her concert in Israel, caving to pro-Palestinian activists.)

Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev said she hoped Lorde would reconsider her decision.
"Lorde, I expect you to be a pure heroine, like the title of your first album, a pure culture hero, free of any external - and if I may add, delusional - political considerations," Regev said in a statement.
The Israeli concert promoter responded to the cancellation, saying: "We forgive her."

Rosie O'Donnell tells Paul Ryan he's going 'straight to hell'

Paul Ryan faced Rosie O'Donnell's wrath on Monday after the comedian slammed him on Twitter.

Rosie O’Donnell had a not-so-warm Christmas wish for House Speaker Paul Ryan: go to hell.
The fierce opponent of President Trump and the newly-passed GOP tax plan lashed out at Ryan on Twitter.
“paul ryan – don’t talk about Jesus after what u just did to our nation – u will go straight to hell,” O’Donnell wrote Monday.
“U screwed up fake altar boy,” O’Donnell added.
She finished her holiday attack with the hashtag: “#JUDASmuch” in a reference to the disciple who betrayed Jesus.
The actress, who has famously tussled with Trump, last week offered to pay two senators $2 million each to vote against the tax bill. Her bribe to Sens. Jeff Flake and Susan Collins didn’t work and no GOP senator voted against Trump’s signature legislative achievement.
What seemed to set O’Donnell off was a Christmas video message that Ryan posted Saturday honoring the birth of Jesus.
A rep for Ryan responded only by saying: “We wish everyone a Merry Christmas!”
It’s the latest Twitter war for the ex-View host.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro reported an obscene tweet O’Donnell posted about him last week that said “Suck my d___ Ben,” according to Fox News.
The two were sparring over the GOP tax plan.
Shapiro reported the “harassment” to Twitter to see if the social media giant would take action against a liberal. Twitter initially declined to delete the tweet, but then reversed course.

Bernie Sanders' wife's land deal still under FBI probe; witness recently questioned

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and wife Jane Sanders walk in Philadelphia during the final day of the Democratic National Convention, July 28, 2016. Sanders remains under federal investigation for a land deal she made as president of Burlington College in Vermont in 2010.  (Associated Press)

A federal investigation launched in 2016 into possible bank fraud by Jane Sanders, wife of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, is still underway -- with “a potential” grand jury review possible.

The probe could thwart Sanders’ 2020 presidential ambitions -- as well as the Vermont political plans of Jane Sanders' daughter, Carina Driscoll.

Individuals questioned by the FBI confirmed to Fox News that the investigation was still open, with FBI agents interviewing at least one witness within the last six weeks.
Jane Sanders is under investigation following a land deal she clinched when she was president of Burlington College in Vermont in 2010.
In order to expand the college, Sanders sought to obtain a tract of land from a Roman Catholic parish. She secured a $6.7 million loan from a bank and a $3.6 million loan from the parish from which she planned to purchase the property.
But she resigned in 2011 amid allegations that she purposely inflated and made up the amount of money donors have pledged to the school and provided incorrect information to a bank to get the loan. Multiple individuals, who were listed as college donors, have since come forward denying the commitments.
Questioned recently
Former Burlington College Board Chairman Yves Bradley told Fox News that the investigation was still underway. He said he was visited by FBI agents in the last six weeks and was questioned about Sanders’ involvement in the alleged bank fraud.
Attorney Rich Cassidy, representing both Bernie and Jane Sanders, approached Bradley regarding the investigation, but by the advice of his counsel decided not to engage. Cassidy did not respond to Fox News’ multiple requests for an interview.
Previous reports stated that the investigation accelerated this past summer when multiple people were questioned and investigators seized records from Burlington College.
The recent questioning of Bradley signals the investigation is far from over.
The probe is being handled by the U.S. Justice Department and will proceed at the discretion of Christina E. Nolan, the U.S. Attorney of Vermont, who was sworn into office last week after being appointed by President Donald Trump in September and confirmed by the Senate last month.
Coralee Holm, the former Burlington College dean of operations, confirmed as well that the probe “has not been closed” and that it has “no specific deadline” for completion. She was among the individuals questioned in the summer.
“I have not talked with anyone since then, other than checking with the FBI agents,” she said over the phone.
To the question whether the investigation could lead to an indictment, she said the FBI agents told her it was “a potential” – although not “an absolute” – that the case will be brought in front of a grand jury.
“If there is going to be something that happened it would be the grand jury … it would be brought in front of the grand jury … they already told me to be … that was a potential but they did tell me that wasn’t an absolute,” Holm said.
Change of plans?
The ongoing probe and the potential for a grand jury review might be enough to impede Bernie Sanders' and Driscoll's political plans.
Politico reported last month that Sanders was angling toward a more mainstream candidacy heading into the 2020 presidential election and reaching out to key Democrats to solidify his support among the party machine.
Driscoll, the stepdaughter of the senator, announced Monday her plans to run for her stepfather’s first political job: mayor of Burlington, Vt.
A spokesperson for Bernie Sanders did not respond to Fox News’ request for a comment. Driscoll declined to comment.