Liberals Boo God and Natural Rights at GOP Town Hall

/0 Comments/in , , /by

At a rambunctious town hall in his district, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., ran into something he probably never expected to see in his district: voters booing the concept of fundamental, God-given rights.

“As a seminary graduate, do you believe in the separation of church and state?” the questioner began. “Would it be acceptable for you for churches to support specific candidates?”

The question was in reference to the Johnson Amendment, which President Trump recently gutted somewhat with his lackluster order on religious liberty.

“Absolutely,” Brat initially answered, cautioning that he was asked “a loaded question.”

“It’s in the Constituiton. They got it pretty good,” Brat said amidst the crows of hecklers.

“The politics shouldn’t establish any religion, right?” Brat added, to a response of claps and cheers. “But you should all, under the First Amendment, have the free expression thereof.”

But he took the argument deeper, asking an enthusiastic audience if they wanted a “total separation of state,” and cautioning that he did not think such an arrangement would be a good thing.

“Some of you have said that health care is a right,” the congressman explained. “And in the Western tradition, rights come from God. The role of government is to protect those rights.”

The hecklers responded with a chorus of sustained boos.

The question and its response came during a Tuesday night event – his first since the House’s most-recent health care vote – and was attended by hundreds, and fraught with jeers.

In an op-ed published the day after, the Richmond-Times Dispatch’s editorial board lauded the congressman for attempting to engage in civil discourse while excoriating the crowd’s “astonishing rudeness.”

“People have every right to rage at their congressmen, their president, or anybody else they care to,” the board stated. “After a while, though, the emotional vomiting gets old … when did banging on a high chair with a spoon ever lead to a solution?

(The below clip shows most of the townhall with Rep. Brat:)

Brat’s answer about rights was not wrong, of course. This republic was founded by men of different faiths who had a common understanding that their rights came from a transcendent, pre-political source, and established a system of government to ensure that these inalienable rights would be protected, rather than metered out by kings and demagogues.

Our denominationally neutral Declaration of Independence reflects this, appealing to the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as the font from which our fundamental liberties and inherent equality spring.

Apparently, the concept of rights coming from God – or civil discourse in general – just wasn’t what Rep. Brat’s constituents showed up to hear that night. (For more from the author of “Liberals Boo God and Natural Rights at GOP Town Hall” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Good Trump: Budget Rumored to Contain Entitlement Reform

/0 Comments/in , /by

President Trump’s White House is reportedly building a fiscal 2018 budget proposal that aims to balance the federal budget in 10 years and cut $800 billion from entitlement programs.

According to Paul M. Krawzak, reporting for Roll Call, Social Security and Medicare will remain untouched. The president campaigned against spending cuts to entitlement programs. However, sources that spoke to Roll Call said the proposal will seek to cut a “wide array of means-tested, mandatory spending programs including Medicaid” over the next 10 years.

Food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, child nutrition programs, and the Pell Grant program are potential welfare programs that the budget may address.

“The budget will include proposals to reduce the cost of the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which is not means-tested,” Krawzak reports.

If true, these proposed reforms are a good step in the right direction. Federal entitlement programs account for 60 percent of the budget and 12 percent of GDP. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the biggest contributors to the national debt, which is rapidly approaching $20 trillion. In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the federal debt will reach 150 percent of gross domestic product – that’s all the wealth produced in the U.S. – by 2047 at its current rate of growth. This is unsustainable.

Entitlement reform is necessary to America’s fiscal stability. But do Republicans have the political will to address this problem?

Consider the widely praised Paul Ryan budget plan of FY 2013. When push came to shove, Republicans capitulated to the Democrats, and Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., struck a deal with Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., that increased spending and failed to reform entitlements. Conservatives were told to wait for a Republican-controlled Senate and a Republican president to achieve real spending reform.

Well, conservatives waited. And when President Donald Trump revealed a “skinny budget” proposal, it did not propose reforms to entitlements. While compensating defense spending increases with domestic spending cuts, the Trump skinny budget still carried a $488 billion deficit. And congressional Republicans blasted those few spending victories as “draconian” cuts to their favorite government programs.

If Republicans, in the majority, were unwilling to support Trump’s budget proposal then, why should we expect them to support more spending cuts in the future? Further, assuming that there are enough Republicans in Congress who will go along with the president’s proposal, what happens when the Democrats threaten a government shutdown? Why should conservatives expect them to fight when last time they surrendered?

President Trump should be encouraged to fight for every penny of this rumored $800 billion entitlement reform. The evidence suggests congressional Republicans won’t. (For more from the author of “Good Trump: Budget Rumored to Contain Entitlement Reform” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

States Sue Over Trump Decision to Sell Coal Leases on Federal Lands

/0 Comments/in , /by

Four U.S. states filed a lawsuit Tuesday over President Donald Trump’s decision to restart the sale of coal leases on federal lands, saying the Obama-era block of the leasing program was reversed without studying what’s best for the environment and for taxpayers.

The attorneys general of California, New Mexico, New York and Washington, all Democrats, said bringing back the federal coal lease program without an environmental review risks worsening the effects of climate change on those states while shortchanging them for the coal taken from public lands.

“Climate change has to be considered when we are talking about compensating states and New Mexico citizens for their resources,” said Cholla Khoury, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas’ director of consumer and environmental protection. (Read more from “States Sue Over Trump Decision to Sell Coal Leases on Federal Lands” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Pundits Speculate About Why Trump Fired FBI Director James Comey

/0 Comments/in , /by

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday. Comey, he said, is “not able effectively to lead the Bureau.”

In Trump’s letter to Comey informing him of the firing, he wrote, “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.” He went on, “I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”

Comey Usurped the Attorney General’s Authority

The White House said the president “acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.” Rosenstein’s memo laid out the case for the firing.

Comey usurped the Attorney General’s authority, he wrote. His job was to lead the investigation and then hand the bureau’s findings to the Justice Department. Instead, he held a press conference giving “his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation.”

Rosenstein then presented a long list of Republican and Democratic authorities who thought Comey had acted wrongly. They included two of George W. Bush’s attorneys general, Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales. “Almost everyone agrees that the director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives,” Rosenstein wrote.

Comey had already made a series of missteps. Last summer, he said it was a unanimous decision not to suggest prosecuting Clinton. Others within the FBI said that was not true. He also made the claim that no prosecutor would pursue the case. This wasn’t true. Career attorneys and agents on the case thought she should be prosecuted.

He angered members of Congress when he destroyed laptops that were subject to congressional subpoena. Last week, he told Congress that Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin had forwarded thousands of their email exchanges to her then-husband Anthony Weiner. Only a couple of exchanges were forwarded.

Comey’s Investigation of Trump’s Ties to Russia

The firing came in the midst of Comey’s probe of the Trump campaign. He was looking into claims it colluded with Russia to influence the election. The DOJ issued grand jury subpoenas earlier this week to people with ties to Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn resigned when it was revealed he lied to the vice president about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the campaign.

Democrats say Trump fired Comey to thwart the probe. They are now calling for a separate investigation. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. A White House press officer told Fox News Tuesday night that the probe would go on.

Last fall, Democrats called for Comey’s firing.

Last fall, Democrats called for Comey’s firing. They were angry he said less than two weeks before election day that he was reopening the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Some of those same Democrats are now changing their tune. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he lost confidence in Comey last fall. Now he is saying Trump made a mistake by firing him.

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) tweeted, “Ds were against Comey before they were for him.”

As president, Trump has the authority to fire agency heads. “There are no statutory conditions on the president’s authority to remove the FBI director,” the Congressional Research Service said in a 2014 report. President Bill Clinton fired William Sessions in 1993. Session s had refused to resign after being found to have engaged in unethical practices. (For more from the author of “Pundits Speculate About Why Trump Fired FBI Director James Comey” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

How the Obama Administration Turned Regulators Into the Speech Police

/0 Comments/in , /by

The saga of Don Vander Boon has received little attention outside the Christian media. But among the growing threats to the livelihoods of gay marriage dissenters, the Vander Boon case stands out.

The family runs the West Michigan Beef Company for, as they put it, “the glory of God.” This is what they tell their employees. No employee has ever complained.

According to Don Vander Boon, the trouble with the USDA meat inspectors began in 2015. One day, he saw newspaper and magazine articles celebrating gay marriage in the company break room. So, he printed off an article explaining why gay marriage was against God’s will. He put the essay on the breakroom table with the other magazines.

Unfortunately for the Vander Boons and their employees, on July 1, 2015, then Secretary of Agriculture Thomas J. Vilsack issued an “Anti-Harassment Policy Statement.” He told USDA inspectors what to do if they spotted any “disrespectful” written or oral communication on LGBT issues. The inspectors now had an obligation to “take immediate and appropriate corrective action.”

Going Off the Record

Let’s pause for a minute and see what this means. In the past, someone would have to complain before federal agencies charged with preventing discrimination investigate a company. This creates a “case and controversy” and a public record on which courts can intervene. But here the USDA instructed the meat inspectors to intervene on their own.

What does that look like in practice?

In 2015, Dr. Ryan Lundquist, the USDA’s inspector in charge, saw the offending article. He removed it and reported it to USDA Frontline Supervisor Robert Becker. The two men then called Vander Boon on the carpet. Behind closed doors, and without witnesses, they told Vander Boon three times he had to remove that article or else. What was that else? They would withdraw all USDA meat inspectors. That would, in effect, shut down his business.

Becker pointed to the new anti-harassment policies. Karnail S. Mudahar confirmed to Vander Boon that the meat inspectors’ new anti-gay marriage morality policing was pursuant to policy. When the Daily Signal called the USDA, the agency said it has “zero tolerance for any form of workplace harassment or intimidation.”

Regulating the First Amendment Away

Think about the vast web of health, safety, environmental, investment, banking and tax regulations that surround us. They’re supposed to exist to further some public good, not to harass dissenters for the current sexual orthodoxy. Just think what this army of regulators can do to freedom if the government tells them to take immediate corrective action.

This is all according to Vander Boon of course. The USDA has never publicly commented on the matter. A private conversation is not a public act. The courts can’t review it. So far, the USDA has refused to respond to Don Vander Boon’s formal complaint, except to say they had passed it on to the USDA’s Civil Rights office.

Now imagine a good Christian man facing the real threat of losing a family business, one on which your family and your employees’ families depend. Even if you finally could win in the end, the business would still be gone. Your suppliers and your customers would have gone elsewhere while waiting for the meat inspector to return.

Even if the threat is not credible, it’s free speech buzzkill.

Should Christians in Business Just Stay Silent?

Maybe you think Don Vander Boon took an unneeded risk. Sir Thomas More himself might have advised silent prudence. But a man like Don Vander Boon should not have to face such dilemmas. He does so because one side of a culture debate now has all the power. Gay marriage dissenters are punished. Advocates are celebrated. The net result is to kill free speech on one side of the debate.

I’ve seen the same dynamic at work when I was on the frontlines of the gay marriage debate. In one epic state battle for a marriage amendment, every wealthy man I asked to donate to get the measure on the ballot faced private attacks on his business interests. In some cases, it was as slight as a complaint from a major vendor. “We only do business with companies that have a nondiscrimination policy,” one CEO was told. “And your personal donation to this marriage amendment calls into question your company’s commitment to nondiscrimination.”

Virtually no businessman whose business was attacked in this way donated again. But no businessman who gave in support of gay marriage was ever attacked for it.

And this was just a private behind-the-scenes business threat, backed by no government power.

How widespread is the use of health, safety, investment, environmental and/or banking regulations to “directly intervene” in enforcing speech codes? How many other federal regulators now see themselves as the speech police? How many businesses and workers, which we never hear about, receive such threats?

Congress Should Investigate

Here’s one way we could find out: The Republican Congress could investigate. They could subpoena Dr. Ryan Lindquist and Robert Becker and Karnail S. Mudahar and ask them: Did you make this threat? Was it based on government policy? How many other times have you threatened to pull health and safety inspectors because you saw a pro-gay marriage pamphlet lying on a table? Have you used the pretense of safety to squelch free speech?

That last question refers to what may be now be happening to the Vander Boons’ company. (I owe my knowledge of this phase in the USDA battle to gay bloggers.) Last August 16, the USDA sent a letter threatening to pull meat inspectors and shut down the Vander Boons’ West Michigan Beef Company.

Why? It has nothing to do with gay marriage. Instead an inspector claimed he saw a violation of humane slaughtering laws.

Let me quote at length from that letter:

On August 15, 2016, at approximately 1310 hours, the Supervisory Public Health Veterinarian (SPHV) observed a downed dairy heifer in the barn and an employee attempting to captive bolt stun the down animal to render it insensible. Your written animal welfare program describes the procedure for disposal of down cattle requires that after the animal is captive bolt stunned, it is immediately stuck in the heart to initiate exsanguination and ensure humane euthanasia. After the application of the captive bolt stunner to the head of the dairy heifer, the employee was observed to stick the animal in the heart area of the chest with a long blade knife. The SPHV noticed the animal exhibited rapid eye movement and natural blinking. The respiratory rate began to increase and the animal began vocalizing. The employee did not have additional cartridge charges for the hand held captive bolt device or any means of re-stunning the animal located in the immediate area. The employee left the area to retrieve additional cartridges. The animal continued to exhibit rapid breathing and increased vocalization until the employee returned approximately one minute later, reloaded, and applied the hand held captive bolt device, successfully rendering the animal insensible at that time.

Charged for Following Procedure

So, by the USDA’s own account, the employee obeyed the proper procedures. Due to a technical error, the cow was only partly sedated and experienced pain. The employee went for another stun gun charge, soon returned, and sedated the cow. The USDA’s letter calls this incident “an egregious violation of the humane handling requirements specified within the provisions of 21 U.S.C. 603, Section 3 (b) of the FMIA, and 7 U.S.C. 1901 and 1902 of the HMSA of 1978.”

Really? Might this be regulatory revenge against the family-owned business? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. One thing we know: The regulatory state now has power that it should not have. It gives bureaucrats the authority to treat a good faith glitch as an egregious attempt to break the law. In politicized regimes (aka “banana republics”) the heavy hammer of the government swings above the head of any political dissident who runs a business.

Congress Must Act to Defend Our Freedom

What can we do to stop this shut down on free speech?

President Trump’s executive order won’t help. The GOP Congress needs to pass some version of the First Amendment Defense Act. It should give private people like Don Vander Boon the right to sue when regulations are misused to punish gay marriage dissenters.

Unlike many conservatives, I’m not upset at President Trump. During the campaign, he avoided the conflict between gay marriage dissenters and the LGBT community. He pivoted to the Johnson Amendment whenever the subject came up. He is doing the one concrete thing that he promised to do: appointing spectacular judges.

These judges will help. But they won’t help the Vander Boons much unless we can persuade Congress that it’s in their interest to pass new laws to protect dissenters. (For more from the author of “How the Obama Administration Turned Regulators Into the Speech Police” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Texas House OKs Giving Adoption Agencies ‘Religious Refusal’

/0 Comments/in , /by

A bill headed to the Texas Senate would allow publicly funded foster care and adoption agencies to decline to place children with non-Christian, unmarried or gay prospective parents because of religious objections.

The state House gave final approval 93-49 on Wednesday, after lengthy debate the previous night. The state Senate is even more conservative, though passage isn’t guaranteed with the legislative session weeks away from ending.

Sponsors say the bill is designed to keep faith-based organizations offering child placement services. They say LGBT couples will be able to find agencies without religious objections. (Read more from “Texas House OKs Giving Adoption Agencies ‘Religious Refusal'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Russia Investigation: A Scandal About Smoke

/0 Comments/in , /by

The cliche about the Russia investigation is that there’s a lot of smoke. And with the firing of FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump rolled a military-grade smoke grenade into the room.

There were many legitimate reasons to fire Comey, who repeatedly went outside Department of Justice guidelines to comment on the investigation of Hillary Clinton during last year’s presidential campaign. Annoyance with his handling of the Russia investigation isn’t one of them.

The firing has stoked charges of a cover-up and again raised the questions, Why, if Trump has nothing to hide, does he act so guilty? Why, if there’s no fire, is there always so much smoke?

But so far, the scandal is nothing but smoke: We get hints of what might be, pending further revelations, serious misconduct, always augmented by Trump’s defensive bluster. It’s all highly suspect, yet it’s hard to see what exactly will constitute the grave underlying offense.

The most plausible of these suspicions, that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, has never made much sense on the face of it. The Russians hacked Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails and walked across the street to hand them over to WikiLeaks for dissemination. Why would any coordination with the Trump campaign be necessary? (Read more from “The Russia Investigation: A Scandal About Smoke” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Major Health Insurance Provider Ditches Obamacare

/0 Comments/in , /by

Aetna announced Wednesday that it will stop offering Obamacare exchange plans in 2018, making it the latest major health insurance provider to completely opt out of former President Barack Obama’s landmark health care legislation.

The company cites massive losses among exchange participants and projects the problems to increase over the short term. Aetna will also cease to sell individual plans in Nebraska and Delaware, Bloomberg reports.

“Our individual commercial products lost nearly $700 million between 2014 and 2016, and are projected to lose more than $200 million in 2017 despite a significant reduction in membership,” an Aetna spokesman said in an email. (Read more from “Major Health Insurance Provider Ditches Obamacare” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Establishes Panel to Probe Voter Fraud

/0 Comments/in , /by

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a panel to investigate voter fraud, a commission he first talked about in early February.

The president named Vice President Mike Pence to lead the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, and named a bipartisan group of members that includes chief state election officials.

“The president is committed to the thorough review of registration and voting issues in federal elections and that’s exactly what this commission is tasked with doing,” White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing Thursday after Trump signed the order.

She later added:

The commission will review policies and practices that enhance or undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of federal elections and provide the president with a report that identifies system vulnerabilities that lead to improper registrations and voting. We expect the report will be complete by 2018. The experts and officials on this commission will follow the facts where they lead. Meetings and hearings will be open to the public for comments and input.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, will be the vice chairman under Pence. Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson will also be on the commission, as will New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, a Democrat, and Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat. The commission will also include former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a Republican, and U.S. Elections Assistance Commission member Christie McCormick.

Other members will be named at a later date.

Trump has asserted he would have won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election had it not been for illegal votes cast. However, he hasn’t provided direct evidence. According to a study by Jesse Richman, an associate professor of political science at Old Dominion University, hundreds of thousands of noncitizens could have voted in the November election.

Based on an extrapolation of previous election studies, Richman determined more than 800,000 noncitizens likely voted in the 2016 presidential race, significant, but not nearly enough to overcome Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory.

The commission is facing some opposition.

“This commission is a sham and distraction,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal legal group based at the New York University School of Law, said in a public statement.

“It’s simply an effort to try and find proof of the president’s absurd claim that 3-5 million people voted illegally in November. It tries to pivot from the fact that this week Trump fired the chief law enforcement officer in charge of probing whether his advisers colluded with Russia to influence our elections. He fired the person investigating a real threat to election integrity, and set up a probe of an imaginary threat.”

However, since 2016, there have been cases of voter fraud in North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado and Wyoming, said Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a voter integrity group.

“This order is a step in the right direction in response to widespread concern about failures in our election systems that can lead to fraud and other irregularities,” Churchwell said in a public statement. “The issues of faulty voter registration procedures and record maintenance are ripe for review. Perennial questions surrounding the actual scope of ineligible voters and their rates of participation can only be answered when federal offices share information.”

Trump’s executive order says:

The commission shall be solely advisory and shall submit a report to the President that identifies the following:

(a) those laws, rules, policies, activities, strategies, and practices that enhance the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the voting processes used in Federal elections;

(b) those laws, rules, policies, activities, strategies, and practices that undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the voting processes used in Federal elections; and

(c) those vulnerabilities in voting systems and practices used for Federal elections that could lead to improper voter registrations and improper voting, including fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting.

(For more from the author of “Trump Establishes Panel to Probe Voter Fraud” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Fight Over Soros-Founded Hungarian University Shows US’ Power Vacuum in Europe

/0 Comments/in , /by

That nature abhors a vacuum is a cliché but also a postulate about the immutable laws of nature. And once again, we’re seeing the unchangeable rules of the physical world being replicated in human action—especially in foreign policy.

Exhibit A is Europe east of the Fulda Gap, where Obama appointees are still dictating American policy and a group of senators have had a testy exchange with the combative leader of Hungary.

To be clear, there is no power vacuum when it comes to hot spots like Afghanistan, North Korea, and Syria, where the Trump Defense Department has acted decisively. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also personally handled the Russian front.

The world is vast, however, and Tillerson is only one man. The absence of assistant secretaries for Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Western Hemisphere has left these areas with a lack of direction.

The void will be filled by others.

Eleven senators (two Republicans and nine Democrats) on April 19 wrote a letter to Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, expressing their concern about a law they say aims to close Central European University, an accredited U.S. university in Budapest.

“Central European University has become one of the highest-ranked universities in Europe, bringing new opportunities and prestige to Hungarian citizens. … This legislation threatens academic freedom and disregards the longstanding relationship Central European University has with the Hungarian people,” wrote the senators.

What the group of senators—which included such powerful personalities as John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.—didn’t mention is the nub of the problem: The university was founded and funded by the U.S. billionaire George Soros, a Hungarian-born hedge funder who uses his vast fortune to advocate progressive causes around the world.

Orban, in his response to the senators, did not mince words about Soros, whom he mentioned six times in a short, one-page letter.

“In our country, laws are passed by elected representatives, based on our constitution,” began the brush-back missive, which I have seen. After reassuring the senators that the Hungarian Constitution guarantees freedom of education and research, the prime minister added, “therefore, any assumption that presumes the breach of these principles by the Hungarian National Assembly is unreasonable.”

“I would like to reassure you that no one wants to close the University of George Soros,” he wrote, adding that “Soros’ network of Central European NGOs are at the heart” of what Orban referred to as an “international disinformation campaign against Hungary.”

“The university is just a pretense,” Orban added. “The real issue,” according to Orban, was Soros’ desire for Hungary to open its borders to immigrants. Hungary, Orban wrote, would soon draw up legislation mirrored on the United States’ Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires agents representing the interests of foreign governments in a “political or quasi-political capacity” disclose this link.

Universities, especially foreign ones, are heavily regulated around the world, and liberals have never shied away from regulating schools, especially religious ones. At the same time, it is true that many U.S. scholars have echoed the senators’ concerns about whether Orban’s moves will have a chilling effect on academic freedom.

Orban himself is hard to pin down. He is rightly trying to salvage Hungarian independence from encroachment by the EU. But he has also flirted with friendship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, an adversary of America and the West.

Backing the left-wing causes advocated by Soros, however, does anger potential U.S. allies. Among other things, Soros supports decriminalizing prostitution and drugs possession and changing Ireland’s constitution to allow abortion.

Being seen on the side of that can and does cannibalize political support from foreign politicians, and cause political parties in these regions to turn increasingly to Putin’s opportunistic diplomacy.

Six GOP senators have written to Tillerson to ask him to investigate whether under President Barack Obama the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have worked with groups funded by Soros “to push a progressive agenda and invigorate the political left.” Their letter never got to Tillerson and their request for a probe was ignored.

Having an assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia who can set down the administration’s policies, appoint his own deputy assistants, and transmit information to Tillerson would help all this.

Right now, European policy for this region appears to be run by Hoyt Brian Yee, an Obama-era deputy assistant secretary of state who seems to have gone rogue with regards not just to Hungary but also Macedonia and Albania. He continues to give his support to leftist politicians and causes throughout the region, without the approval or blessing of the White House, the National Security Council or, apparently, even Tillerson.

Appointments appear to be delayed because a reorganization of the State Department is coming. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Trump administration told Politico last month that “the president will not name a special envoy for climate change.” So, yes, some of it can be good.

But we need political appointments in top places. Lest we forget, World War I began in the Balkans. (For more from the author of “Fight Over Soros-Founded Hungarian University Shows US’ Power Vacuum in Europe” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.