‘Bushies’ Creep Into Trump’s Administration

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President Donald Trump uses the term “Bushie” as shorthand for anyone he considers too establishment, thinks too conventionally, or is just, in the president’s mind, a pain.

But a strange thing has been happening within his administration lately. Bush administration alums now run huge swaths of Trump’s government. They’re at high levels of his departments of Homeland Security, Labor, State, Health and Human Services, and Treasury. At the White House, they staff his legal and domestic policy offices. . .

Earlier this month, Trump picked Bill Barr, an attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, as his replacement for Jeff Sessions. Two of his recent hires for the White House counsel’s office, Mike Purpura and Pat Philpin, served under President George W. Bush. They will report to the new White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who served in the elder Bush’s Justice Department.

Meanwhile, the newly confirmed deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, Justin Muzinich, worked on Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign and helped draft his tax plan. Trump’s pick to run the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Heath Tarbert, served as an associate counsel to George W. Bush — a fact unmentioned in a recent White House announcement of his nomination. Jim Jeffrey, a former senior aide in George W. Bush’s White House, became Trump’s U.S. special representative to Syria in August. (Read more from “‘Bushies’ Creep Into Trump’s Administration” HERE)

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Supreme Court Halts Fines Against Mystery Company Possibly Linked to Mueller Investigation

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By Washington Examiner. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary administrative stay of contempt sanctions that have been brought against an unknown company in a mysterious grand jury subpoena fight thought to be linked to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The move is a fairly procedural one, and gives the federal government until Dec. 31 to respond. Roberts, or all of the Supreme Court, could easily decide to lift the stay even before then, depending on how soon as it hears from the federal government. . .

The challenge reached the Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday night. rejected the company’s appeal to quash the grand jury subpoena to turn over records.

Then on Saturday, the company formally filed an application with the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene and stay the lower court’s decision to comply with the subpoena — and also asked that the case remain under seal.

The company had also asked the Supreme Court to halt the continuing $5,000 per week fine it is incurring for not complying with the subpoena, an effort Judges David S. Tatel, Thomas B. Griffith, and Stephen F. Williams of the D.C. Circuit also rejected this week. (Read more from “Supreme Court Halts Fines Against Mystery Company Possibly Linked to Mueller Investigation” HERE)

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Chief Justice Roberts Issues Stay in Case of Unknown Subpoena

By Politico. Chief Justice John Roberts has stepped into a grand jury subpoena dispute that appears to involve special counsel Robert Mueller and an unknown company owned by a foreign country.

Roberts issued an order Sunday temporarily staying a contempt citation against the firm, as well as an escalating financial penalty a judge imposed for failing to comply with the subpoena.

The firm filed a stay petition at the Supreme Court on Saturday. Roberts did not grant the motion, but issued what appears to be a temporary stay designed to allow the court to consider whether to wade into the fight. He ordered the government to file a response by Dec. 31 at noon.

The identity of the firm and the foreign country at issue remain a mystery, but POLITICO first reported earlier this year that the dispute appeared to involve Mueller’s prosecutors. A POLITICO reporter stationed in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals clerk’s office in October heard a person connected to the appeal request a copy of the special counsel’s latest filing in the case. (Read more from “Chief Justice Roberts Issues Stay in Case of Unknown Subpoena” HERE)

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ISIS Activity Imperiling International Efforts to Contain Largest Ebola Outbreak Ever

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. . .One of the most active areas for the Ebola outbreak has been Oicha, which is in the Beni region. But ADF is killing just as many civilians as Ebola is in the area now known as the “triangle of death.” . . .

As a result of these attacks, UN estimates say that more than one million people in the area have been displaced and are in transit between the Congo and Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

Because of the concern about the disease “walking” across these various borders, WHO has started to prepare by vaccinating in South Sudan — another country that has been devastated by militias and violence in recent years (hundreds of thousands have been murdered). Vaccination programs were already initiated earlier in Uganda in an attempt to contain the disease.

Specifically, foreign aid workers, priests, and government officials have been kidnapped and held for ransom. Because of the targeting by ADF, the area is now a “no-go” zone for many aid agencies that would otherwise be working to contain the Ebola epidemic.

In one case in Oicha back in August, an infected doctor was in an area entirely surrounded by ADF, hindering treatment and thereby allowing more to be potentially exposed to the disease. (Read more from “ISIS Activity Imperiling International Efforts to Contain Largest Ebola Outbreak Ever” HERE)

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Here’s How the Trumps Plan to Spend Christmas

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Because of the government shutdown that is looming, President Donald Trump plans to stay in Washington, D.C. First Lady Melania Trump is returning from Florida so the family can be together on Christmas.

“Due to the shutdown, President Trump will remain in Washington, D.C. and the First Lady will return from Florida so they can spend Christmas together,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Saturday. . .

(Read more from “Here’s How the Trumps Plan to Spend Christmas” HERE)

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Michael Moore Tops Christmas Tree With Ruth Bader Ginsburg Doll. Twitter’s Response Is Priceless.

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Most Americans place a star, angel, or another traditional Christmas symbol atop their Christmas trees. But this year, liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore decided to break with tradition. . .

Instead of choosing a Christmas symbol, Moore has selected none other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — well, a doll of the Supreme Court justice — to adorn the top of his tree.

Moore posted pictures of his tree topper to Twitter with the message: “My Christmas Tree Topper this year. Better than an angel or the star over Bethlehem. A nation of millions stand with you.”

Moore did not provide additional context as for why he selected a Ginsburg tree topper this year. However, Moore’s decoration announcement came the same day it was revealed the 85-year-old justice underwent surgery to remove cancerous nodules from her left lung.

(Read more from “Michael Moore Tops Christmas Tree With Ruth Bader Ginsburg Doll. Twitter’s Response Is Priceless.” HERE)

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Trump Announces Mattis’ Acting Replacement Starting Next Year

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President Donald Trump announced on Sunday Secretary of Defense James Mattis would be replaced by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan as Acting Secretary of Defense on January 1, 2019.

In his letter of resignation, Mattis said he would stay on as chief of the Department of Defense until the end of February to ensure there would be enough time for a replacement to be confirmed and to help oversee the transition.

“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” Mattis wrote. “The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department’s interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February.”

(Read more from “Trump Announces Mattis’ Acting Replacement Starting Next Year” HERE)

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Watch: Dem Rep Tries to Use Baby Jesus to Savage DHS Secretary

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Rep. Luis Gutierrez went on a minutes-long tirade against DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Thursday in which he not only called her a liar, but also compared President Trump to the biblical King Herod, who tried to murder baby Jesus.

The Bible tells how, following Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph were told to flee to Egypt to avoid Herod’s murderous intent. According to Gutierrez, had Trump been running things in Egypt, Herod would have succeeded.

“Thank God that wall wasn’t there, and thank God there wasn’t an administration like this, or he would have perished … on the Day of Innocents, when Herod ordered the murder of every child under two years of age,” Gutiérrez said. “Maybe I haven’t gone a lot to Bible school, but I know that part.”

ome version of this analogy has been used before in the immigration fight. If you don’t agree with the farthest-left immigration or refugee policy in the debate, it goes, then you would have mistreated baby Jesus and His family, and you should be ashamed of yourself. It substitutes emotion and shame for a substantive argument based on the facts.

So let’s look at those facts, shall we? The whole thing is pretty flimsy.

In a following question from a Republican member of the committee, Secretary Nielsen was asked whether or not Jesus’ family would qualify for asylum under our current laws and policies. Her answer was yes.

And she’s right. Mary and Joseph weren’t fleeing because the Egyptian job market was better than the one in Galilee or because Nazarene organized crime was such a problem. The holy family had legitimate fear of individual persecution based on the fact that the local puppet king was plotting a mass infanticide in his efforts to kill their baby.

Even if there were no difference whatsoever between U.S. immigration laws and those of first-century Egypt, and even if a wall ran from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, Mary and Joseph could simply have followed the law and applied for asylum at a legal port of entry.

Furthermore, scripture and tradition say nothing about Mary and Joseph breaking any laws or joining a caravan of other migrants bent on violating Egypt’s laws and assaulting agents of its government.

So, yes, the comparison falls apart pretty quickly, but that’s what happens when you try to use Christ’s birth as a shoddy emotional political chip.

And before we go, does anyone else find a congressman with a 100 percent Planned Parenthood score viciously moralizing about the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents a bit despicable? (For more from the author of “Watch: Dem Rep Tries to Use Baby Jesus to Savage DHS Secretary” please click HERE)

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UPDATE: This Air Force Veteran Started a GoFundMe Campaign for Trump’s Wall…and Raised How Much Again?

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Editor’s note: see the updated story below about how the GoFundMe wall funding has now surpassed $15 million!

By Townhall. Well, there could be a government shutdown this week, or not. Either way, whatever is cooked up on the Hill; there will be probably be no wall funding. The Senate has put forward a stopgap measure will fund the government until February, but we don’t know what the president is going to do. Still, there have to be mounting frustration over the lack of progress with regards to the wall, a key and must-do action item for the administration. It formed the cornerstone of his 2016 campaign. So, with no wall, one Air Force veteran decided to take matters in his own hands, starting a GoFundMe campaign that amassed over $500,000 in two days. (Read more from “This Air Force Veteran Started a GoFundMe Campaign for Trump’s Wall…and Raised How Much Again?” HERE)

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Purple Heart Air Force Veteran, 37, Who Lost Both His Legs and an Arm, Creates GoFundMe Campaign to Build Trump’s Border Wall, Raising Nearly $1MILLION

By Daily Mail. A Florida Air Force veteran has raised nearly $1million to build President Donald Trump’s promised border wall.

Triple amputee Brian Kolfage, 37, created the GoFundMe account on Sunday titled We The People Will Fund The Wall, and in three days has already raised over $900,000 of its $1billion goal.

‘It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling,’ the page reads. ‘If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.’

Trump is demanding $5billion to build the southern border wall with Mexico, and is threatening to shut down the government if he can’t get the funding.

The fundraising page says it has contacted the Trump Administration to secure a point of contact where all the funds will go, but adds it has ‘many very high level contacts already helping’. (Read more from “Purple Heart Air Force Veteran, 37, Who Lost Both His Legs and an Arm, Creates GoFundMe Campaign to Build Trump’s Border Wall, Raising Nearly $1MILLION” HERE)

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Air Force Veteran’s GoFundMe Campaign Now Exceeds $15,000,000. Transgender’s GoFundMe Raises $127k

Two competing GoFundMe pages – one raising money to fund President Trump’s border wall and another raising money for ladders for migrants to use to surmount that wall – are both continuing to rack up quite a bit of cash.

The original crowdfunding campaign, entitled We The People Will Fund The Wall, surpassed $15million on Saturday, on its way to lofty $1billion goal.

More than 250,000 people have donated to the page since it was created on Sunday by Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee Air Force veteran.

The campaign description says in part: ‘It’s time we uphold our laws, and get this wall BUILT! It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling.’

On Wednesday Charlotte Clymer, a transgender woman and human rights activist from Texas, launched her own fundraising page in response, titled Ladders to Get Over Trump’s Wall. (Read more about the Air Force Veteran’s GoFundMe HERE)

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Christmas Review: The Promises Trump and Republicans Kept — and the Ones They Didn’t

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Which campaign promises did President Donald Trump deliver for conservatives before Christmas 2018? At the end of 2017, the Republican majority and the president delivered on some of their promises, but failed to keep most of them. In 2018, sadly, Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives after spending the last year of their majority failing to do what they said they would do.

Let’s review the unfinished promises from 2017 and see what was kept:

1. Full repeal of Obamacare

Republicans did not fully repeal Obamacare in 2018, as was promised in 2010 and every election thereafter. After reducing the individual mandate tax penalty to zero in the 2017 tax bill, the Republican Congress did not act on health insurance reform, putting the burden on the Trump administration to enact changes to the law by executive order.

President Trump worked with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to develop regulations to expand access to association health plans, offering cheaper insurance plans for small businesses and collectives of people who band together to purchase health insurance. The administration also expanded the length of time Americans are permitted to purchase cheaper short-term health insurance plans to three years. However, these executive branch workarounds are not permanent solutions and can be reversed by a future Democratic president.

Several lawsuits have moved forward against Obamacare, and in December, a Texas federal judge declared the entire law unconstitutional based on the Republicans’ change to the individual mandate. That ruling is likely to be challenged, however, giving the Roberts Supreme Court another opportunity to save Obamacare next year.

President Trump and the Republicans have not kept their promise to fully repeal Obamacare yet.

2. Border security and the wall

President Trump’s border wall has not been fully funded by Congress, though parts of it were constructed in 2018. In a March spending bill, Congress authorized $641 million to be spent to build 33 miles of physical barriers in Southern Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Construction there will begin in February.

Congress also appropriated $292 million to the Department of Homeland Security to replace pre-existing “ineffective” fencing in Southern California, New Mexico, and western parts of Texas. But the Republican majority in Congress did not fund the full $25 billion requested by President Trump, unable to overcome Democratic opposition in the Senate.

There is an ongoing debate as the year ends over attaching $5 billion as a down payment for the wall in a spending bill needed to pass Congress by midnight tonight to keep the government fully open. President Trump says he will not sign a bill without wall funding, and Democrats refuse to vote for wall funding. The unfunded parts of government are likely to shut down, and Congress will need to negotiate wall funding in 2019 to open them back up.

For now, the wall is not built or fully funded.

3. Repeal Dodd-Frank

In June 2017, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the “Obamacare of financial markets” along party lines. The U.S. Senate killed the House bill, and Congress went back to the drawing board. In May 2018, Congress passed and President Trump signed a bipartisan agreement to roll back parts of the law, but it was not fully repealed.

Most disappointing, the unconstitutional Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was not eliminated. This is a promise half-kept and unlikely to be revisited in Trump’s first term.

4. Nominate a pro-life justice to the Supreme Court

President Trump kept this promise with the nomination of Justice Gorsuch in 2017, but in 2018 he had another opportunity to keep it by appointing a second pro-life justice. He chose Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The court with Kavanaugh has not yet taken up an abortion case, but it did reject one. Justice Kavanaugh cast the deciding vote to reject a case dealing with state funding for Planned Parenthood. Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s 2017 appointee, voted in favor of hearing the case.

Does that mean Trump failed to nominate a pro-life justice in Kavanaugh? It’s still too early to tell, but that decision by the court was a troubling sign.

5. Pain-capable abortion ban

In January, the United States Senate voted to end debate and advance a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, the point at which scientists believe an unborn baby can feel pain. The vote failed to reach the 60-vote threshold to overcome obstruction from Democrats, and Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted to block the bill as well.

Had Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., invoked the two-speech rule to overcome Democratic obstruction, the bill would have passed Congress and have been sent to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

6. Defund Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood was not defunded in 2018, and in fact, congressional Republicans say they will give up attempts to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider in 2019 now that the Democrats have control of the House of Representatives. This is the most disappointing broken promise from Republicans under President Trump.

7. First Amendment Defense Act

A federal version of laws designed to protect religious liberty by preventing the government from penalizing Americans for affirming that marriage is only the union between a man and a woman was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in the Senate and by Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, in the House.

The president supports this legislation. “If Congress considers the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, then I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signatures and enactment,” Trump wrote in a letter in 2016.

Congress still hasn’t moved on it and likely won’t pass it with Democrats in control of the House.

8. Fixing the Fed

Congress did not pass or even vote on legislation to audit the Federal Reserve in 2018, despite efforts from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to push the issue. And despite President Donald Trump’s campaign preference for auditing the Fed and abandoning fiat currency for a gold standard, he has not championed the issue as president.

9. Tax reform

In 2017, President Trump signed a tax reform plan that, while short of a fundamental restructuring of the American tax system, gave most Americans a solid tax cut and gave American businesses a huge competitive edge. In 2018, the House of Representatives voted to make the tax cuts permanent. The Senate has not yet considered that legislation.

10. Scrap Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders (DACA to start)

In 2017 President Trump canceled Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty, but since then federal courts have undone Trump’s executive action. It is Congress’ responsibility to pass immigration reform that will undo Obama’s damage to the Constitution and put the courts in their place. Republicans must rein in the courts to keep this promise.

11. Repeal the EPA “Waters of the United States” rule

The Trump administration began the formal process of repealing this tyrannical regulation permitting the government to seize control of puddles last year, and earlier this year the EPA rule was suspended. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., lead an effort to permanently repeal the rule in June, but their bill was defeated in the Senate.

Trump’s administration is working to replace the rule, but a future Democratic president may be able to bring it back unless Congress ends it permanently.

12. National right to carry

President Trump was a strong advocate for the Second Amendment on the campaign trail. As president, he has not yet pushed for Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing concealed carry reciprocity nationwide.

Instead, Trump’s administration is advancing a sweeping gun control regulation to ban bump stocks, a gun accessory that uses recoil energy from semi-automatic rifles to increase the firearms’ rate of fire. Contrary to popular belief and lies from gun control advocates, bump stocks do not turn rifles into machine guns. Sean Davis, writing for The Federalist, warns that the Trump administration’s gun control effort “could eventually be used as a basis for a presidential administration unilaterally banning and confiscating all semi-automatic weapons.”

President Trump is not only breaking his promise to protect and advance the Second Amendment, his administration is working to undermine it.

In the remaining two years of Trump’s presidency, Democrats will control the House of Representatives, and President Trump and the Republican majority in the Senate will need to fight harder than ever to keep these promises ahead of the 2020 election. Conservatives must keep pressuring Congress and the president to fulfill their pledges to the American people. (For more from the author of “Christmas Review: The Promises Trump and Republicans Kept — and the Ones They Didn’t” please click HERE)

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James Mattis Hit the Trump Administration With Unexpected News But Trump Hits Back

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By Townhall. President Trump announced Thursday afternoon Secretary of Defense James Mattis will be leaving his position at the beginning of next year.

The move comes less than 24-hours after President Trump announced U.S. troops will be leaving Syria, a decision Mattis, along with a number of other military leaders, strongly disagrees with.

(Read more from “James Mattis Just Hit the Trump Administration With Unexpected News” HERE)

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In Characteristic Fashion, Trump Hits Back After Mattis’ Resignation

By Quint Forgey. President Donald Trump claimed Saturday he gave outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis “a second chance” after the retired Marine general was ousted from military leadership under the Obama administration.

“When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn’t, I thought I should,” Trump tweeted Saturday evening.

Former President Barack Obama fired Mattis as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013 in large part because of Mattis’ increasingly hawkish posture toward Iran.

. . .Trump wrote that he made sure Mattis was better equipped and more empowered in his role leading the Pentagon since January 2017.

“Interesting relationship-but I also gave all of the resources that he never really had. Allies are very important-but not when they take advantage of U.S.,” Trump tweeted. (Read more about how Trump reacted to Mattis’ unexpected news HERE)
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US Defense Secretary James Mattis left a stark message for his successor in his resignation letter: Wake up and smell the threat

By Business Insider. US Defense Secretary James Mattis announced his resignation from the Trump administration on Thursday, setting in motion the end of what has been a tumultuous tenure working with President Donald Trump.

In his resignation letter, Mattis told Trump, without saying his name, that the president has a “right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned” with his own. . .

But it was the outgoing defense secretary’s warning about the shifting nature of great-power relations he hopes his successor will study closely. . .

“I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly at odds with our own,” Mattis wrote in his resignation letter.

“It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions — to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbours, America and our allies.” (Read more from “US Defense Secretary James Mattis left a stark message for his successor in his resignation letter: Wake up and smell the threat” HERE)

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