Americans' 401(k)s will be safe, GOP leaders set record straight

GOP leaders are trying to ease panicked Americans who are socking away thousands of dollars annually for retirement, after lawmakers floated the idea of drastically reducing the pre-tax limit on contributions to $2,400 as part of the forthcoming tax plan.
“I think 401(k)s are very important,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., during an interview on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures”. “The way we’ll look at the 401(k), we will protect it, we’ll expand the amount that you can invest, but we’ll also give you an option to actually not be taxed later in life, not to have that tax burden hovering over you in the future, but actually have greater income in the future.”
Currently, people under age 50 are able to save up to $18,000 per year in pre-tax savings in their 401(k), while those over 50 can save up to $24,000. After reports surfaced that 401(k) those contributions could be curbed as part of the tax plan, President Donald Trump set the record straight.

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“There will be NO change to your 401(k). This has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works, and it stays!” he tweeted on Monday. He reiterated this view while talking to the press on Wednesday.

McCarthy’s comments on Sunday follow fellow lawmaker Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who last week dialed back on reports that contributions could be cut as part of the tax plan.

On Friday, Brady said he and fellow lawmakers are now looking into possibly raising contribution limits to $20,000 or higher.

John Boehner unleashed: Ex-House speaker curses at lawmakers, says congressman once held a knife to his throat

Ohio Republican John Boehner retired from Capitol Hill as speaker in 2015 — and now has harsh words for his House coworkers. (REUTERS/Yuri Gripas)

Former House Speaker John Boehner, who retired in October 2015, is no longer holding back his anger against several of his former colleagues in Congress.

The Ohio Republican talked to Politico Magazine in a lengthy profile Sunday about the widening political divide in America. But he saved his harshest words for conservatives who worked alongside him. Among them: Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who became the chairman of the House Oversight Committee after Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, announced his resignation from Congress, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who helped found the House’s Freedom Caucus, which frequently clashed with Boehner.

“Gowdy — that’s my guy, even though he doesn’t know how to dress,” Boehner said. “F--- Jordan. F--- [Jason] Chaffetz. They’re both a--holes.”
Boehner called Chaffetz a “total phony” who was more obsessed with self-promotion than the American people. Chaffetz resigned from Congress in June and joined Fox News as a contributor. He didn't immediately respond.
“Jordan was a terrorist as a legislator going back to his days in the Ohio House and Senate,” Boehner added to Politico. “A terrorist. A legislative terrorist.”

John Boehner called Rep. Jason Chaffetz, seen here in 2015, a “phony” only out for himself in a new interview. Chaffetz stepped down in 2017, and is now a contributer to Fox News. (REUTERS/Jim Bourg)

Jordan was taken aback.
“Oh, my goodness. I feel sorry for the guy if he’s that bitter about a guy coming here and doing what he told the voters he was gonna do. Wow. I feel bad for him,” Jordan told Politico. “But in the end, we were not doing what the voters elected us to do and what we told them we were going to do. We just weren’t. And I would argue the same thing is happening now.”

John Boehner said Rep. Don Young once pinned him against a wall with a knife to his throat. (Office of Rep. Don Young)

Boehner also recounted that before he was best man at Rep. Don Young's wedding, the Alaska Republican restrained him against a wall and held a 10-inch knife to knife to his throat during a fight over measures that fund projects in lawmakers’ home districts.
Boehner responded by staring Young in the eyes and saying, “F--- you.”
Young told Politico that Boehner’s recollection was “mostly true.”

Speculation swirls as Mueller indictment looms in Russia investigation

Speculation has escalated in Washington and across the country as lawmakers await the announcement of at least one indictment in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election — an announcement that could come as early as Monday.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., predicted Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week” that two prominent Trump campaign associates believed to be at the center of the investigation — former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — could be indicted.

MUELLER HAS FILED CHARGES IN RUSSIA-TRUMP ASSOCIATES PROBE: MULTIPLE REPORTS
“Well, you know, there are two people I think just from press reporting that it is likely to be, either Mike Flynn or Paul Manafort,” Schiff said. “We haven’t been informed of who it is, and I don’t think it would been appropriate for Bob Mueller to tell us.”
Manafort has been the subject of an investigation into his dealings in Ukraine several years ago — for which he did not file as a foreign agent until June 2017.
Flynn was a Trump surrogate during the campaign and briefly served as national security adviser before being fired for failing to fully disclose his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s former ambassador to the United States.
The Wall Street Journal reported at least one person could be taken into custody as early as Monday.
Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told “Fox News Sunday,” ”We don’t know who’s being charged. … We don’t know what they are being charged for. We don’t know the time period.”
He added it was “kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and executing the law would violate the law.”
GOWDY SLAMS MUELLER TEAM OVER LEAKS ABOUT CHARGES IN TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE
Speaking on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. — who has publicly feuded in recent days with President Trump — said he had “no knowledge” regarding the indictments, and that he’s focused on doing his job for the American people.
“I don’t know the substance. I have no knowledge. Like you, we’ll wait and see what happens,” Corker said Sunday. “But most of us are focused on the policies we have to deal with on behalf of the American people, and right now you know that’s been a sideshow.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also told “Face the Nation” that Mueller’s investigation “from the very beginning … has gone along two tracks. One is the independent counsel’s investigation to see if there’s criminal wrongdoing, and it looks like we’re going to find out as early as tomorrow about some indictments in that area.”
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump was “confident” Mueller would soon “close” his investigation.
The Justice Department’s special counsel’s office declined to comment on the reports of filed charges.

Michael Moore Cartoons

Trump slams Michael Moore for Broadway 'bomb'

Michael Moore's one-man show 'The Terms of My Surrender' ended its 13-week run on Broadway this past Sunday.  (AP)

President Donald Trump has mocked left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore, tweeting Saturday that the director's one-man Broadway show was "a TOTAL BOMB".

Moore, the director of several documentaries including "Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," and "Farenheit 9/11," responded later Saturday with a tweet of his own.

Moore's show, "The Terms of My Surrender," ended its 13-week run Oct. 22. The website BroadwayWorld.com reported that it took in $4.2 million at the box office, less than half of its potential take.
The show, which combined Moore's autobiography with calls for political action against Trump and other Republicans, was a critical disappointment as well. The New York Times described "Terms of My Surrender" as "shaggy and self-aggrandizing."
"You don’t have to disagree with Mr. Moore’s politics to find that his shtick has become disagreeable with age," wrote reviewer Jesse Green, who compared the show to "being stuck at Thanksgiving dinner with a garrulous, self-regarding, time-sucking uncle."
Moore has been an outspoken critic of Trump. In August, Moore led the show's audience to Trump Tower to protest the president's reaction to deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. That same night, he compared the president's supporters to accomplices in a rape during an interview with CNN.
"If you hold down the woman while the rapist is raping her, and you didn't rape her, are you a rapist?" Moore said at the time. "Let's cut the BS and start speaking honestly."
This week, Moore told the Wall Street Journal in an email that the show was "the most artistically gratifying experience of my life" and said there were "talks happening about taking this show on the road."

Trump critic Matt Taibbi facing backlash over Russia memoir

Little Weasel

Matt Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine, is facing backlash over a 2000 memoir he co-authored.  (Penguin Random House)

Rolling Stone magazine journalist Matt Taibbi won a lot of praise from the anti-Trump crowd earlier this year, when he released a book titled “Insane Clown President.”

But now many of those admirers may be wondering who the real clown is.

After receiving backlash over a 2000 memoir that details his past behavior toward women, Taibbi now says the book was a fictional “satire.”
Taibbi abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance at a humanities festival in Chicago on Saturday after negative reaction to an interview he recently gave to an NPR reporter.
According to Reuters, NPR asked Taibbi about the memoir he co-authored, called “The Exile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia.”
The book details the exploits of Taibbi, 47, and another staffer while they worked for an English-language newspaper in Russia.
The memoir includes anecdotes in which Taibbi and co-author Mark Ames seem to have mistreated – possibly even assaulted – some women they encountered in Russia, Reuters reported.
According to an excerpt published by the Chicago Reader, Taibbi and Ames refer to attractive Russian women as being “usually available to the highest bidder,” and often willing to engage in “condomless sex.”
But in a Facebook post last week, Taibbi wrote that the memoir was really fictional and that his intent was to poke fun at the idea of Americans living in Russia.
“I regret many editorial decisions that I made back then, and putting my name as a co-author on a book that used cruel and misogynistic language to describe many people and women in particular,” Taibbi wrote. “I hope readers can forgive my poor judgment at that time.”
Co-author Ames also posted that the book was fictional.
“I never raped, harassed, assaulted anyone, and it sickens me that I’m dragged into having to make this sort of denial,” Ames wrote, according to Reuters.
The Chicago Reader’s Aimee Levitt, however, notes that Twitter users have pointed out that the book contains a note at the beginning, saying it was nonfictional.
“To fail to acknowledge Taibbi's earlier work is to say that what he and Ames wrote about doing didn't matter, how those women felt didn't matter, and, by extension, to say we don't matter, and you, our female readers, don't matter,” Levitt writes. “But we do. And you do.”

NFL players seek meeting with Goodell, McNair, Kaepernick

The NFL  Should Move Permanently To London.

The NFL Players Coalition is seeking a meeting with, from left, Commissioner Roger Goodell, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair and free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

An NFL team owner’s recent “inmates running the prison” remark has prompted a group of the league’s players to call for a meeting Monday to clear the air.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that a panel called the Players Coalition has requested a meeting Monday in Philadelphia with league Commissioner Roger Goodell, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, and free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

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It wasn’t immediately clear if all parties had agreed to attend.
Meanwhile, ESPN reported Saturday that the Houston Texans players were planning to stage an unspecified protest against McNair's remarks prior to Sunday's game against the Seahawks in Seattle.
“Many players have been deeply troubled by the disturbing comments made by Texans' owner Bob McNair,” the Players Coalition said in a statement. “It is ironic that such a quote would emerge in the midst of an ongoing struggle to highlight injustices suffered by people of color, including our nation's deeply flawed approach to criminal justice and inhumane treatment of imprisoned people.”
McNair has apologized twice since making what he described as a “very regretful comment” during a recent league meeting about players’ national anthem protests. The comment was published in ESPN The Magazine.
But McNair insisted afterward that he wasn’t referring to the players as “inmates” when he said, “We can’t have the inmates running the prison.” Instead, he said, he was describing the relationship between team owners and the league office in New York.
Nevertheless, in a league on edge over race-related matters -- sparked in large part by Kaepernick’s 2016 protests against American society’s treatment of people of color – the “inmates” remark wasn’t accepted well.
Last season Kaepernick, who was with the San Francisco 49ers, began kneeling during the national anthem before games, saying he was protesting police killings of African-Americans. But many critics argued that protesting during the anthem was disrespectful to the nation and especially the members of the U.S. military.
After President Donald Trump made a veiled reference to Kaepernick as a “son of a bitch” during a September speech in Alabama, more players joined the protest – even though Kaepernick was out of the league by then.
In their statement, the players asserted that McNair’s remark suggested that some league officials were not taking their concerns seriously.
“As long as the prevailing reality of our league includes a culture where owners feel such behavior and language is permissible, our cause will continue to be stifled and progress will remain elusive,” the statement said. “This isn't about being a player or a club owner - but basic human decency.”
According to ESPN, the Players Coalition is led by Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, retired wide receiver Anquan Boldin and other players who are engaged in community activism.

Speculation swirls amid reports Mueller has filed charges in Russia-Trump associates probe

Speculation swirled Sunday awaiting the announcement of possible charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Russia and members of the Trump presidential campaign, as his tactics have been called into question.

The charges being filed by a grand jury was reported first by CNN and the Wall Street Journal, which said anyone charged will be taken into custody Monday. However, the charges have been sealed by a federal judge. So whoever is charged and whether the charges are criminal remains unclear.

The possible charges come as Mueller's tactics have been called into question.
During a raid by the FBI in July of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's Virginia home,  a source close to the investigation told Fox News at the time the scope of the search was "heavy-handed, designed to intimidate."
Andrew Weissmann, the prosecutor tapped by Mueller to help lead the investigation, has also received criticism. Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor recently wrote about Weissman in a piece titled, “Judging by Mueller's staffing choices, he may not be very interested in justice.”
Powell accused Weissmann, once the director of the Enron Task Force, of “prosecutorial overreach” in past cases and said it could signal what’s to come for President Trump and his associates in the Russia probe.
“What was supposed to have been a search for Russia’s cyberspace intrusions into our electoral politics has morphed into a malevolent mission targeting friends, family and colleagues of the president,” Powell wrote in The Hill. “The Mueller investigation has become an all-out assault to find crimes to pin on them — and it won’t matter if there are no crimes to be found. This team can make some.”
Powell cited several cases where Weissmann won convictions that were later overturned.
During a Saturday appearance on Fox News, former Department of Justice official Robert Driscoll told anchor Leland Vittert it’s possible the indictment might not even be directly tied to Russian collusion.
“Think back to the Clinton years,” Driscoll said. “The Whitewater investigation was about an Arkansas land deal. And it ended up being about something else completely.”
Driscoll added, “Robert Mueller is free to look at taxes, is free to look at lobbying filings, foreign agent filings. Things like that could all be involved that wouldn’t necessarily touch on the issue of Russia collusion that everyone seems focused on politically.”
Speculation has focused on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as likely targets.
Manafort has been the subject of a longstanding investigation into his dealings in the Ukraine several years ago -- for which he did not file as a foreign agent until June 2017.
Federal agents, reportedly in search of evidence related to the Russia investigation, this summer raided his northern Virginia home. He also was reportedly wiretapped by investigators before and after the 2016 presidential election.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, was a Trump surrogate during the campaign and briefly served as national security adviser before being fired for failing to fully disclose his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then-Russian ambassador to the United States.
The FBI also secured approval from a federal court to monitor the communications of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
On Saturday, Page released a statement to Fox News in response to questions about whether he or his lawyers have been notified about any charges.
Page said in the statement that he has worked with the executive branch and Congress since being contacted in March. But he also suggested that revelations about the Democratic Party having helped finance a dossier to smear Trump has tainted any Russia probe. 
“In terms of ‘charges', I can’t even imagine what might even be considered now that the false evidence from the politically-motivated, big-money-financed Dodgy Dossier that started this extrajudicial disaster has instead been so thoroughly exposed as a complete sham,” Carter wrote in the statement.
The Wall Street Journal reported at least one person could be taken into custody as early as Monday.
Richard Hibey, an attorney for Manafort, told Fox News on Friday that neither he nor any of his colleagues representing Manafort had been informed of any indictment of their client.
Manafort has been the subject of a longstanding investigation into his dealings in the Ukraine several years ago – for which he did not file as a foreign agent until June 2017. In addition to his home being raided, Manafort was reportedly wiretapped by investigators before and after the 2016 presidential election.
A retired Army lieutenant general, Flynn served as a Trump surrogate during the campaign and briefly served as national security adviser before being fired over his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, who was Russia's ambassador to the United States.
Mueller has reportedly probed whether Flynn was involved in a private effort to get former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's emails from Russian hackers.
NBC reported Saturday that Mueller will make public an indictment on Monday.
The Justice Department’s special counsel’s office declined to comment on the reports of filed charges. There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Trump has denied allegations that his campaign colluded with Russians and condemned investigations into the matter as “a witch hunt”.