These are stories you don't want to miss and my hot takes on them...
- Where is Leah? - Royal Palm woman now missing for four months - Palm Beach Post
Today marks four months since anyone has seen Leah Rose Altmann, and her mother can’t help but fear what has happened to the 27-year-old who grew up in Royal Palm Beach and graduated from G-Star School of the Arts.
Hot Take: We should all pray for the safe return of Leah. The concern is that she's fallen prey to human trafficking. What I'm getting ready to say next takes nothing away from the very real concerns about this missing woman from Royal Palm Beach. My question is why is Leah the only one we're talking about today? For years I've railed about the media picking and choosing which victims and potential victims they decide matter enough to share their stories. If you have an attractive white, preferably blond, person the media is likely to care enough to share the story. But what the other 15,999 victims per year in the US?
That's right, there are an average of 16,000 victims of human trafficking in the US per year. That's an average of 44 per day! But most of them are minorities that fall victim in the inner cities. Not exactly the profile the media cares enough about to shine the proper light on this unacceptable human tragedy.
The 'Swamp' Trump Is Trying to Drain Is Actually an Ocean, Investor's Business Daily
Bureaucracy: President Trump's reigning metaphor of "draining the swamp" is very descriptive. And yet, a new report suggests it may not go far enough. The government Swamp's a lot bigger and deeper than you know.
The nonprofit watchdog group Open The Books has put out a new report, "Mapping The Swamp," that seeks to flesh out what has, until now, merely been a metaphor. What it found is eye-opening, and shows the size of the challenge that lies before President Trump as he seeks to drain it.
Start with the cost. The work force that the government directly employs costs just over $1 million per minute, or more than half a billion dollars a day. And that doesn't include the more than two million people employed by the Defense Department or on active duty.
All told, in 2016, no doubt a peak year for the swamp, there were 1.97 million people on the federal payroll with a total compensation cost of $136.8 billion a year.
The report even suggests that the government has an unofficial minimum wage: $100,000 a year. That's the minimum average salary for 78 out of 122 federal departments and agencies, although some individuals make less. Even so, the report notes, "29,852 federal employees out-earned each of the 50 state governors receiving more than $190,823."
Hot Take: Those figures exclude the military. Those are just federal government workers at your expense. The irony is that the only mandated responsibility of our federal government is to protect us (i.e. the military) and we spend more on bureaucrats than we do on our military. Our entire personal expense for our military was $84.2 billion last year compared to the near $137 billion for the non-essential personal who earn an average of $100,000+ per year. So yes, let's drain the ocean of the swamp.
Get Ready for the Great Political Surprise of 2018 Newt Gingrich, Fox News
CBS News just provided a vivid example of the false impressions created by the liberal news media’s lies. They interviewed three families about how they expected the GOP tax bill to affect them. Then they had a CPA tell them, on camera, what they would actually be paying in taxes next year.
Of course, after months of convincing most Americans their taxes would go up, the three families either expected to be paying more in taxes or to not save any money. And you can tell by watching the segment that the liberal hosts expected the same.
Of course, it turned out that all three families would pay less under the GOP tax cuts than under current law.
A North Carolina single mother with an income slightly under $40,000 who didn’t think she would be affected will keep about $1,300 more per year under the GOP bill.
Two college teachers in Rhode Island with a joint income of over $150,000 a year thought they would pay more taxes, but they will actually pay about $650 less under the GOP tax cut.
The biggest surprise in the CBS report was the impact the tax cuts would have on a California couple with three children, a small business, and earning an income of approximately $300,000. The family believed that because California is a high-tax state, that capping state and local tax deductions would really hurt them. Instead, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will save them nearly $13,000 in taxes.
The look on the three families faces as they learned how much they would be saving was remarkable to behold.
The CBS analyst concluded "every one of the families will have more money in their pocket next year."
As my colleague Joe Desantis wrote me: "This segment drove me crazy. As if CBS was incapable of doing math before the tax cuts passed."
Hot Take: And we're just getting started. This is why I've provided updates on what the tax proposals would mean to you every step of the way, up to and including this final law. There are two sides to every story but only one side to facts.
The fact is that the average Floridian will be receiving the equivalent of a 4 percent raise starting Monday. The fact is that every media outlet, every commentator, writer, Democrat, etc. that's told you anything to the contrary has been lying to you. That's an extra $1,780 in your pocket next year. And that's excluding any potential raises that may be provided by your employer. Currently pay raises and bonuses are pacing the best rate in ten years