YOU WON’T BELIEVE HOW MICHAEL WOLFF EXPLAINS HIS WHITE HOUSE ACCESS: Asked by NBC Meet The Press Host Chuck Todd about how he gained entrance to the President and other White House officials, the “Fire and Fury” author offered a rambling account full of generalizations. LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst has the ugly details.

CONSERVATIVES’ MEMO TO CONGRESS – YOU STILL GOTTA KILL OBAMACARE: It shouldn’t have to be said but a large group of influential conservative activist groups know Republicans leading Congress need to be reminded over and over – they promised for seven years to repeal Obamacare, so what are they waiting for now, eight years later?

LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby points out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has his mind on other matters: “McConnell has sent conflicting signals in recent weeks. He told National Public Radio before Christmas that the Senate would ‘probably move on to other issues.’ Later, he told reporters at his end-of-the-year news conference that he would commit to a vote on a plan offered by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) if they can get enough support. ‘I wish them well,’ he said.”

In other words, get lost. That could be the message voters send McConnell and other Republicans of like mind, come November.

WHAT IS MICHAEL WOLFF SMOKING? Wolff claims in his new book that Trump and his top campaign officials expected to lose, some even wanted to lose. LifeZette’s Jim Stinson did a Pinata Google Search (i.e. blindfolded) and found three huge examples Wolff missed. Or are Wolff and his publisher just playing us all for fools so we’ll buy the book? Nah, they wouldn’t do that. Would they?

HERE’S WHY THERE MAY BE NO MORE FREE PASSES FOR THE CLINTON FOUNDATION: Charles Ortel may know more about the Clinton Foundation than even anybody other than the tightest inner circle of what he calls “the biggest charitable fraud ever.” News of the renewed Justice Department review of the foundation may just be, he writes on LifeZette, the latest indication that the clock is ticking on Bill and Hillary’s favorite charity.

IS ABORTION OR BIRTH CONTROL WHY U.S. PREGNANCY RATE IS DECLINING? A Middlebury College professor says the data shows its mostly the easy availability of abortion. Others think near-universal access to birth control is the culprit. Still others say there is no one cause but rather a bunch of related factors. Whatever the reason, declining birth rates in Western nations is a huge worry. Or should be.

DID HELL FREEZE OVER OR WAS THIS HOUSE DEM PRAISING TRUMP MISQUOTED? I know it’s frigidly cold all over the country – so cold, according to Sen. Charles Grassley that politicians are keeping their hands in their own pockets! – but did this very liberal House Democrat really just praise President Trump on North Korea?

THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL: Internal Chinese government document shows Beijing really is playing the U.S. for a fool, telling North Korea not to worry about getting more nukes and reassuring Pyongyang that China will continue supplying critical resources. In other words, China’s vote in favor of tougher UN sanctions against North Korea meant absolutely zilch.

DOES ‘EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW’ REALLY APPLY TO THE CLINTONS? Judging by what happened in 2017 to former Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida and Kristian Saucier of the U.S. Navy, and James Comey’s Get Out of Jail card in 2016 for the former Secretary of State, the answer would appear to be no. If that is confirmed in 2018, let’s not hear another word from the Left about equality because they’ve enabled the Clintons for nearly three decades.

VIRTUALLY EVERY DAY OF 2016, SOMEBODY IN DOJ DC WAS GIVING MONEY TO HILLARY: More than 2,600 individual donations were to the Clinton campaign by donors who listed the Department of Justice or one of its elements, like the FBI, as their employers. Their contributions totaled more than $416,000. Trump got a little more than $20,000 from a mere 61 such employees.

Only 268 of them lived in the Washington, D.C. but their combined total of more than $242,000 was half of all the DOJ/FBI donors to Clinton. That’s a drop in the bucket of $1.2 billion that Clinton spent in losing to Donald Trump but the huge gulf between DOJ backers of Clinton and Trump sheds additional light on why congressional Republicans are raising a growing stink about partisan bias in DOJ and the FBI.

CAN A CASE BE MADE THAT TRUMP IS OUT-GIPPERING THE GIPPER? Check out these five ways President Donald Trump shook up Washington in 2017, then compare them with President Ronald Reagan’s first-year record. Reagan cut taxes, scared the Iranian Mullahs so much they quickly released 52 American hostages they’d held hostage for more than a year, began reversal of the Carter-era defense readiness decline and launched major spending and regulatory reforms. Speaking as a former Reagan political appointee, I have to say Trump is, at the very least, following very closely in the Gipper’s hallowed footsteps.

MAYBE THIS EXPLAINS THE APPARENT (to be charitable) DOJ/FBI COVERUP ON CLINTON EMAIL WHITEWASH? Turns out that Hillary Clinton got contributions totaling more than $381,000 in 2016 campaign contributions.

Trump? Just 24 DOJ employees sent his campaign a piddling total of $12,535. No wonder they’ve been stalling  the House Select Committee on Intelligence on its August 2017 request for documents related to the Clinton email probe and related matters?

Those data reflect only contributors who specifically listed DOJ as their employer. There may well be many more Trump or Clinton donors who didn’t list DOJ as their employer, since giving your occupation is voluntary.

HERE COME THREE HUGE,  UNEXPECTED SURPRISES FOR THE “EXPERTS” IN 2018: If yours truly has learned anything living in Washington, D.C. since 1976, it’s that when you need to know where the country is headed in the near future, check the conventional wisdom among America’s political, academic and media elites, then expect the opposite to occur. Here are three major examples. And boy are there going to be some dumbfounded swamp creatures in coming months.

WHAT IF THE SWAMP IS TOO HUGE TO BE DRAINED? That’s something lots of readers may ask after reviewing Open The Books’ “Mapping The Swamp” report on the true size and cost of the “administrative state” that is the federal Leviathan. As always, Adam Andrzejewski, Open The Books indefatigable chief, drew the report from data required to be made public by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, co-sponsored by senators Tom Coburn, R-Ok., and Barack Obama, D-Ilin.

MORE PROOF THAT LITTLE THINGS CAN HAVE HUGE CONSEQUENCES: A pay raise of 2.29 percent in 2018 might seem rather insignificant. But if you live in a county with a median household income of $125,900, it means you will have an additional $2,883 in your paycheck, starting New Year’s Day.

That 2.29 percent is the amount of the Locality Pay raise for federal workers living in the Washington, D.C. region.  Feds living in nearby Howard County, Md., Falls Church, Va., Fairfax, Va. and Arlington, Va., will also get that percentage. Washington, D.C., you will recall, is the ultimate company town and the company is “bureaucracy.”

Oh, there’s one more thing: Those four jurisdictions are, respectively, first, second, third, fourth and eighth among the top 10 U.S. richest counties, ranked according median household income. Bet you’ve never even heard of Locality Pay, even though you fund it with your taxes. Paying 2.1 million federal bureaucrats (not counting members of the U.S. military) cost you $276 billion last year.

THIS KIND OF NEWS IS USEFUL EVEN A DAY LATE! Tell a liberal the feds have too much power and as often as not the response will include something about “so you don’t the FDA making sure your food is safe to eat?” Next time you get that, tell them about this report from the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General. Turns out FDA bureaucrats can be just as lazy, late and unconcerned as those anywhere else in the federal Leviathan. No, I’m not surprised, either.

IF NEARLY HALF OF LIKELY VOTERS THINK FBI BROKE LAW FIGHTING TRUMP: That’s probably not a good sign for Democrats bubbling with optimism about a “blue wave” in November 2018. And note the 50 percent figure for Independents in the Rasmussen survey. Are Trump’s tweets turning the tide?

IF CORPORATE TAX CUTS ARE SO BAD, WHY ARE THE BLUE STATES SLASHING THEIRS? Leave it to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and other blue state officials to provide yet another illustration of utter hypocrisy in politics.

Shortly after Congress approved the largest tax cut in American history and the most significant reform of the tax code since, 1986, Schumer lamented that “now we know they are popping champagne down Pennsylvania Avenue. There are only two places where America’s popping champagne: The White House and the corporate board rooms, including Trump Tower.”

Thanks to the tax reform bill, Schumer added that the measure “officially cements the Republican Party as the party of the wealthy and the party of big corporations against the middle class and the working people of this country.”

Then there’s this piquant observation from Lifezette’s Brendan Kirby, who points out that: “Even as prominent Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) trashed the idea, their extremely blue home states have been cutting corporate tax rates.

“The three states are among a dozen overall that have changed their corporate tax rates since 2012, according to a report this month by the Tax Foundation. All of the changes have flowed in one direction: down.”

As “they” say, you just can’t make this stuff up.

MSNBC’S JOE SCARBOROUGH IS CLAIRVOYANT. HOW ELSE COULD HE READ GOP MINDS? Forget all that stuff you’ve heard about the emails FBI counter-intelligence chief Peter Strzok exchanged with his girlfriend in which both demeaned Donald Trump. And forget that the wife of a former associate deputy attorney general worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the infamous “dirty dossier” on Trump.

In fact, just forget everything you’ve heard, including the FEC records about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff of Democratic contributors who are investigating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Believe only what you read in approved media like the New York Times, Washington Post and Huffington Post. They always make Mueller’s unimpeachable virtues clear, no matter the fact pattern.

And Scarborough? Well, the former Republican congressman from Florida, is even beyond those august media outlets, thanks to his uncanny ability to discern exactly what Trump’s defenders are thinking and why they do what they do. That talent is why Scarborough can say things like this, as reported earlier today by LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst:

“It seems to me that they’re just throwing whatever they can, like monkeys throwing poo against the wall. Last week, it was ‘Textgate’ scandal. So they move on to something else. What exactly is the scandal? They’re making things up every week.” Thanks, Joe, that explains a lot. Republicans are apes and criticism of Mueller is a bunch of …

Isn’t it sad that Republicans and conservatives are so intolerant and mean-spirited?

THEY SAID HE COULDN’T WIN IN 2016. NOW THEY SAY HE CAN’T WIN IN 2018? Remember all those “experts” who couldn’t conceive of any scenario in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not win the 2016 presidential contest against Donald Trump. In many cases, the same experts are now predicting Republicans will get shellacked in the 2018 midterm elections because of Trump.

Now along comes LifeZette White House Correspondent Jim Stinson making a solid case for the proposition that Trump won the White House by ignoring conventional political wisdom and passage Wednesday of the biggest tax cut reform in U.S. history points to the likelihood that he will do it again next November. Are our political experts like the generals who are always fighting the last war?

Here’s a sample of Stinson’s analysis: “Wednesday’s triumph enhances Trump’s reputation as the disruptive leader who is keeping his promises and draining the Washington swamp. His tactics have always been disruptive, but now Washington’s GOP Establishment seems finally to be moving in his direction.”

HAS NANCY PELOSI FINALLY FOUND THE DEEPEST PART OF THE DEEP END? It’s hard to imagine how the aging House Minority Leader could plunge any deeper than she did in her tirade today against the Trump/GOP tax cut. Pelosi described the measure as a “tax scam” and a “monumental, brazen theft from the American middle class and from every person who aspires to reach it.” But she was just getting started at that point, according to PolitiZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst. It got deeper and deeper and …

JOHN SOLOMON SLICED AND DICED LISA BLOOM MONDAY NIGHT: It happened on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” and it was brutal. Reporting last week for The Hill, Solomon was first with the news that Bloom – daughter of celebrity ambulance chaser Gloria Allred – sought multiple forms of compensation for women willing to publicly accuse Donald Trump of sexual harassment during last year’s presidential race.

In response, Bloom tried to dismiss Solomon’s reporting as the work of a “far-right journalist.” Bad mistake because Bloom’s ad hominem isn’t remotely grounded in reality. And Solomon pounced when asked about it by Laura Ingraham: “I learned a long time ago — I’ve been an investigative reporter for 30 years — if you can’t attack the facts, you try to do an ad hominem attack on the reporter. The facts are unassailable.”

It was downhill from there, at least for Bloom. LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby has the details.

CUOMO, SCARBOROUGH SHOW SERIOUS SYMPTOMS OF TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: Every day seems to bring new evidence of media folks who just cannot maintain perspective about the reality that Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office because he won the majority in the 2016 presidential contest with Hillary Clinton. LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst has the details.

WHAT IF LISA BLOOM CROSSED THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM LINE? It may seem a bit of a stretch but Kathryn Blackhurst of LifeZette talked to a really smart lawyer who offered this intriguing observation:

“I don’t know that campaign finance law wanted to discourage people from coming out with factual allegations about candidates or anybody in society by requiring money to be reported. That was not the real purpose of campaign finance law. Although since this does appear to be trying to influence an election, it could fall under the realm of campaign finance law,” said Mark Fitzgibbons, president of American Target Advertising in Manassas, Va.

Fitzgibbons added that it would be “very troubling from a legal ethics perspective” if a PAC associated with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was involved in any way in Bloom’s activities.

REMEMBER THIS NAME AND REMEMBER THIS DATE: The name is Michael Horowitz. The date is Jan. 12, 2017. Horowitz is the Inspector-General of the Department of Justice. January 12, 2017, is the date Horowitz announced an investigation of these factors:

• Allegations that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in connection with, or in actions leading up to or related to, the FBI Director’s public announcement on July 5, 2016, and the Director’s letters to Congress on October 28 and November 6, 2016, and that certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations;

• Allegations that the FBI Deputy Director should have been recused from participating in certain investigative matters;

• Allegations that the Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs improperly disclosed non-public information to the Clinton campaign and/or should have been recused from participating in certain matters;

• Allegations that Department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information;

• Allegations that decisions regarding the timing of the FBI’s release of certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents on October 30 and November 1, 2016, and the use of a Twitter account to publicize same, were influenced by improper considerations.

The Horowitz probe is why Peter Strzok’s amazing emails were discovered. As sensational as those emails are, the more important question is what occasioned their becoming available to the Horowitz investigators. The DOJ IG is nobody’s fool and his report is just over the horizon. Just ask American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson.

There are more than 70 IGs in the federal government in positions created in 1978 during the Carter administration. There have been some bad eggs among the IGs over the years but collectively, the IG community has been the unsung hero in efforts to expose and prosecute waste, fraud and abuse in government. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has been the IGs’ strongest advocate in Congress.

And there’s this: The journo community in the nation’s capital has been rumbling in recent days about a bombshell report supposedly being prepared for publication by the Washington Post that will ruin the careers of dozens of Members of Congress, from both parties.

Fasten your seatbelts, folks.

THIS IS HOW AN OBITUARY SHOULD BE WRITTEN: Robert Charles Sproul – aka “R.C.” – passed away earlier today. Sproul was known, loved and profoundly respected among American and European evangelical and reformed thinkers and evangelists but relatively obscure to the general public. That’s the nation’s misfortune. Dr. Al Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and increasingly America’s pre-eminent evangelical public intellectual, explains why in a moving tribute that includes this arresting paragraph and much more:

“He was, as the British would say, a man in full. He never made a half-argument, presented a half-correction, preached a half-sermon, or laughed a half-laugh. He was all in, all the time. His voice would fill the room, his preaching would shake the timbers, and his passion would spread like a virus. He showed up as everything he was and with everything he believed – every time.”

Whether you’re a Christian or not, wouldn’t you want to live that kind of life?