Still reeling from Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election and wondering how to move forward, the schism within the Democratic Party appears to have widened even more in the wake of the bombshell claims made Thursday by a former interim party boss.

The allegations by Donna Brazile not only asserted that the Democratic National Committee helped rig last year’s presidential primary in favor of Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but also raised a number of troubling questions as the party attempts to regroup ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Are Brazile’s revelations the first shots in a virtual civil war between the Democratic establishment faithful to the Clintons and a growing progressive wing represented by lawmakers like Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Is this the final nail in the coffin for Clinton’s influence within the Democratic Party? Will this scandal linger into 2020 when the party challengesTrump for the White House?

“This is standard in politics when you don’t have the presidency because there is nobody in charge of the party,” Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor, told Fox News. “You’re going to have an all-out battle and a new voice will eventually emerge.”

Finding out who that voice is and when it will emerge appears, for the time being, to be a long way away as the fallout from Brazile’s claims reverberate throughout the Democratic Party.

“It was obviously a shocking revelation,” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN on Friday. “”It was pretty clear that they were on the Clinton side … I don’t think any of us imagined that there was actually a formal arrangement giving the Clinton campaign control of the DNC.”

In her new book – excerpts of which were published on Politico – Brazile writes that the DNC signed a joint fundraising agreement document with the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary for America. It had been signed in August 2015, four months after Clinton announced her candidacy and a year before she officially secured the nomination over Sanders.

“The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” Brazile wrote. “Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff.”

Defenders of Clinton have noted that the Sanders’ campaign also signed its own joint fundraising agreement with the DNC during the campaign season.

Brazile took over as the interim DNC chairman in 2016 when Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out as chairman over emails that indicated the party organization unfairly favored Clinton over Sanders during the primary.

DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa, who works under current DNC chairman Tom Perez, told Fox News that the party “must remain neutral in the presidential primary process, and there shouldn’t even be a perception that the DNC is interfering in that process.” But it appears the damage has been done.

Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii said Brazile’s revelations confirmed “what many suspected for a long time” and added that the “deep financial debt, closed door decision-making, complete lack of transparency, and unethical practices are now front and center.”

Gabbard’s statement was preceded by a video earlier in this week in which she slammed Perez for a recent overhaul of the party’s executive committee, which she said was intended “to cast out those who haven’t fallen in line with the establishment and who are actually demanding real reform.”

Massachusetts’ Warren, who campaigned for Clinton during the presidential campaign and is rumored to be eyeing a run herself in 2020, said “yes” when asked if the campaign was rigged and called it “a real problem.”

“But what we’ve got to do as Democrats now, is we’ve got to hold this party accountable,” she said, according to the BBC.

Trump weighed in on social media on the mounting scandal and said the American public “deserves” an inquiry, while lashing out at Clinton in a series of tweets.

FoxNews.com/Alex Pappas contributed reporting to this story. 

President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he walks to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Trump on Sunday said the lack of investigation into the Clinton campaign spending a reported $12 million on a dossier crafted during the 2016 presidential race to smear him has sparked unprecedented “anger and unity” among fellow Republicans.

“Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?),” Trump said first in a series of tweets.

The president tweeted after South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that his concerns about Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign purportedly paying a law firm at least $10 million for the dossier, which was to be used as Trump opposition research.

“I’m interested in that … laundering money through a law firm,” Gowdy said.

In the series of tweets Sunday, the president again attempted to make the larger case that Washington and the rest of the country is consumed by the Justice Department’s special counsel probe into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia during the White House race, amid similar issues related to Democrats and others.

“The Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia,” Trump tweeted following news reports earlier this weekend that special counsel Robert Mueller now has federal grand jury charges in the Russia investigation that could be made public as early as Monday.

Congressional investigators are in fact looking into new details about an Obama-era Uranium deal with connections to Russia and perhaps Clinton when she was secretary of State. The FBI investigated her use of private email servers and deleted emails when she ran the State Department.

However, then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump recently fired, concluded the server-email investigation without recommending criminal charges.

“The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s … are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!,” Trump also said.

FoxNews.com

The highly-anticipated release of long-secret documents detailing the investigation into the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy have provided fresh fodder to fuel conspiracy theories surrounding the controversial death of the former commander in chief.

President Trump on Thursday released the trove of records, however, the collection was incomplete, with some records being held back. Trump cited “potentially irreversible harm” to national security if he were to allow all records to come out now. He placed the remaining files under a six-month review, but released 2,891 others, racing to honor a deadline mandating their release.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas by, authorities contend, a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.

John F. Kennedy waves from his car during the motorcade in Dallas before he was shot and killed.  (AP)

But a segment of the public never bought into the official explanation of Kennedy’s assassination, citing video clips, interviews and science experiments in an attempt to prove Oswald, who was himself assassinated two days after Kennedy, did not act alone.

[pullquote]JFK FILES: FROM 2ND SHOOTER TO MEXICO TRIP, TOP QUESTIONS ASSASSINATION DOCUMENTS COULD ANSWER[/pullquote]

The files released Thursday show the aftermath of Kennedy’s death included then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover venting his frustration about Oswald’s killing at the hands of Jack Ruby, bellowing that the shooting would cause the public to suspect a conspiracy, NBC News reported.

“There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead,” Hoover said. “The thing I am concerned about, and so is [deputy attorney general] Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”

Hoover reported the FBI received a call from the Dallas office stating the caller was part of a cabal “organized to kill Oswald.”

Hoover said he relayed that warning to Dallas police and was assured Oswald would be protected. However, Oswald was shot dead the next day by Jack Ruby.

“Oswald having been killed today after our warnings to the Dallas Police Department was inexcusable,” Hoover said. “It will allow, I am afraid, a lot of civil rights people to raise a lot of hell because he was handcuffed and had no weapon. There are bound to be some elements of our society who will holler their heads off that his civil rights were violated — which they were.”

Authorities say Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman responsible for John F. Kennedy’s death.  (AP)

Hoover suggested that “instead of a Presidential Commission, we can do it with a Justice Department report based on an FBI report.”

Hoover’s suggestion went nowhere. President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination the following week.

[pullquote]JFK FILES: ‘BIG NEWS’ COMING, BRITISH REPORTER WAS TOLD BEFORE SHOTS FIRED [/pullquote]

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded Oswald and Ruby acted alone in their assasinations. No other blame was put on other organizations, actors or foreign governments.

Johnson was mentioned in the files as well. The Soviet Union believed Kennedy’s vice president was behind the assassination, the New York Post reported. The Societs also feared they would be blamed for the slaying and attacked in retaliation.

In a Dec. 1, 1966 FBI memo, sources said the KGB, the world’s largest “spy and state-security machine” claimed they had “possession of data purporting to indicate President Johnson was responsible for the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy.”

The memo, titled: “REACTION OF SOVIET AND COMMUNIST PARTY OFFICIALS TO JFK ASSASSINATION” was sent to Hoover.

The files on President John F. Kennedy’s killing were released on Oct 26, 2017.  (AP)

“KGB headquarters indicated that in view of this information, it was necessary for the Soviet Government to know the existing personal relationship between President Johnson and the Kennedy family, particularly that between President Johnson and Robert and ‘Ted’ Kennedy,” the document stated.

The Soviet Union also feared the U.S. would use the assassination to bolster “anti-Soviet sentiment and even lead to an attack.”

Oswald lived in the Soviet Union for three years and married a woman from there. He reportedly had ties to the KGB while in America.

Johnson also believed in conspiracy theories himself, the New York Post reported. Richard Helms, the CIA director under Johnson, said the former president said he believed Kennedy was killed in retaliation for the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem.

Diem was arrested and killed by a CIA-backed coup in Vietnam in 1963.

The files also showed that a British reporter with the Cambridge News received an anonymous phone call prior to the assassination, alerting the reporter to “some big news.”

“The caller said only that the Cambridge News reporter should call the American Embassy in London for some big news and then hung up,” reads the document from former CIA Deputy Director James Angleton.

The reporter, who was not identified in the Nov. 26, 1963, report, “never received a call of this kind before and MI5 said that he is known to them as a sound and loyal person with no security record.” (MI5 is Britain’s Security Service, similar to the CIA in the United States.)

After Kennedy’s death, the reporter told Cambridge police about the call and they informed M15.

A British reporter said he received a phone call promising ‘big news’ prior to the assassination.  (AP)

Despite the new details unleashed by the files, some felt the bath did not have the “smoking gun” many have urged for following the mysterious death. The full record will still be kept from the public for at least six months – and longer if agencies make a persuasive enough case for continued secrecy.

FoxNews.com/The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

MSNBC star Rachel Maddow’s latest anti-Trump conspiracy theory was so outlandish that even the dependably liberal HuffPost criticized it as “so flimsy that it could be debunked by a quick glance at a map.”

On Thursday evening, “The Rachel Maddow Show” opened with a somber 25-minute diatribe that attempted to connect the tragic ambush attack that killed four American soldiers in Niger to the latest version of President Trump’s proposed travel ban, which included the nation of Chad. Maddow essentially claimed that the inclusion of Chad, which recently pulled its troops out of Niger, in the revised travel ban resulted in extremist attacks such as the one that left four Americans dead.

The HuffPost, which is so anti-Trump that it refused to even cover him in the political section during the early stages of his campaign, published a story headlined, “What the hell was this Rachel Maddow segment?” The MSNBC host proclaimed that Chad’s pullout from Niger “had an immediate effect in emboldening ISIS attacks,” but the HuffPost easily shot down her theory.

Colby College Department of Government assistant professor Laura Seay told the HuffPost that “any expert” would have said Maddow’s conspiracy theory was “crazy” and the pullout of Chadian troops isn’t necessarily related to the Trump’s travel ban.

“Everybody that I know is appalled by this. I would like to think that Maddow’s researchers are more responsible,” Seay told the HuffPost.

U.S. Special Forces Sgt. Dustin Wright, left, and U.S. Special Forces Sgt. La David Johnson were killed in Niger Oct. 4.  (U.S. Army Special Operations Command)

While the MSNBC host called the tragic attack on American troops “absolutely baffling,” Seay said it was actually “almost inevitable,” because it’s such a remote and hostile area.

“The attacks that have increased can be traced back to militant group Boko Haram, which is based just across the border in Nigeria,” the HuffPost reported, citing the Council on Foreign Relations and accounts from local residents.

“The Rachel Maddow Show” declined to comment to HuffPost but the host addressed the situation on Friday night’s episode.

U.S. Army Special Forces Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, left, and U.S. Special Forces Sgt. Bryan Black were killed in Niger Oct. 4  (U.S. Army Special Operations Command)

“Over the course of the day today, lots of people have been very upset with me for reporting that last night, which is fine. I didn’t know you cared. But the upset over my reporting doesn’t mean that anything I reported wasn’t true,” Maddow said. “Everything I reported was true.”

Maddow continued: “Now, this doesn’t mean that Chad withdrawing their troops was necessarily the cause of what happened to those U.S. troops who were ambushed. That ambush is being described by the Pentagon as a shock.”

The HuffPost’s Willa Frej wrote that Maddow built “myths” using unrelated or unreliable information and “reduced the story so thoroughly that it lost any semblance of the larger truth.”

Maddow has seen increased viewership as the triggered left tunes in to watch her condemn Trump on a nightly basis, but it seems the MSNBC host this time went too far for one of the most liberal publications in America.

BREAKING: Gold Star Widow Releases Audio Of Phone Call With Trump

Gold star widow Natasha De Alencar released audio on Friday morning of the phone conversation she had with President Trump after it was revealed her husband had died in combat, according to The Daily Caller.

“I am so sorry to hear about the whole situation. What a horrible thing, except that he’s an unbelievable hero,” Trump told her.

Check it out:

Trump also told the widow if she is ever in Washington D.C. that she is welcome in the Oval Office.

“If you’re around Washington, you come over and see me in the Oval Office,” he said. “You just come over and see me because you are just the kind of family … this is what we want.”

“Say hello to your children, and tell them your father he was a great hero that I respected,” Trump said. “Just tell them I said your father was a great hero.”

Here’s the clip:

The call was released after Gen. James Kelly addressed the press on Thursday, saying that he thought at least the lives of soldiers who’d died for Americans’ freedoms should remain sacred in this country.

Kelly made his remarks after Congresswoman Frederica Wilson told press she had secretly listened in on the president’s phone call with a Gold Star widow and that he’d told her her husband “knew what he signed up for.”

By Mary Kate Knorr

Now this is depressing.

We all know the media’s credibility has sunk to new depths. That’s been showing up in the polls for years, and has been exacerbated in the Trump era.

Now a Morning Consult/Politico survey out yesterday says that nearly half of voters—46 percent–believe major news organizations fabricate stories about Trump. Another 37 percent do not.

In short, the president’s constant “fake news” attacks are working.

But think about the impact of that finding. These people aren’t saying that news organizations are running unfair stories about Trump, or inaccurate stories about Trump. They’re saying the news outlets make stuff up about Trump.

There is, not surprisingly, a gargantuan partisan divide on this question. The Morning Consult poll (an online survey, which is less than ideal) says 20 percent of Democrats believe there are fabricated stories about Trump, while 65 percent disagree.

But 76 percent of Republicans say there are fabricated stories, while just 11 percent disagree. (Among independents, 44 percent say stories are fabricated.)

I have done a substantial amount of reporting over the years on fabricating and plagiarizing journalists. I exposed the made-up reporting of Jayson Blair at the New York Times and Jack Kelley at USA Today. Fraudulent journalism does happen. But it is extremely rare.

There’s a lot of unfair reporting out there. But those who think mainstream outlets routinely concoct stories about Trump are either registering their disapproval of the coverage or literally believe the stories are “fake” and “fiction,” as the president sometimes tweets.

By the way, in light of Trump suggesting scrutiny of TV licenses, the poll says 51 percent think the federal government shouldn’t have the power to revoke broadcast licenses of fabricating networks—not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center found that one in six news stories about Trump during his first 100 days include one of his tweets. One out of six. That’s extraordinary evidence of how the president uses 140-character messages to drive the news agenda.

But the reporting was hardly neutral. In examining more than 3,000 stories across 24 media outlets, Pew found that those with Trumpian tweets “were more likely than others to have an overall negative assessment of him or his administration.”

Some 54 percent of the stories that included a presidential tweet “had a negative assessment, 12 percentage points higher than stories that did not contain any of his tweets.” What’s more, “stories with at least one of the president’s tweets were more likely to include a direct refutation by the reporter of something the president or a member of his administration said–whether it was a refutation of the tweet itself, a statement related to the issue referenced in the tweet or another statement altogether in the story.”

Trump supporters would say this shows the media trying to knock down much of what the president says. Trump detractors would say this is fact-checking the president.

But whether it’s fair or unfair, it’s not fabricated.

President Trump declared on Twitter Wednesday that James Comey “totally protected Hillary Clinton,” after the FBI confirmed the former bureau boss drafted a statement on the private email case two months before it was over.

In a series of tweets, Trump also swiped at the Justice Department, seeming to suggest they review what he called an apparent “fix.”

“Wow, FBI confirms report that James Comey drafted letter exonerating Crooked Hillary Clinton long before investigation was complete,” Trump tweeted. “Many people not interviewed, including Hillary Clinton herself. Comey stated under oath that he didn’t do this –obviously a fix? Where is Justice Dept?”

He followed up: “As it has turned out, James Comey lied and leaked and totally protected Hillary Clinton. He was the best thing that ever happened to her!”

GOWDY WANTS COMEY TO TESTIFY AGAIN

The flurry of tweets was in reference to the FBI releasing documents this week that prove Comey began drafting a statement regarding the Clinton email investigation months before he interviewed her and other key witnesses. The document release was titled “Drafts of Director Comeys July 5, 2016 Statement Regarding Email Server Investigation Part 01 of 01.”

The release bolstered critics’ claims that Comey was drafting an “exoneration statement” well before ending the case and recommending against criminal charges.

The contents of the newly released emails, however, were largely unclear as the majority of the document was redacted. The records, that are now public, show the email titled “Midyear Exam—UNCLASSIFIED” was sent by Comey on May 2, 2016 to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, General Counsel James Baker and James Rybicki, chief of staff and senior counselor.

Trump’s Wednesday challenge to the Justice Department regarding the matter was a throwback to his summer criticism of the nation’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. While Trump had been at odds with one of his earliest supporters over the decision to recuse in the Russia probe, Trump in recent weeks has dialed down that criticism.

The existence of the Comey documents was first brought to light by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., after they reviewed transcripts with top Comey aides who alluded to the email’s existence.

The Judiciary Committee penned a letter on Aug. 30 to newly appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray noting their findings, saying that “it appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton. That was long before FBI agents finished their work.”

“The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts,” the letter stated.

The existence of these documents raised questions over Comey’s June 2017 Senate testimony regarding his decision to go public with findings in the Clinton email investigation. Comey noted former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s involvement in the probe, including her controversial meeting with former President Bill Clinton days before his wife was interviewed.

Last week, the FBI said it uncovered 30 pages of documents related to that controversial 2016 tarmac meeting.

A federal judge in Hawaii has blocked President Trump’s revised travel ban – just hours before it was expected to go into effect across the United States.

Tuesday’s decision from U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu stops the administration’s third attempt to indefinitely ban entry into the country by most nationals of Libya, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. The ban would also prevent some Venezuelan government officials and their families.

“Today’s dangerously flawed district court order undercuts the President’s efforts to keep the American people safe and enforce minimum security standards for entry into the United States,” the White House said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will vigorously defend the President’s lawful action.”

Watson, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, found Trump’s executive order “suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor.”

The judge said the new restrictions ignore a federal appeals court ruling that found Trump’s previous ban exceeds the scope of his authority. The latest version “plainly discriminates based on nationality in the manner that the 9th Circuit has found antithetical to … the founding principles of this nation,” Watson wrote.

The government has said the new policy was based on an objective assessment of each country’s security situation and willingness to share information with the U.S.

Hawaii argued in court documents that the updated ban is a continuation of Trump’s “promise to exclude Muslims from the United States” despite the addition of two non-majority Muslim countries.

Other courts are weighing challenges to the latest travel restrictions.

In Maryland, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are seeking to block the visa and entry restrictions in the president’s latest proclamation.

Washington state, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, New York and Maryland have challenged the policy before U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who struck down Trump’s initial ban in January.

That policy led to chaos and confusion at airports nationwide and triggered several lawsuits, including one from Hawaii.

When Trump revised the ban, state Attorney General Doug Chin changed the lawsuit to challenge that version. In March, Watson agreed with Hawaii that it amounted to discrimination based on nationality and religion.

A subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed the administration to partially reinstate that 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees.

But it said the policy didn’t apply to refugees and travelers with a “bona fide relationship” with a person or entity in the U.S.

Hawaii then successfully challenged the federal government’s definition of which family members would be allowed into the country. Watson ordered the government not to enforce the ban on close relatives such as grandparents, grandchildren, uncles and aunts.

The judge’s order Tuesday prevents acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson from implementing the latest travel ban.

Watson said he would set an expedited hearing to determine whether the temporary restraining order should be extended.

FoxNews.com/The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Minutes after the Sunday night massacre on the Las Vegas strip we were hearing calls for legislation that will curtail citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms.

Is this reasonable? If we pass tighter gun control laws, will it solve the problem? Will it prevent a similar massacre in the future?

Unfortunately, no amount of legislation can prevent this type of cowardly attack on innocent victims. In the present case, the perpetrator passed rigorous background checks and took legal, single-shot rifles and modified them into automatic weapons, with the specific intent to wipe out as many concert goers as possible.

For those who don’t know this: The weapons used by the perpetrator (I will not immortalize his name by publishing it), were unlawful. Outlawed weapons. It is that simple. There are already laws in place preventing this very activity. As we can see, these laws entirely fail to prevent these attacks.

Here is the reality about guns. Most rifles are not “assault” weapons. Very few of these fully-automatic weapons are in existence, and they are simply not available to the general public. When I was a young university student, I worked my way through college working as a machinist. One job was with a fledgling Australian rifle manufacturer who had just set up a very small shop in my small American town–Kimber Rifles. Kimber is now a very respected brand, but it was barely known in the states at the time. As a machinist working for Kimber, I learned all about the working mechanics of rifles. One thing I learned was how simple it is to convert a semi-automatic rifle to a fully automatic weapon. It is a very simple modification. It is also a federal felony–and if you make that small modification, you will spend many years in a federal prison. It’s that simple.

If making the possession and use of automatic weapons unlawful fails to prevent this massacre, what law could possibly prevent it? The only possible way to legislate such a thing is to entirely eliminate the existence of all firearms.

Is eliminating all firearms doable? Even if we could, which we cannot, would it be a good idea? Why did our founders preserve our natural right to keep and bear arms in our Constitution?

Answer: because they KNEW that without this particular right enshrined and forever protected, all of the other rights enumerated in the Constitution would eventually be obliterated by overreaching government. The right to keep and bear arms is fundamentally the citizens’ protection from government. I would submit that any totalitarian government that has ever come to control and enslave its people, first disarmed them. Undisputed. So if you hear people talking about gun control, stop and realize who they are, and the natural conclusion of the path they espouse.

So if we cannot legislate away cowardly attacks on innocent citizens, what is the answer? I will tell you this–we live in a world where self-indulgence is fostered without limitation, and where violence is an everyday experience. The Great Society enclaves of the left–Detroit, Chicago, Oakland–these are killing zones. Minority citizens are murdering one another in droves. Thousands are victims of murderous violence, every year. Our society has devolved to a point where thousands of minority babies are culled in abortion clinics daily, and so many of those who survive the butcher’s knife are destined to fatherless homes, prison, and violent death. These are the problems that plague this nation. [pullquote]Our crisis is one of Character, not gun control. [/pullquote]

Until this nation reconsiders its move toward selfishness and self-indulgence, our natural instincts of community and protecting those around us will continue to decline. All of these maniacs who suddenly decide to end it all in a blaze of infamous glory are sick products of a sick society. We need to begin healing the sickness that is overtaking our people if we want to end the wanton violence that is becoming epidemic. That is the only possible answer.

James Thompson is a noted ghostwriter and political commentator.

Gary Cohn breaks down the details of Trump’s tax reform framework

Chief White House economic adviser Gary Cohn discussed details of the recently-announced Republican tax reform framework Sunday during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Cohn, who serves as the director of the National Economic Council, explained the repatriation tax rate and how it will impact companies and the U.S. economy.

“They’re going to pay the rate if they have money overseas. That’s how we catch up from the ‘worldwide system’ to the ‘territorial system,’” Cohn told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Currently, under the worldwide system companies are taxed 35 percent on all income, whether it is earned in the U.S. or overseas. Moving to a territorial system would then encourage some of the profits overseas—which could be as much as $3 trillion, according to Cohn—to return to the U.S.

“We will end up with a bifurcated rate,” he explained. “We will charge you one rate if you have liquid assets offshore. We will charge you a different rate if you’ve got bricks-and-mortar and you’ve turned those earnings into bricks-and-mortar or investments offshore. We will give you some period of time to pay it, but you will incur the tax liability the minute the tax referendum goes through.”

President Donald Trump pushed for a 15 percent corporate tax rate, though settled for 20 percent, still significantly lower than the present rate. Trump’s tax plan calls for reducing the number of tax brackets for individuals from seven to three.

“What people are forgetting is we really enlarged the zero rate. We doubled the zero rate so if you’re a family today, you now get the first $24,000 of your income at a zero rate. You then kick into the 12 percent rate, then you go to the 25 percent rate, then you go to the 35 percent rate,” Cohn said.

In addition to lessening the amount of tax brackets on the individual side, the tax plan would also eliminate the estate tax—also known as the “death tax”—which Cohn said has been most burdensome on farmers and small businesses.

“Death should not become a taxable event if you’re in a small business. Death should not become a taxable event if you’re a farmer. If you’re a farmer you should be able to pass it on to your families,” he said.

As for the timing of the GOP’s plan for a business and middle-class friendly tax overhaul, Cohn said it is now in the hands of tax writers in the House and Senate and hopes to have a bill done “in this calendar year.”

“To do that we’ve got to get out of the House relatively soon,” he said. “To get out of the House we’re going to have to have real details. This bill is going to be in markup hopefully in October.”

By FOXBusiness

Our college-age population consists mostly of 18- to 30-year-olds, and likewise our armed forces. I wonder whether they shared common responses to the 2016 presidential election. Many college administrators provided students with therapy dogs, play dough, coloring books, bubbles, videos of frolicking kittens and puppies, and soft music. They even canceled classes and postponed exams so that their 18- to 30-year-old snowflakes could better cope with the election results. There are numerous internet photos and videos of these youngsters screaming and in outright grief and panic. Here’s my question: Were our military leaders as accommodating as college administrators? Did commanding officers of our aircraft carriers provide their young people with therapy dogs, play dough, crayons and coloring books, and soft music? Were sea training exercises canceled? Were similar accommodations ordered by commanders of our special forces, such as the Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force?

I’m guessing and hoping that our military leaders, unlike many college administrators, have not lost their minds. That brings me to this column’s title: “Not a Day Care.” That’s the title of a new book written by Dr. Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Piper reminds us that today’s law students are tomorrow’s lawyers and judges. Based on what they are taught, there’s no mystery why lawyers and judges seek to legislate from the bench. Students who want to rid college curricula of dead old white men such as Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire and Kant will be on tomorrow’s school boards or be professors. This doesn’t bode well for our nation’s future.

Many colleges have become hotbeds of what might be labeled as enlightened racism. Students at the University of California, Berkeley created “safe spaces” for people of color. Resident advisers at Scripps College posted two signs to educate students about “emotional labor,” one aimed at white students and one for “people of color and marginalized backgrounds.” University of Michigan students demanded a “designated space on central campus for Black students and students of color to organize and do social justice work.” That was after the university caved to student demands and spent $10 million to build a multicultural center.

In Chapter 6, Piper discusses an attack by a Muslim Somali student at Ohio State University. Fortunately, he was shot dead by police officers before he could add to his toll of 11 injured students. The Islamic State group praised him and called him one of its soldiers. The administration responded to the incident by inviting Nathan Lean, author of “The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims,” to lecture about Islamophobia. A few days after the attack, protesters gathered on campus to read the names of people of color killed by police in the previous two months. The Muslim Somali student made the list, going from a terrorist to a victim virtually overnight. Piper asks whether it is possible to imagine President Franklin D. Roosevelt taking to the radio waves after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to announce a forum on diversity and prejudice.

Among the many other ugly things going on at our universities is the withering attack on free speech. Diversity is the highest goal of students and professors who openly detest those with whom they disagree. The content of a man’s character is no longer as important as the color of his skin or his sex or his political loyalties. This intolerance has won such respectability that even politicians have little shame expressing it. In 2014, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo basically told people who disagreed with him to leave the state. He said people who defend traditional marriage, are pro-life and are anti-gun control “have no place in the state of New York.” That’s progressive ideological fascism that ought to be put down by freedom-loving Americans.

Dr. Everett Piper’s “Not a Day Care” is a short but powerful book by a university president who is not afraid to maintain civility and common sense, traits all too rare among today’s university administrators.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com