Trump Well Behind in Winning Senate Confirmation of Appointees

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The White House is turning up the heat on Senate Democrats for using delaying tactics to block President Donald Trump’s executive branch nominees, even as Trump trails recent presidents in the number of appointments so far.

The president so far has nominated 197 persons for administration posts, of which 48 have won Senate confirmation.

Trump blasted Democrats in a tweet Tuesday for procedural tactics in the Senate, which have included requiring cloture—a measure to end debate before a vote—and boycotting confirmation hearings to prevent a required quorum.

Trump is well behind his most recent predecessors not only in confirmations by the Senate, but also in making nominations to build his administration.

By July 11, 2009, in his first year in office, President Barack Obama—with a Senate controlled by his party—had made 356 nominations, 200 of which had been confirmed, according to the Center for Presidential Transition, a project of the Partnership for Public Service.

By this point in 2001, his first term, President George W. Bush—with a Democrat-controlled Senate—had made 296 nominations, 149 of which were confirmed.

President Bill Clinton—also with a Democrat-controlled Senate—had made 256 nominations by this point in 1993, and had 196 confirmations.

His predecessor, George H.W. Bush, had made 243 nominations at this point in 1989, of which 144 had won Senate confirmation.

Three decades later, Senate Democrats are gumming up the process by requiring cloture filings for most of Trump’s nominees. Cloture means that before taking a vote on a nominee, the Senate must have a two-day waiting period and 30 hours of debate. The rule allows the Senate minority, in this case the Democrats, to halt other business.

The blame certainly can be spread around, said Robert Moffit, a senior fellow in health policy at The Heritage Foundation who has watched Capitol Hill for decades.

“The Senate delay is pure obstruction and a disservice to the American people,” Moffit told The Daily Signal. “Advise and consent is not simply obstructing the president’s team’s ability to carry out his agenda. This directly obstructs the democratic process. The country elects presidents.”

Moffit said the Trump administration also has moved slowly in nominating political appointees.

“The sluggish pace to fill sub-Cabinet posts has not been the fault of Democrats, but the fault of a presidential personnel operation,” he said.

Political appointees serve an integral role as leaders and decision-makers in government, said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan research organization.

“President Trump has picked up the pace on nominations, but there are hundreds of vitally important positions left to fill, including director of the U.S. Census Bureau, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” Stier told The Daily Signal in a prepared statement.

“It is essential that the president identifies top talent to fill these leadership positions and that the Senate consider these nominees quickly so that critical decisions can be made across government,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that after completing work on a health care bill to replace Obamacare, the Senate will turn to a defense spending bill and “the backlog of critical nominations that have been mindlessly stalled by Democrats.”

“In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” McConnell, R-Ky., said.

During a press briefing Tuesday, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted McConnell’s announcement and accused Senate Democrats of “looking to set a record for pointless and dangerous obstruction.”

Citing the Obama administration, Sanders added:

While more than 90 percent of the previous administration’s nominations were confirmed by a voice vote, Democrats in the Senate have allowed only approximately 10 percent of President Trump’s nominees to be voted on in that way.

We’re coming up on the August recess of President Trump’s first term, by which point the Senate [had] confirmed 69 percent of President Obama’s nominations; less than a month out from that same point, the Senate has confirmed only approximately 23 percent of President Trump’s nominees. These numbers show the Democrats’ true colors.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., however, faulted Trump during a Senate floor speech.

“No administration in recent memory has been slower in sending nominations to the Senate,” Schumer said in his remarks Monday. “We can’t go forward until that happens. That’s almost unprecedented in its degree. Time and time again they’ve stalled on providing committees the information needed.”

He added: “It’s typical of the Trump administration: Do something wrong and blame someone else for your problem.”

The White House listed these as some of the more noncontroversial nominees who are being held up by Senate Democrats:

Patrick M. Shanahan as deputy defense secretary.

Noel J. Francisco as solicitor general.

Lee Francis Cissna as director of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Kevin Hassett as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

A total of 16 nominees are for defense-related posts, Marc Short, White House director of legislative affairs, told reporters during the Monday briefing.

“I believe that the Democrat obstruction is jeopardizing national security,” Short said. (For more from the author of “Trump Well Behind in Winning Senate Confirmation of Appointees” please click HERE)

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Minimum Wage Hikes Are an Act of Cruelty

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There are political movements to push the federal minimum hourly wage to $15.

Raising the minimum wage has popular support among Americans. Their reasons include fighting poverty, preventing worker exploitation, and providing a living wage.

For the most part, the intentions behind the support for raising the minimum wage are decent. But when we evaluate public policy, the effect of the policy is far more important than intentions.

So let’s examine the effects of increases in minimum wages.

The average wage for a cashier is around $10 an hour, about $21,000 a year. That’s no great shakes, but it’s an honest job for full- or part-time workers and retirees wanting to earn some extra cash.

In anticipation of a $15-an-hour wage becoming federal law, many firms are beginning the automation process to economize on their labor usage.

Panera Bread, a counter-serve cafe chain, anticipates replacing most of its cashiers with kiosks. McDonald’s is rolling out self-service kiosks that allow customers to order and pay for their food without ever having to interact with a human.

Momentum Machines has developed a meat-flipping robot, which can turn out 360 hamburgers an hour. These and other measures are direct responses to rising labor costs and expectations of higher minimum wages.

Here’s my question to supporters of higher minimum wages: How compassionate is it to create legislation that destroys an earning opportunity?

Again, making $21,000 a year as a cashier is no great shakes, but it’s better than going on welfare, needing unemployment compensation, or idleness. Why would anybody work for $21,000 a year if he had a higher-paying alternative?

Obviously, the $21,000-a-year job is his best-known opportunity. How compassionate is it to call for a government policy that destroys a person’s best opportunity? I say it’s cruel.

San Francisco might give us some evidence for what a $15 minimum wage does.

According to the East Bay Times, about 60 restaurants around the Bay Area closed between September and January.

A recent study by Michael Luca of Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca of Mathematica Policy Research calculated that for every $1 hike in the minimum hourly wage, there is a 14 percent increase in the likelihood that a restaurant rated 3 1/2 stars on Yelp will go out of business.

Fresno Bee reporter Jeremy Bagott says that even some of San Francisco’s best restaurants fall prey to higher minimum wages. One saw its profit margins fall from 8.5 percent in 2012 to 1.5 percent by 2015.

Most restaurants are thought to require profit margins between 3 and 5 percent to survive.

Some think that it’s greed that motivates businessmen to seek substitutes for labor, such as kiosks, as wages rise. But don’t blame businessmen; just look in the mirror.

Suppose both McDonald’s and Burger King are faced with higher labor costs as a result of higher minimum wages. McDonald’s lowers its labor costs by installing kiosks and laying off workers, but Burger King decides to not automate but instead keep the same amount of labor.

To cover its higher labor costs, Burger King must charge higher prices for its meals, whereas McDonald’s gets by while charging lower prices.

Which restaurant do you think people will patronize? I’m guessing McDonald’s. What customers want is an important part of a company’s decision-making.

But there are other actors to whom companies are beholden. They are the companies’ investors, who are looking for returns on their investments.

If one company responds appropriately to higher labor costs, it will produce a higher investor return than one that does not.

That means “buy” signals for the stock of a company that responds properly and “sell” signals for the stock of one that does not, as well as possible outside takeover attempts for the latter.

The best way to help low-wage workers earn higher wages is to make them more productive, and that’s not accomplished simply by saying they are more productive by mandating higher wages. (For more from the author of “Minimum Wage Hikes Are an Act of Cruelty” please click HERE)

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What a Former Colleague Thinks About Chris Wray Becoming FBI Director

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“Chris Wray is extremely intelligent, very principled, very hardworking,” said a former colleague of President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee in an interview with The Daily Signal.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing for FBI director nominee, Christopher Wray, on Wednesday.

John Malcom, The Heritage Foundation’s vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government and Wray’s former colleague, said Wray is a good fit for the job.

Wray and Malcolm worked together in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in the early 2000s.

“I have known Chris Wray for a very long time. … He was my boss … for about nine months in 2003 to early 2004. But I’ve known Chris Wray since the mid-nineties,” Malcolm told The Daily Signal.

Wray began working for the Department of Justice in 2001 and eventually served as an associate deputy attorney general, principal associate deputy attorney general, and assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division.

Malcom said Wray was a “protege” of Larry Thompson, the then-deputy attorney general, at the Department of Justice. When the then-head of the Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff, left in 2003, Wray became head of the Criminal Division where Malcolm was the deputy assistant attorney general. Malcolm said he remained one of Wray’s deputies until Malcolm left the DOJ in March 2004.

“I’m quite confident [Chris Wray] realizes that the FBI is the nation’s chief law enforcement office … I have no doubt he will approach this new job, once he is confirmed, in a thoroughly professional, nonpartisan manner,” Malcolm said.

Malcolm said he was confident in Wray’s abilities to head the FBI.

“He will be a dedicated, fair-minded FBI director,” Malcolm said.

Wray currently works at the law firm King & Spalding and chairs its special matters and government investigations practice group. This group “represents companies, audit and special committees, and individuals in a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations,” according to the firm’s website.

The website also says that Wray was “integral” to the DOJ’s response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and received “the department’s highest award for public service and leadership.”

He previously clerked for former Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was “a prominent conservative on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,” according to Politico. He graduated from Yale in 1989 and from Yale Law School in 1992. (For more from the author of “What a Former Colleague Thinks About Chris Wray Becoming FBI Director” please click HERE)

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Deep State Tried to Frame Trump by Setting up Meetings With Russian Spies; And Mystery Solved Why Deep State’s Comey Did Nothing About Hillary

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By Patrick Howley. President Donald Trump’s Deep State political opponents set up his son Don Jr. and other members of the campaign team to frame them for colluding with the Russians before the election even took place.

Circa ran the headline late Saturday night, “Donald Trump Jr. gathered members of campaign for meeting with Russian lawyer before election.” The brief meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya occurred at Trump Tower, which was surveilled by the Obama administration during the campaign. But it turns out that the meeting was a false flag.

“We have learned from both our own investigation and public reports that the participants in the meeting misrepresented who they were and who they worked for,” Trump legal team representative Mark Corallo said in the report. “Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the President and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier.”

“These developments raise serious issues as to exactly who authorized and participated in any effort by Russian nationals to influence our election in any manner,” Corallo added.

Fusion GPS was involved in the effort to smear Trump with a now-debunked dossier, compiled by British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Senator John McCain was integrally involved in obtaining and making that dossier public. Additionally, Obama CIA director John Brennan colluded with British and Estonian spies to damage Trump during the campaign. As we reported, Brennan oversaw the years-long surveillance program that allegedly kept tabs on Trump as a private citizen, according to whistleblowers. (Read more from “Deep State Tried to Frame Trump by Setting up Meetings With Russian Spies; And Mystery Solved Why Deep State’s Comey Did Nothing About Hillary” HERE)

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Mystery Solved: Now We Know Why Comey Did Nothing About Hillary

By Investors Business Daily. No wonder former FBI Director James Comey refused to press charges last summer against Hillary Clinton for her egregious security breaches: It turns out, he may have been guilty of the same thing.

As the inside-the-beltway political publication The Hill reported, more than half of the memos FBI Director James Comey wrote after having spoken to President Trump about the Russia investigation contained classified information. The Hill cites as its sources “officials familiar with the documents.”

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Trump on Monday morning tweeted out an angry response: “James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!” . . .

All told, Comey wrote seven memos based on nine meetings with Trump. In testimony to Congress, he asserted that he had made sure the memos in question didn’t have classified material. But a subsequent investigation found markings on four of the memos indicating secret information, the kind that is not allowed to be routinely released to the public. (Read more from “Mystery Solved: Now We Know Why Comey Did Nothing About Hillary” HERE)

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MSM Ignores Explosive Admission From Obama’s Cybersecurity Expert: Russians Never Hacked Election

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By Chana Roberts. In an interview with Army Radio on Wednesday, former White House Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel spoke about the claims that Russia hacked the November 2016 elections to favor US President Donald Trump.

“I definitely don’t think that the Russians or anyone else – they certainly didn’t change any votes,” Daniel said. “The votes that were cast properly reflect the votes of the American people.”

When we asked if Trump worked together with the Russians to influence the elections, Daniel said he doesn’t think Trump did anything. (Read more from “MSM Ignores Explosive Admission From Obama’s Cybersecurity Expert: Russians Never Hacked Election” HERE)

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Trump Trusts Putin’s Denial of Russia Meddling in US Election

By Graham Lanktree. U.S. President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “vehemently denied” that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, when the two met face-to-face during the G20 Summit Friday.

“I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion,” Trump wrote in an early morning tweet Sunday.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that an American intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in last year’s election is wrong. While speaking in Poland ahead of the summit Thursday Trump said “other countries” could have been involved. (Read more from “Trump Trusts Putin’s Denial of Russia Meddling in US Election” HERE)

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Seattle Approves Income Tax on the Wealthy

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The Seattle City Council unanimously approved an income tax on wealthy residents Monday, a move widely expected to draw a quick legal challenge.

The measure applies a 2.25 percent tax on total income above $250,000 for individuals and above $500,000 for married couples filing their taxes together.

“Seattle should serve everyone, not just rich folks,” software developer Carissa Knipe told the council before the 9-0 vote, saying she makes more than $170,000 per year . . .

The city estimates the tax would raise about $140 million a year and cost $10 million to $13 million to set up, plus $5 million to $6 million per year to manage and enforce. (Read more from “Seattle Approves Income Tax on the Wealthy” HERE)

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Judge Rules Against London Hospital–In Favor of Charlie Gard’s Parents

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A judge at London’s High Court ruled against the hospital and in favor of the parents of baby Charlie Gard–who is suffering from a rare genetic disorder–that they may present new scientific evidence concerning their son’s treatment, which will be reviewed this Thursday and could possibly lead to Charlie receiving treatment in the United States. But the outcome is still uncertain and Charlie’s fate is precarious.

Charlie Gard is 10 months old. He lives on life support in the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. His genetic disorder is destructive to muscles and organs, and most people who have the problem die in infancy. The baby’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, want their son to undergo an experimental treatment, which has been helpful in some cases. An online campaign has raised more than $1.5 million for the baby’s treament.

Under the health care laws in Britain, however, the parents are not allowed to pursue this option. The hospital contends Charlie is brain-damaged and beyond medical hope, and the hospital wants to shut off his life support. This denial of the parent’s desire to seek treatment for their son elsewhere led to several court rulings — in favor of the hospital. On Monday, July 10, the judge who previously ruled against the Gards agreed to review whatever new evience they can present to him for a reevaluation.

“The Great Ormond Street Hospital requested Mr. Justice Francis to reaffirm his prior ruling,” Americans United for Life President Catherine Glenn Foster told CNSNews.com from London. “So they argued for him to say that, indeed, there is no new evidence and that they were free to remove Charlie’s [life] support.” (Read more from “Judge Rules Against London Hospital–In Favor of Charlie Gard’s Parents” HERE)

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Obama Joins Eric Holder Powwow to Fund Dem Electoral Tinkering

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Former President Barack Obama will make an appearance at a Washington, D.C.-area fundraiser to help boost the efforts of his former attorney general, Eric Holder, and his project to counter recent-years’ massive Democrat losses by tinkering with election maps.

Politico reported Sunday:

Barack Obama will make the first official political move of his post-presidency on Thursday, headlining a private fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee at a private home in Washington.

The event, which will also be attended by NDRC chair Eric Holder and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is to support the group he’s helping back to coordinate Democratic efforts in state races and lawsuits to push back on Republican success in gerrymandering over many cycles. In many statehouses and Congress, that’s left Democrats at a baked-in disadvantage.

This is not Obama’s first foray into the political sphere since leaving office. Obama has taken criticism for taking pot shots at President Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate agreement and attempting to address the failures of his signature health care legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

Former presidents have been known to take up causes after their time in the Oval Office, but the most notable examples – such as George W. Bush’s work in veterans’ advocacy, and Jimmy Carter’s efforts globally to combat disease and homelessness – have skewed closer to the philanthropic than political. Even The Washington Post has called Obama’s involvement in the NRDC “a rare, if not unprecedented, step in the modern era.”

While the committee may be “proud” to have Obama’s support, as Holder said in a statement, that enthusiasm is somewhat ironic, given the massive electoral losses the Democratic Party suffered under the former president’s leadership.

According to the committee’s website, Holder’s group was created to build a “targeted, state-by-state strategy that ensures Democrats can produce fairer maps in the 2021 redistricting process.” The goal of these “fairer maps,” of course, is to help the DNC win elections against their Republican counterparts.

Eric Holder and the NRDC’s efforts are already getting a fair amount of support from sympathetic federal judges.

In recent years, however, due to court decisions mostly revolving around the Voting Rights Act, a combination of federal legislation and courts have usurped power from state legislators and have placed an ever-increasing list of prohibitions against how states can run their elections.

And while many critics of partisan gerrymandering tend to view it as a means by which the GOP alone holds power in the supermajority of state and local jurisdictions, these assertions tend to overlook examples like those in Illinois and Maryland.

And while racial gerrymanders are prohibited by the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court agreed to take up a redistricting case that could also bar drawing lines based on political affiliation as well, despite previous federal rulings which have allowed the practice.

In reality, there is simply no way to draw a district’s boundaries without favoring or disfavoring some sort of demographic. Regardless of which actors are given control over the process, some group is going to experience less representation. Even when the power to draw lines is taken from one group, the real outcome is simply trading one group’s gerrymandered map for another one.

This understanding is written into the U.S. Constitution, which leaves the power over redistricting to the states and their citizens.

“Yes, both political parties are guilty of gerrymandering in their favor when they seize control of state government,” explains Conservative Review senior editor Daniel Horowitz. “That is part of politics and the spoils of war.”

“While legislative gerrymanders — when taken to an extreme and disrespect natural geographic and demographic boundaries — are insidious, they are not nearly as bad as judicial gerrymanders,” Horowitz writes. “Federal judges are unelected and serve life-tenures. There is no recourse when they subjectively redraw maps.” (For more from the author of “Obama Joins Eric Holder Powwow to Fund Dem Electoral Tinkering” please click HERE)

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Trump Is Right. Why Does Obama Get a Free Pass on Russia?

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While the Left beats the drum over alleged Russian collusion from the Trump campaign, the liberal media are conveniently ignoring the intelligence provided to former President Obama and his lack of taking action.

Why are the media ignoring how Obama handled Russia during the 2016 presidential election?

I debated this topic on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” with co-host Steve Doocy and Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine.

(For more from the author of “Trump Is Right. Why Does Obama Get a Free Pass on Russia?” please click HERE)

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Soldier Arrested by FBI SWAT Team for Alleged Ties to ISIS

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An FBI SWAT team arrested Hawaii-based soldier Ikaika Erik Kang on Saturday for alleged ties to the Islamic State.

The FBI field office in Honolulu stated that the 34-year-old active-duty soldier is stationed at the Schofield Barracks and appeared in court Monday regarding allegations of terror links, USA Today reports.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Hawaii, Kang, part of the 25th Infantry Division, pledged allegiance to ISIS. Moreover, Kang also attempted to provide military documents to ISIS contacts, authorities allege.

Unlike other service members apprehended due to terror connections, Sgt. 1st Class Kang had a long record of service, having been awarded the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal and the Iraq Campaign Medal, among others. He deployed to Iraq in 2010 and Afghanistan in 2014. (Read more from “Soldier Arrested by FBI SWAT Team for Alleged Ties to ISIS” HERE)

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