“CRUMBS”: Democratic Group Warns Party on Midterm Messaging.

The prominent super PAC Priorities USA released a polling memo Tuesday showing that as attention has been centered on White House scandals and immigration the past few weeks, Democrats have been losing ground on taxes and the economy.

The findings deliver welcome news for Republicans, who have been working on improving public perception of their originally unpopular tax bill and also banking on an improved economy in 2018. The Priorities’ survey shows upticks in President Trump’s job approval rating, along with increased approval on key GOP policy items including health care, taxes and the economy.

“There’s no question that Trump benefits when a critique of his tax and health care policies is not front and center – especially when voters are hearing Trump’s side of the story on the economy,” the memo reads. “In the last few weeks, Democrats turned their attention to other issues while Trump has continued to promote his economic policies, and Trump’s numbers have incrementally improved as a result.”

They can’t help but rise to the culture war bait, which is how they get more Trump.

WINNING? Taliban Wants US To Enter Dialogue, End Afghanistan War.

In a letter addressed to the “American people, officials of independent non-governmental organizations and the peace loving Congressmen,” the Taliban said it wanted to end the 17-year conflict through peace talks with President Donald Trump. The letter also warned that the pacifist tack shouldn’t be perceived as a sign of weakness and its fight against the U.S. troops in Afghanistan will persist until they leave the premises.

Former President George W. Bush deployed troops in Afghanistan in 2001 and last year, Trump redoubled his efforts to attack the region when U.S. unleashed the Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB) against an ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province, along the border with Pakistan.

The strikes ordered by the president pushed the Taliban back from several district centers and two provincial capitals, Reuters reported.

The letter said, “Despite continuing this bloody war for seventeen years and accepting huge casualties and financial losses, your current president Donald Trump — to continue the illegal 17-year-old war in Afghanistan — acknowledged increased insecurity and emergence of multiple groups instead of the single unified Islamic Emirate (Taliban).”

That last paragraph is some unconvincing tough talk from a group who just got bloodied by American airpower.

JUST AS GLENN FORETOLD: The Michael Flynn guilty plea stinks to high-heaven.

Now it’s Larry O’Connor saying it:

Who sent the FBI to investigate this dubious charge of Flynn violating the arcane and never-enforced Logan Act? None other than Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Yates famously joined the resistance to President Trump weeks after the inauguration by refusing to enforce the president’s Executive Order on extreme vetting for foreign nationals coming from certain countries known to engage in terror activities.

Yates was also a participant in a January 5 meeting between President Obama, Vice President Biden, Comey and National Security Adviser Susan Rice that was just revealed in an email Rice sent to herself claiming Obama wanted the ongoing surveillance and investigation into the Trump campaign to be conducted “by the book.”

Meanwhile, former Asst. US Attorney Andrew McCarthy writes at National Review about the curious events surrounding the guilty plea and the possibility that Mueller’s team did not reveal all exculpatory discovery to Flynn when they accepted reached their plea deal

Anyone working in the Executive branch who joins the “resistance” against their own boss ought to lose their job, period.

JOE PAPPALARDO: Doomsday Satellites and the Space Wars To Come.

ROGER SIMON: From Parkland to Princeton America’s Adults Abdicate Responsibility.

VIDEO: Sharyl Attkisson Explains the Origins of the 2016 ‘Fake News’ Narrative in TedX Talk. “The whole thing smacked of the roll-out of a propaganda campaign.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: DOJ Official Bruce Ohr Hid Wife’s Fusion GPS Payments From Ethics Officials. “Bruce Ohr, the Department of Justice official who brought opposition research on President Donald Trump to the FBI, did not disclose that Fusion GPS, which performed that research at the Democratic National Committee’s behest, was paying his wife, and did not obtain a conflict of interest waiver from his superiors at the Justice Department, documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation show. The omission may explain why Ohr was demoted from his post as associate deputy attorney general after the relationship between Fusion GPS and his wife emerged and Fusion founder Glenn Simpson acknowledged meeting with Ohr. Willfully falsifying government ethics forms can carry a penalty of jail time, if convicted.”

(Bumped).

Related: Monica Showalter: Bruce and Nellie Ohr: The other Trump-hating lovebirds. “The Daily Caller speculates that from Fusion GPS’s point of view, it was the perfect Bonnie and Clyde scenario for getting its research out there – not just for the incurious press, but before the eyes of the FBI, using the FBI as a means to take down Trump. All of this would have benefited its client, Hillary Clinton, whose campaign, along with the Democratic National Committee, was paying for the whole thing. Two heads are better than one, it seems. Lovebirds united in their loathing of Trump repeatedly get into mischief. This shows the incestuousness of the Deep State, of course: first FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and his wife, then FBI counterintelligence big Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page, and now Bruce and Nellie Ohr. Not a one of them was afraid of the consequences that ordinarily come of blatant conflicts of interest, and some, apparently such as Bruce Ohr, felt they could get away easily with lying. It goes to show it’s about time to clean house harder among the Deep State tag-teams.”

OUT: PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHOOSE WHAT THEY’RE CALLED. In: Saying ‘husband/wife’ violates Christian ‘dignity,’ school says.

CHANGE: Russia and China will have ‘operational’ anti-satellite weapons in a few years.

“We assess that, if a future conflict were to occur involving Russia or China, either country would justify attacks against U.S. and allied satellites as necessary to offset any perceived U.S. military advantage derived from military, civil or commercial space systems,” warns the 2018 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, released this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The United States has benefitted from a tidal wave of innovation in the space industry, but so have many other nations. “Foreign countries — particularly China and Russia — will continue to expand their space-based reconnaissance, communications, and navigation systems in terms of the numbers of satellites, the breadth of their capability, and the applications for use,” said the report.

Related: The Air Force Turned Off GPS To Rehearse a War Without It.

THE “AUTHORITIES” SEEM TO HAVE PLENTY OF RESOURCES TO GO AFTER PEOPLE FOR PC INFRACTIONS, BUT CAN’T SEEM TO RESPOND TO WARNINGS OF ACTUAL VIOLENCE: ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ Only Works if Authorities Do Something.

DAMNING: More Evidence the Obama White House Deliberately Deceived on the Iran Deal. “Ben Rhodes formally joins the Ploughshares Fund.”

There was an interesting announcement on Wednesday for Ben Rhodes, formerly the Obama White House deputy national security adviser. Rhodes, you may recall, caught some flack at the end of Obama’s presidency for admitting to the New York Times that he was manipulating the media in his efforts to sell the Iran Deal: “We created an echo chamber,” [Rhodes] admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”

On Wednesday it was announced that Rhodes is joining the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund.

If you know anything about the Ploughshares Fund, and their role in selling the Iran Deal, having Rhodes on their board is a good fit.

Read the whole thing.

FLASHBACK: 30 Years Ago, Guns Were In Schools And Nothing Happened.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO HARASS: California #MeToo advocate hit with new claims of misconduct. “California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, a vocal #MeToo leader, faces fresh allegations of misconduct in her office, including frequent discussions about sex and alcohol consumption at the Capitol. San Diego lawyer Dan Gilleon filed a formal complaint Wednesday with the Legislature detailing the allegations on behalf of four anonymous former employees in Garcia’s office.”

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN STATES ALWAYS NIGHTMARES FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS? California’s hidden homeless: Teachers, chefs, nurses and other middle class workers living in cars in parking lots because of the state’s crazy property prices.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Florida School Shooting, RUSSIA Investigation Update and Much, Much More. “What do we do with people who show signs of mental illness and/or violence before they commit a crime?”

The FBI needs to spend some serious time working on an answer to that question.

CALLING OUT BIGOTRY AT DUKE: Duke students rebuke prof for saying libertarians are autistic.

FLASHBACK: People don’t stop killers. People with guns do.

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Feds to Repeal 298 Tax Regulations.

SHIPS WITH FRICKIN LASER BEAMS: The U.S. Navy Is Funding Lasers and Killing the Railgun.

The so-called Navy Laser Family of Systems is meant to get laser weapons to sea in the near term, giving the U.S. Navy the ability to deal with what might be called “pesky” threats: unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned ships, and armed speed boats, also known as fast inshore attack craft (FIAC). Such threats cannot sink America’s large warships directly, but they can surveil, harass, and even damage a ship as large as a destroyer. The “family” also includes larger 150-kilowatt weapons that could be useful against missiles and aircraft.

But what about the U.S. Navy’s vaunted railgun, also known as Project 3370? The 2019 budget provides zero funding for the railgun. In its place, the Navy is funding the Gun Launched Guided Projectile, also known as the Hyper Velocity Projectile Block 0, which will “double the range of the current 5-inch conventional ammunition while meeting multi-mission operational requirements for Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), Anti-Air Warfare (AAW), and Naval Surface Fire Support (NSFS) missions.”

Both systems require huge amounts of electricity, but only the railgun has the reach to engage over-the-horizon threats. China is reportedly preparing to test-fire their own railgun.

THAT’S BASICALLY WHAT “BIPARTISAN BUDGET DEAL” MEANS: That bipartisan budget deal was loaded with bipartisan corporate welfare.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED HIS WAS A REMARKABLY SCANDAL-FREE ADMINISTRATION: Federal abuses on Obama’s watch represent a growing blight on his legacy.

It’s increasingly apparent that these recently exposed abuses of power served two ostensible purposes: to secure Hillary Clinton’s candidacy by shielding her from prosecution stemming from the use of her unauthorized private server, and to derail the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump.

But something else, something more profound, drove their efforts: their urgency to preserve what Obama once called “the fundamental transformation of the nation” — a grand project much bigger than Obama himself or any other single figure. He largely fulfilled the long-held progressive ambition of changing the nation’s course, only to see Trump threaten to change it once again: not to return it to where it was pre-Obama, but to smash the corrupt existing order that had made their progressive advances possible.

Obama and the leftist movement over which he has presided could not tolerate a reversal of their gains (by Trump, no less!), so they got to work.

On the offensive side, these Obama officials — who obviously loathe Trump, as demonstrated by the glaring antipathy in the Strzok–Page texts and others’ communications — set out to damage him. Trump, they thought, gave them much material with which to work, plus they enjoyed a compliant media that stood ready to amplify spoon-fed narratives, regardless of their veracity. The acquisition of multiple FISA warrants — now known to be largely based on an unverified dossier prepared by a foreign spy, using anonymous Russian and close Clinton associates and paid for by her campaign and the Democratic National Committee — to subvert and impair Trump and his associates, succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

On the defensive side, Herculean efforts were made by the Obama DOJ and FBI to stonewall the Clinton investigation, not out of any real love for Hillary but because they needed to ensure a Democratic win and the continuance of their “transformative” agenda. Further, with Clinton at the helm, evidence of all of their previous abuses would never see the light of day.

Weird how this stuff is getting more attention only now that Obama is safely out of office and Clinton doesn’t wield presidential powers.