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April 2017

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and top Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) have announced that the committee could not find evidence that President Donald Trump's former National Security adviser Michael Flymm reported payments for his foreign work. Chaffetz and Cummings reviewed classified military documents, which showed them that "Flynn did not ask permission or inform the government about payments he got for appearances before Russian organizations and for lobbying that helped Turkey's government.

President Donald Trump will host the entire U.S. Senate on Wednesday for a briefing on the situation with North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will join the senators along with Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. It will take place at 3PM ET. Press Secretary Sean Spicer told the media that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for the meeting. The Senate usually holds these meetings at a secure location on Capitol Hill, but Trump offered to host the meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

President Donald Trump has offered us a little hint into the tax reform plan he wants to unveil on Wednesday. He has demanded aides to draft a plan that cuts the corporate tax rate to 15%. It would help him keep one of his campaign promises. On the trail, he vowed to bring the tax rate to 15% from 35%. Yet, it could cause a fight on Capital Hill. Republicans want to cut taxes, but they cannot agree on how much.

It is being reported that, despite the numerous attack on Christians in Egypt, the head of the Catholic Church has shunned using an armored vehicle when he tours the nation's capital during his upcoming trip.
...[Pope Francis] will fly from Rome to Cairo on Friday for a two-day visit intended to build on inter-faith dialogue with Muslim leaders and to show solidarity with beleaguered Christian communities in the Middle East. Despite his vulnerability as a potential terrorist target, the Pope will not travel through the streets of Cairo in an armoured vehicle, the Vatican said on Monday.

Elizabeth Warren says she's not running for president in 2020. She could have fooled us. Her actions suggest not only is she running, she has already begun. Still, she denies it. The Washington Free Beacon reported:
Warren: ‘I’m Not Running for President in 2020’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.) stated that she is not running for president in 2020 during an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night.

On this evening's Hardball, Matthews said "New polls this week show the president with ocean-bottom job approval. That said, his supporters stick like a bathtub ring. Among those who voted for him, says the Washington Post, 96% said they have no regrets about supporting him." The non-stop attacks from Dems and the MSM haven't shaken support for President Trump among those who voted for him. A frustrated Matthews let his vexation show by comparing Trump supporters to that stubborn ring around the bathtub.

Will Rep. Joaquin Castro toss his hat into the upcoming Texas Senate race? Castro first said in February he'd make his announcement in eight weeks, then said he'd it would be the end of April, only to recently move his self-imposed deadline to "a few more weeks" reports the Texas Tribune. Should Castro jump in, he'd first have to beat fellow Democratic Congressman, Beto O'Rourke, who declared his candidacy at the end of March, before squaring off against Sen. Ted Cruz.

On February 15 two 17-year-old central NY high school students—Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff—raised objections to a homework assignment in which they were required to either oppose or defend the extermination of Jews. Their teacher, Oswego County High School teacher Michael DeNobile, asked them to
write an internal memorandum within the highest ranking offices of the Nazi party in regards to your support or opposition to the Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”
Presumably the goal was to teach the students critical thinking, thereby promoting one of the Common Core’s desired skills.

April 23rd of this year was Tax Freedom Day, or "the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year". A whopping 31% of the nation's earnings are confiscated by the government for federal and state taxes for a total of $5.1 trillion. Amazingly, that's still not enough to pay off state and national deficits.

The European Union and German establishment are rallying behind French centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron after he emerged as the front runner in the first round of the French presidential vote. Pro-EU Macron and nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen have both advanced to the presidential runoff set for May 7, secured 23.7 and 21.7 percent of votes respectively. Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman praised Marcon's "firm course for a strong EU" and congratulated him on his preliminary victory, wishing him "all the best for the next two weeks." German Foreign Minister Sigmar endorsed Marcon saying, "I am sure that he will be the next French president." Minister Sigmar called him the “only pro-European candidate” in the French presidential race.

The Iranian Nuclear Deal included many pieces, but one of the least reported items of the deal has been the prisoner swap. Iran agreed to release four Americans while we handed over seven prisoners and dropped charges and investigations against 14 others. Professor Jacobson profiled these prisoners after the exchange occurred. But a Politico investigation has revealed the anger and frustration within former President Barack Obama's administration over the release of these men:
“They didn’t just dismiss a bunch of innocent business guys,” said one former federal law enforcement supervisor centrally involved in the hunt for Iranian arms traffickers and nuclear smugglers. “And then they didn’t give a full story of it.”

You almost certainly have heard of Anne Frank. It's unlikely that until Trump's election you heard of an entity calling itself the "Anne Frank Center (US)." That's because for most of its history, AFCUS has quietly done work educating people about Anne Frank. Then in the spring of 2016 everything changed. AFCUS changed its focus, hired a political activist named Steven Goldstein, and began to reposition itself as a social justice organization. AFCUS has, since Trump's election, issued a series of inflammatory statements that get gobbled up by the media looking to bash Trump.