Pentagon Teeters on the Edge of Full-Scale War in Afghanistan

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President Donald Trump’s most senior advisers will present him with a plan to escalate the U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reports.

This plan includes ramping up the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan along with changing the U.S. military’s rules of engagement while supporting the Afghan National Security Forces. The goal of the plan is to curb the Taliban’s battlefield gains and push them into entering a peace process with the Afghan government.

Both U.S. military commanders in charge of the war have told Congress the U.S. is in a stalemate with the Taliban and needs a few thousand more troops to tip the balance.

Trump will reportedly make the final call on the plan before a May 25 meeting with NATO heads of state in Brussels. Trump campaigned on a promise to defeat the Islamic State, which has a nascent presence in Afghanistan. The terrorist group is just one of a myriad problems for the U.S. in Afghanistan.

The Taliban movement controls nearly one-third of the Afghan population and more territory than at any time since 2001, a new United Nations report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal reveals. The plan essentially doubles down on supporting the Afghan National Security Forces in the fight against the Taliban. The Afghan forces, however, are beset by a host of problems, which nearly $75 billion in U.S. aid has been unable to fix so far. (Read more from “Pentagon Teeters on the Edge of Full-Scale War in Afghanistan” HERE)

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Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening fired FBI Director James Comey, amid rising controversy over what Comey told Congress regarding a top Hillary Clinton aide and an ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election.

Numerous Democrats are calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate questions surrounding Russia, claiming the Justice Department and FBI no longer are independent.

The White House said Trump informed Comey he was being terminated based on the recommendations of both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Trump issued a firing letter to Comey in which the president appeared to thank Comey for telling him the FBI wasn’t investigating him. The letter said:

I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have accepted their recommendations and you are hereby terminated and removed from office effective immediately.

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau.

It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.

I wish you the best of luck in future endeavors.

Comey was speaking to agents at the FBI’s field office in Los Angeles when the news of his firing came on TV, the Associated Press reported, citing a law enforcement official who was there. The FBI director chuckled, finished his remarks, and later returned by plane to Washington, AP reported.

In a public statement, Trump said:

The FBI is one of our nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement.

Comey, 56, last week testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Clinton confidant and campaign aide Huma Abedin forwarded “hundreds of thousands” of Clinton emails to her husband’s laptop computer. Clinton was secretary of state at the time, and some emails allegedly included classified information.

The FBI, in an embarrassment for Comey, clarified in a letter to the committee Tuesday that only a “small number” of emails had been forwarded to the laptop.

President Barack Obama nominated Comey in 2013 to what was supposed to be a 10-year appointment after the senior Justice Department official’s more than 30 years in law enforcement.

In the early days of his presidency, Trump announced he would keep Comey as FBI director, publicly giving him a hug and whispering something in his ear two days after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Comey had announced in July that the FBI would not recommend that the Justice Department charge Clinton, about to become the Democrats’ nominee for president, for conducting official and often sensitive State Department business with a private email account over a private server at her home.

In October, 11 days before the Nov. 8 election, Comey announced a reopening of the investigation with the discovery of the emails sent by Abedin to the laptop of her husband, former New York congressman Anthony Weiner.

Two days before the election, Comey announced that the FBI had cleared Clinton.

In a public interview last week, Clinton blamed Comey in part for her loss to Trump in the election.

Comey deputy Andrew McCabe, who has his own ties to the Clinton camp, is expected to serve as acting director until Trump nominates a successor and the Senate confirms that nominee.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, issued a critical statement on Comey following the news of his firing. Grassley said:

The handling of the Clinton email investigation is a clear example of how Comey’s decisions have called into question the trust and political independence of the FBI. In my efforts to get answers, the FBI, under Comey’s leadership, has been slow or failed to provide information that Comey himself pledged to provide.

The effectiveness of the FBI depends upon the public trust and confidence. Unfortunately, this has clearly been lost.

But Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., compared the Comey firing to Watergate, saying:

President Trump’s firing of Director Comey sets a deeply alarming precedent as multiple investigations into possible Trump campaign or administration collusion with Russia remain ongoing, including an FBI investigation. This episode is disturbingly reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal and the national turmoil that it caused. We are careening ever closer to a constitutional crisis, and this development only underscores why we must appoint a special prosecutor to fully investigate any dealings the Trump campaign or administration had with Russia.

Other Democrats, such as Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had their own speculation.

Another member of the House oversight panel, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., thanked Comey for his service.

While Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., hasn’t joined Democrats in calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Russian interference in the election, he did renew his call for a select committee to investigate.

Meanwhile, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., says he is writing legislation to establish an independent commission on the Russia questions.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called the decision to fire Comey “outrageous.”

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed skepticism over the timing of Comey’s firing.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., repeated calls for a special investigation into the Russia claims.

Conservative commentator Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, tweeted:

(For more from the author of “Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey” please click HERE)

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As Senate Mulls Obamacare Repeal, Insurers in 2 States Ask Double-Digit Premium Hikes

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Consumers in at least two states face the prospect of double-digit increases in health insurance rates next year, as insurers attempt to price premiums amid uncertainty, including from Congress and President Donald Trump on the fate of Obamacare.

Also driving rate increases is the fact that the millions of Americans enrolled on Obamacare’s exchanges are sicker than the general population.

Insurance companies selling plans in Maryland and Connecticut have submitted their rate requests for 2018, as other insurers decide whether they’ll continue to offer coverage on Obamacare’s state-run and federal exchanges.

Already, Tennessee and Iowa have seen an exodus of major insurers. Consumers in parts of those states are in jeopardy of having no insurers to choose from on the exchange next year.

Humana announced in February that it no longer would sell Obamacare coverage in Tennessee, leaving residents of 16 counties in the eastern part of the state at risk of having no plans available to them.

But BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee stepped in Tuesday, notifying the state’s insurance commissioner in a letter that it would sell coverage on the Obamacare exchange in those areas.

That coverage, though, may come with a steep price, the insurer warned.

“Given the potential negative effects of federal legislation and/or regulatory changes, we believe it will be necessary to price-in those downside risks, even at the prospect of a higher-than-average margin for the short term, or until stability can be achieved,” J.D. Hickey, president of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, wrote.

In Iowa, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Aetna already said this year they no longer would sell plans in the individual market next year. That leaves just one insurer, Medica, as the only choice for Iowans living in 94 of the state’s 99 counties.

But Medica indicated last week that it would leave Iowa’s individual insurance market.

“Without swift action by the state or Congress to provide stability to Iowa’s individual insurance market, Medica will not be able to serve the citizens of Iowa in the manner and breadth that we do today,” the company said in a statement to The Des Moines Register.

Higher Premiums

Alongside potential exits from Obamacare’s exchanges, insurers in Maryland, Connecticut, and Virginia have begun to submit proposed premium increases for 2018.

Chris Sloan, a senior manager at Avalere, stressed that the figures coming from insurers are only proposed rates, and those rates typically decrease as insurance companies negotiate with state insurance departments and their commissioners.

Still, the preliminary figures from insurance companies indicate that uncertainty about the future of the health insurance market, and the enrollment population from years past, could lead to double-digit premium increases next year.

“This is a market that continues to have underlying issues with the risk,” Sloan told The Daily Signal. “Last year, a lot of people looked at 2017 as a market correction, which is why we had such big increases [in premiums], but then going into 2018 and nothing has changed in most of these markets.”

In Connecticut, just two insurers will sell health coverage on Obamacare’s exchange next year, according to the state.

There, Anthem requested an average rate increase of 34 percent for plans sold in the individual market. ConnectiCare requested an average rate increase of 15 percent for individual health plans.

In documents filed with the state, ConnectiCare said that despite “uncertainties” in the market, the company based its pricing on “weakened” enforcement of Obamacare’s individual mandate and continuation of cost-sharing reduction payments, which are taxpayer-funded subsidies that lower the cost of deductibles and copayments for exchange customers.

Anthem also attributed its request for a 34 percent rate increase to the continuation of the subsidies that lessen the amount low-income Americans pay in deductibles and copayments. But the company also warned it has continued to enroll patients who are sicker and require more expensive care.

In Maryland, consumers purchasing coverage on Obamacare’s exchange could see substantially higher premiums next year.

There, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield asked to raise rates by more than 50 percent.

“What we’re seeing is greater sickness levels,” Chet Burrell, CareFirst’s chief executive, told The Washington Post. “The pool of beneficiaries is becoming sicker, in part because healthier people are not coming in at the same level we hoped.”

Cigna and Evergreen Health asked to raise rates by an average of 37 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

Maryland reminded consumers, though, that the requests from insurers are preliminary.

“It’s important to remember that these rates are what companies have requested and not necessarily what will be approved,” Insurance Commissioner Al Redmer said. “There will be a thorough review of all the filings. As in years past, we may require changes.”

Uncertainties

In addition to the continuation of subsidies to reduce deductibles and copayments, some insurers attributed their requested rate hikes to the federal government’s weakened enforcement of the Obamacare mandate that all individuals have health insurance.

The health care bill passed by House Republicans last week eliminates the mandate altogether. And earlier this year, the IRS signaled it would continue accepting tax returns from taxpayers who didn’t indicate whether they had insurance for 2016.

But Sloan, of Avalere, said there wasn’t necessarily a significant shift in enforcement of the individual mandate from the Obama administration to the Trump administration.

“The secret in Washington is that the mandate hasn’t been enforced anyway,” he said. “The Obama administration gave a ton of exemptions, and the vast majority of people who were uninsured didn’t pay this penalty. It’s not as if we’re going from heavy enforcement to suddenly none. We’re going from lax enforcement to potentially more lax enforcement.”

Where Sloan does agree with insurers, though, is in the uncertainties looming as companies plot their rates for 2018.

“What [insurers] may have gained in understanding the exchange population, they’re losing in uncertainty of what the market will look like,” he said.

Those uncertainties include whether Trump will continue funding—and whether Congress will appropriate the money for—Obamacare’s cost-sharing subsidies, and how the House GOP’s health care bill will affect the insurance market.

The House-passed bill to repeal parts of Obamacare is called the American Health Care Act, or AHCA. Republican leaders in the Senate have said they will draft their own bill in coming weeks.

“With Congress, obviously if there was certainty on what the market will look like when talking about the AHCA, that would help,” Sloan said. “It would help if they committed or de-committed either way to funding or not funding the cost-sharing reductions.”

Sloan added:

There’s uncertainty around how many other carriers are going to be participating in the market, whether they’re going to have to bear all the bad risk in the market, uncertainty around what happens with the AHCA and whether subsidies will change or changes to the mandate. There’s a lot of stuff swirling around these plans. You’re going to see that in their requests going forward.

Still, the potential for double-digit rate hikes has provided fodder for congressional Republicans and the Trump administration, as both work to fulfill a campaign promise of repealing and replacing Obamacare.

“Last year alone, 83 insurers left the Obamacare marketplace and Americans living in one-third of our nation’s counties had only one choice for coverage,” Alleigh Marre, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an email to The Daily Signal. “The fact remains, insurers are fleeing because the law is fundamentally flawed.”

“Repealing and replacing Obamacare remains the best option,” Marre said.

In an interview Tuesday on “Fox & Friends,” House Speaker Paul Ryan pointed to the rate hike proposals in Maryland, as well as Medica’s decision to leave Iowa, as reasons why Obamacare has to be repealed.

“Here’s the problem: This law is collapsing. This law is failing fast,” Ryan, R-Wis., said. “And so what we’re doing is a rescue operation, which is getting rid of this law, which is collapsing.” (For more from the author of “As Senate Mulls Obamacare Repeal, Insurers in 2 States Ask Double-Digit Premium Hikes” please click HERE)

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Pro-Life Advocates Optimistic as One of Their Own Gets Key HHS Job

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President Donald Trump’s appointment of a national pro-life leader to serve as the top communicator at the Department of Health and Human Services is great news for the pro-life cause, leaders at associated organizations say.

Charmaine Yoest, longtime head of the group Americans United for Life, will assume the responsibilities of assistant secretary for public affairs at the sprawling federal agency.

Yoest, 52, will be the principal public affairs adviser to HHS Secretary Tom Price, which puts her in charge of speechwriting, strategic planning, and broadcast and digital communications.

“We are going to see a radical transformation occur within HHS,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told The Daily Signal in an interview.

“I fully expect us [as a society] to talk about … the consequences of abortion on women,” Hawkins said.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, where Yoest worked for seven years, told The Daily Signal in an interview that she will have an important platform in the Trump administration working for Price:

In her capacity in public relations I am not sure exactly how deep she will get in policy directly, but I think indirectly she will have a huge impact making sure policies are consistent with the secretary’s vision, the president’s vision. And her knowing this [pro-life] issue inside and out, again, I think it’s going to have a significant impact.

Price, a former Republican congressman from Georgia, is himself pro-life.

From August 2008 to February 2016, Yoest was CEO of Americans United for Life, a group that seeks to advance the legal and policy issues of the pro-life movement. She has extensive experience in working for conservative, pro-life officials and organizations on the national level.

Her start date at HHS is pending.

Yoest’s political experience began when, as a young woman, she was on the staff of the White House personnel office during President Ronald Reagan’s second term. She went on to work as a policy analyst and vice president of communications at the Washington-based Family Research Council. She briefly advised the 2008 presidential campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Her new role as assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS, which does not require Senate confirmation, includes tasks such as overseeing the agency’s public affairs programming, leading its other public affairs activities, and managing digital communications.

Yoest, who will report directly to Price, also will oversee agency responses under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act, which allow individuals to access federal records. And she will direct a division that “leads the planning, development, and implementation of emergency incident communications strategies and activities.”

Yoest joins the new administration at an important time, Melanie Israel, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email.

“From respecting rights of conscience for health care entities to administering programs and grants, to establishing important agency regulations, there are many areas in which the Department of Health and Human Services can affirm the inherent dignity and worth of every person, from conception to natural death,” Israel said.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, previously worked in the Office of the Secretary at HHS. In an interview, Mancini told The Daily Signal that Yoest will have a significant role to play in the agency’s policy messaging.

“All of the different things that are happening at HHS, whether it’s through the Centers for Disease Control or National Institutes of Health or the Food and Drug Administration or the many other programs that are happening through there, Charmaine will help them with their messaging and she is very gifted at communication both digitally and in person,” Mancini said.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is not supportive of Yoest’s appointment.

“It is unacceptable that someone with a history of promoting myths and false information about women’s health is appointed to a government position whose main responsibility is to provide the public with accurate and factual information,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.

Yoest, Laguens said, “has spent her whole professional life opposing access to birth control and a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion.”

Kevin Griffis, Yoest’s predecessor at HHS during the Obama administration, recently joined Planned Parenthood as vice president of communications.

Under Yoest’s leadership, Americans United for Life developed a legislative package called the Women’s Protection Project, designed to provide lawmakers with “specific legislative solutions to the growing concerns regarding the health risks to women from abortion.”

Chuck Donovan, president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an organization that seeks to educate society on the importance of protecting life, told The Daily Signal that such attacks on Yoest are unfounded.

“I think she is terrific,” Donovan said in an interview. “She’ll be the most knowledgeable policy person, my guess would be, to ever hold a position like that,” adding:

She’s not only a great communicator with experience [in] the media, print and broadcast, but she has written extensive policy documents. She knows the issues inside and out.

(For more from the author of “Pro-Life Advocates Optimistic as One of Their Own Gets Key HHS Job” please click HERE)

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VA Asks for Meeting With Whistleblowers to Find out How They Face Retaliation

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is reaching out to whistleblowers for a meeting on the challenges they’ve faced when exposing wrongdoing at their facilities, following the establishment of an office to protect whistleblowers.

Whistleblowers Kuauhtemoc Rodriguez from the Phoenix VA and Sean Higgins from the Memphis VA have been contacted by the Central Whistleblower Office for a conference call meeting Friday, which comes just over a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a new Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection at the VA, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The purpose of the meeting, according to a Central Whistleblower Office employee, is to get an understanding from the perspective of whistleblowers about how the current disclosure process works and the various “roadblocks” whistleblowers may have faced along the way. The meeting will take place with Harvey Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Resolution Management, as well as the implementation team on staff.

VA Secretary David Shulkin has pledged to fight hard against whistleblower retaliation and advocate accountability reforms, which means this meeting is not altogether surprising. For Shulkin, the creation of the new whistleblower office is the first step of the way.

And certainly, both Rodriguez and Higgins have faced their fair share of pushback, following disclosures about untoward activities at their respective facilities. (For more from the author of “Va Asks for Meeting With Whistleblowers to Find out How They Face Retaliation” please click HERE)

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Restoring Liberty BANNED by Google, Suspended by Facebook For Publishing Stories Offending Transvestites, Pedophiles

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Well, it finally happened. Restoring Liberty was permanently banished from Google’s ad network. And just days later – this past Saturday – Facebook suspended Restoring Liberty, meaning that for the last several days, we have not been able to post any comments or stories on social media and have lost virtually all Internet revenue since Google’s ban.

So what happened? Was it because Restoring Liberty has been one of the most aggressive sites reporting on the global elites’ pedophilia scandal? Or maybe it’s been our unwillingness to bend on the gay agenda or the whacked-out transvestite mania that’s overcome the country, killing the political careers of folk like Senator Mark Green.

We believe Google’s and Facebook’s adverse action is part of a globalist conspiracy to kill liberty-oriented alternative news sites, especially those that dare to cross the line by criticizing the Elites’ favorite pastime: perversion.

Is this entirely speculation? No, and here’s why. First, although we have almost 45,000 followers on Facebook, for the past four or five months, Facebook has stopped trafficking our posts to over 90% of our followers. That’s why you probably haven’t been seeing our stories in your Facebook feeds like you used to. We’re guessing this has to do with the political filters that Facebook has designed to limit stories it hates, like the DNC email scandal last July (read that story HERE).

But that’s not all. There have been other signs of political censorship. As early as this past August, we told you about Michael Savage being blocked by Facebook for posting news on Islamic crime (read that story HERE). Earlier this year, a Christian mom simply quoted bible verses on homosexuality and was banned by Facebook (read that story HERE).

Of course, Restoring Liberty has been sounding the alarm on the incompatibility of Islam and the Constitution for years. We also haven’t been shy about labeling homosexuality for what it is – perversion. We haven’t really cared much about the radical Facebook censors. We were recently warned over a story (read it HERE) that we put up about Kansas City Catholics disassociating with the Girl Scouts because of their stance on lesbians and transvestites. Facebook promptly deleted the post, apparently lacking toleration for unfavorable news about its favored constituencies: transvestites, homosexuals, and Islamists.

And that’s what got us banned last week. The offending story reported on the transvestite agenda in the United States. Here’s a screenshot of the offending post, as it was sent back to us by Facebook after its censors deleted it and blocked us from the page:

Facebook Post Removed 5-9-17b

So where exactly did we cross the line? After our repeated inquiries, Facebook refused to say, simply maintaining that we didn’t “follow the Facebook Community Standards.”

Again, like Savage’s site and the Christian mom, Restoring Liberty was simply reporting on facts — facts Zuckerburg’s ultra-liberal staff didn’t want to see the light of day. But it’s not just his big government-loving, corporatist-controlled staff that are the problem: as Zuckerberg himself admitted back in December, he is using leftwing sites to filter conservative outlets like Restoring Liberty.

Google has been every bit as bad. We reported in January that Google banned 200 websites from its ad network. We escaped these initial cuts but others, like Alex Jones and Natural News, did not. Since then, Google has come out of the closet, unilaterally labeling stories it dislikes as “Fake News.” Restoring Liberty’s hit came without warning, immediately eliminating its primary source of revenue to pay for Internet hosting fees, the website developer, domain fees, its chief editor, and other costs.

Regrettably, absent readers’ renewed commitment to supporting the website through donations HERE, Restoring Liberty will not be able to continue publishing stories on a daily basis. And, of course, that’s exactly what the globalists want in their efforts to destroy the only remaining free press outlets left in the nation. Please join with us in our fight to restore Liberty.

Yes, Kushner Family IS Selling Green Cards – and It’s All Legal

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The mainstream media is on a tear over the Kushner family legally selling permanent resident visas to wealthy Chinese investors. Over the weekend, Jared Kushner’s sister gave a presentation in China about a new project the family company is building in New Jersey. As part of the presentation, she highlighted how a $500,000 investment could lead to permanent resident status for the investor in the United States. This is offered under the EB-5 program, which has been attacked by conservatives for decades.

Here’s how CNN Money explained what happened this weekend.

Nicole Kushner Meyer, the sister of White House adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke at an event in Beijing on Saturday. She was marketing a Kushner-owned property in New Jersey — invest in the development and get into the United States on a so-called EB-5 visa.

The EB-5 visa allows immigrants a path to a green card if they invest more than $500,000 in a project that creates jobs in the United States.

An ad for the event, held at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, said “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”

CRTV’s Michelle Malkin has been covering the EB-5 program and those who abuse it for nearly two decades. In January 2001, Malkin explained how the program came to be and how it works.

This fraud-ridden scheme was created under an obscure section of the 1990 Immigration Act, signed by Bush’s father. Known as the EB-5 law, it allows wealthy foreigners to purchase green cards by investing between $500,000 and $1 million into new commercial enterprises or troubled businesses. After two years, foreign investors, their spouses, and children all receive permanent resident status – which allows them to contribute to U.S. political campaigns and provides a speedy gateway to citizenship.

Making political access and the privilege of citizenship available to the highest foreign bidder offends the very ideals Bush wants to promote. Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers, a longtime critic of the program, noted: “All you need is green. You do not have to know anything about the poor and huddled masses that Emma Lazarus wrote about…How crassly we demean this precious blessing we call citizenship.”

In the 16 years since that article, Malkin has routinely exposed the program. One of the first episodes of her investigative program on CRTV was dedicated to EB-5 visa fraud.

Earlier this year, Conservative Review’s Nate Madden explained how the program works and the “corrupt racket” that has sprung up around it.

Here’s how EB-5 scams u

1. The con men usually promise some new development or large investment project to a community in a targeted economic area. These are, ostensibly, poor, rural zones with high unemployment, but have typically been gerrymandered to include affluent urban areas as well.

2. While the townspeople are preparing for the influx of capital by making investments in their own businesses, the scammers start soliciting funds from wealthy foreigners by dangling the promise of a guaranteed green card.

3. As the money rolls in, the scammers line their pockets with investment cash. Meanwhile, vendors don’t get paid, buildings never get built, projects fall apart, people lose their money, and communities end up with only long, drawn-out court investigations to show for it.

This is exactly the sort of thing that happened in Newport, Vt., Port St. Lucie, Fla., and dozens of other cities and towns across the United States (The Center for Immigration Studies maintains a map that outlines dozens of federal, state, local, and civil cases involving EB-5 visa scandals that have rocked towns across the country.)

Like much that happens in the world surrounding Donald Trump, perhaps now the mainstream media will start reporting in earnest about the program and how it is abused. The public outcry may give those who want to reform the program the leverage they need to get it done. (For more from the author of “Yes, Kushner Family IS Selling Green Cards – and It’s All Legal” please click HERE)

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Why Is Spicer STILL Calling Trump’s EO a ‘Travel Ban’?

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is under fire for his use of the phrase “travel ban” and his claims that this is what the White House team has been calling Trump’s two executive orders on travel back in February. Calling it this is bad rhetorical move by the president’s messaging shop.

During an exchange at the daily press briefing at the White House, Spicer claimed that the administration has been “pretty consistent” in referring to the measure, which is demonstrably false.

In addition to the bad news cycle that comes with misrepresenting one’s own previous remarks, trying to turn around and sell the policy now as a “travel ban” is just bad branding.

First off, it’s not a “Muslim Ban” (for the umpteenth time).

In reality, the executive order is a prudential halt on immigration from a list of countries that was put together by the Obama administration; includes no explicit religious test whatsoever; grandfathers in people with green cards (even though it doesn’t really have to); does not include any religious test whatsoever (which the 9th Circuit got around by cobbling together the president’s campaign rhetoric into an opinion); and does not apply to countries like Indonesia and India, which hold a quarter of the world’s Muslim population.

Secondly, it’s not a “ban” in the permanent sense of that word and those (until now) wielding it to imply.

At best, the executive orders heralded a temporary moratorium, or a cool-off, if that’s too much of a mouthful. Rather, the branding of a “travel ban” just sounds like a sterilized acceptance of its opponents’ premises that it’s a really a Muslim ban.

Furthermore, this seeming acceptance – in message, at least – gives fuel to the opponents’ arguments that the E.O. is really just a Muslim ban in disguise. And it does all this for a pre-determined amount of time with the aim of replacing the suspension with an updated vetting system for the sake of national security.

Yes, the attack on Trump’s order as a “Muslim ban” is intellectually dishonest, but trying to baptize that language into calling it a travel ban and pushing that phrase as the preferred terminology is just bad branding. (For more from the author of “Why Is Spicer STILL Calling Trump’s EO a ‘Travel Ban’?” please click HERE)

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‘Deep State’ Pulls Clearance of Trump NSC Official. Rogue Agenda?

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A respected National Security Council analyst has had his security clearance revoked, and his allies are unanimously blaming a “deep state” campaign designed to sabotage the Trump national security agenda.

Last week, Adam Lovinger – a longtime Pentagon expert on loan to the NSC, who held a top secret clearance over the past decade without issue – had his clearance suspended effective immediately.

On Tuesday, Lovinger was informed by the Pentagon that his clearance was suspended. He was then abruptly marched out of the NSC offices. According to sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Lovinger has been transferred to an Alexandria, Va., location to do clerical work for an indefinite amount of time. Without his clearance, he has been effectively frozen out of the ability to do meaningful national security work.

Bill Gertz, who broke the story of Lovinger’s dismissal, reports at the Washington Free Beacon that Lovinger had been a strategic affairs analyst at the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) for over a decade. He is an expert in net assessments, which are “highly classified reports that assess foreign threats and U.S. capabilities.” Lovinger is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and holds a J.D. from Georgetown. He is an expert on the Indian Ocean region, the Persian Gulf, and sub-Saharan Africa.”

When President Trump was elected to the White House, Lovinger expressed an interest in moving his portfolio temporarily to the National Security Council, so that he could help shape the incoming administration’s grand strategy. He moved over to the NSC during the transition, and was then tasked with crafting a more comprehensive national security strategy for the Trump administration.

Sources say that Lovinger’s relationship soured with his Pentagon supervisor, James H. Baker, after the latter became aware that his colleague was being interviewed for a position at the NSC. Following Lovinger’s transfer, Baker immediately led two investigations into his security clearance.

Allies of Lovinger describe Baker as someone who is vehemently opposed to the policies of the Trump administration. Baker was appointed by Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter in 2015 to lead ONA. He has since been held over by the current administration, for reasons unknown.

Another individual directly aware of the situation tells CR. “Because Lovinger’s clearance was being held by the Department of Defense, Baker got DOD to withhold his clearance off of phony information.”

Another source close to Lovinger said he was so alarmed by actions taken against his security clearance that he went to an attorney and filed a 38-page sworn affidavit to make a record of Baker’s campaign against him.

The Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment was created to assess and develop future strategies for the U.S. military. It was first led by Andrew Marshall, a legendary director who is nicknamed “Yoda” for his strategic brilliance. Lovinger, described as a “brainiac” by one of his colleagues, was a protege of Marshall.

Under Baker, the ONA has been criticized for failing to produce assessments fundamental to the office’s founding mission.

Lovinger is the second National Security Council staffer to have his clearance revoked under questionable circumstances.

In February, NSC African specialist Robin Townley had his clearance pulled by the CIA, according to reports. Angelo Codevilla, a renowned international affairs expert, alleged that the agency axed Townley’s clearance because he did not approve of the CIA’s current trajectory.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. Adam Lovinger did not respond to a request for comment. (For more from the author of “‘Deep State’ Pulls Clearance of Trump NSC Official. Rogue Agenda?” please click HERE)

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Don’t Buy the Climate Hype: Trump’s EPA Change Is a Good Thing

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Crank up the hysteria machine, as President Trump is continuing his War on Science™ at the Environmental Protection Agency.

According to a story at the New York Times, the administration has removed five scientists from a review board, opening up the possibility of replacing them with representatives from various industries, which would fit into the President’s promises to reduce the regulatory grip of the department on the market:

A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, J. P. Freire.

The dismissals on Friday came about six weeks after the House passed a bill aimed at changing the composition of another E.P.A. scientific review board to include more representation from the corporate world.

Agency spokesman J.P. Friere told the newspaper that the agency wants to expand the “pool of applicants [for the 18-member board] to as broad a range as possible, to include universities that aren’t typically represented and issues that aren’t typically represented.” This could also include representatives from the energy world.

The rest of the piece is made up of quotes from Trump critics repeating variations on the theme that the president is anti-climate or anti-science because of the move. The New York Daily News goes so far to label this shuffle as the latest maneuver in Trump’s supposed “war on science.”

The horror: People with insight on how regulations affect the price of energy might have a say in how our natural resources are regulated. This may require a trigger warning for the climate crowd, but here goes: One cannot write sensible regulations with science alone.

As Conservative Review’s Logan Albright wrote in anticipation of the highly publicized and nakedly partisan “March for Science” weeks before, science can tell us a lot of things, but empirical findings cannot tell public officials what to do with those findings.

The appeal to science is one of the progressive movement’s go-to tactics in the attempt to appear reasonable and unbiased. After all, science doesn’t have a political agenda, right? As Joe Friday said, it’s “just the facts, ma’am.” And since science is synonymous with learning, inquiry, and critical thought, the only people who would reject science must be ignorant, unintelligent, and superstitious.

The trouble with this line of reasoning is that it anthropomorphizes science into something that has opinions, conclusions, and recommendations. This not only fundamentally misunderstands the concept of science, but can lead down some pretty dangerous roads if we’re not careful.

First of all, let’s get straight what science is and is not. The word “science” is only a noun for grammatical convenience.

“What these protestors really mean,” he concludes, “is that they want their particular conclusions on controversial topics to be the standard by which government operates, particularly when it relates to climate science.”

Likewise, too often these conclusions and recommendations ignore the real-world effects of the regulations created by the white-frocked technocrats on these unaccountable boards.

After all, the methods and questions of scientific reasoning do not account for how much more a single mother of two will pay to heat her house the subsequent winter because her energy companies increased compliance costs, or how long a career trucker will have to wait for a cost-of-living increase, or what green fiats will do to the price of diesel.

You don’t need a Ph.D. to care about the land. Ask any farmer, rancher, hunter, fisherman, or hiking enthusiast. You’ll find more than enough concern about the ill effects of pollution on our nation’s precious natural resources. Furthermore, you’ll often find the same drive to preserve these resources in the long term, as these sorts of enterprises – whether economic or recreational – are not typically something anyone would deny to their children and grandchildren.

Likewise, by market forces, energy producers have the incentive to provide the most inexpensive and efficient products they can because of the demands of the kinds of people mentioned above. How government regulations passed by those with little to no skin in the game affect everyone else is indeed some needed insight in this process. People inside the EPA who have real-world experience can provide that insight.

And while these concerned people often do not have the degrees or lab coats necessary to assuage the standard-issue concerns of the technocratic mind, they do understand what happens when detached central planners are given too much control over the land.

Ideally, regulations would be written as locally as possibly by legislatures alone and only when absolutely necessary. But tailoring the regulatory power of an agency that shouldn’t exist to include a broader range of concerns is a step in the right direction.

Just because someone makes a living from the land does not make him or her incapable of contributing to how it is governed; rather, those very people are often far more qualified than those writing regulations from an ivory tower. The view to the contrary says that citizens are incapable of governing themselves, and this is contrary to our very founding principles. (For more from the author of “Don’t Buy the Climate Hype: Trump’s EPA Change Is a Good Thing” please click HERE)

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