North Korea Tests a Missile, and Donald Trump

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Pyongyang launched another ballistic missile on Saturday, raising tensions and pushing itself to the top of the Trump administration’s policy agenda.

Preliminary reports indicate the missile flew approximately 300 miles, but it is unclear what the missile type was or whether the launch was a success of failure. But, it doesn’t appear to have been the initial test flight of an intercontinental ballistic missile that Pyongyang had vowed to launch “anywhere, anytime.”

Last year, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests, its most extensive year of testing. Pyongyang had not tested a missile since October, leading to speculation that the regime’s restraint was to not give the advantage to conservative candidates during a forthcoming South Korean presidential election or to wait until the Trump administration had completed its North Korea policy review.

In 2009, North Korea conducted a long-range missile test and a nuclear test as the Obama administration was formulating its own policy toward Pyongyang.

During my meetings in Seoul this week, all senior U.S. and South Korean officials expected a missile launch wouldn’t occur for several more months. It is unclear why Pyongyang abandoned its testing hiatus or chose to do so while President Donald Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In any case, the launch will undermine those in the U.S. and South Korea advocating resumption of long-stalled negotiations to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

The increasing North Korean threat has aggravated long-standing allied concerns of U.S. abandonment exacerbated by perceptions of diminished U.S. military capabilities and resolve during the Obama administration and comments made by Trump during the campaign suggesting conditionality of U.S. troop presence in Asia.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ trip to Seoul and Tokyo last week assuaged much of the allied concerns, though as one senior South Korea official commented, “the concerns are gone, but anxiety remains.”

In recent months, there have been growing South Korean fears of a decoupled alliance in which the U.S. “wouldn’t trade Los Angeles for Seoul” once North Korea demonstrates an unambiguous capability to threaten the continental U.S. with nuclear ICBMs.

This has led to greater advocacy in South Korea for a range of military options, including the reintroduction of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn in the 1990s, development of an indigenous South Korean nuclear program, and greater reliance on preemption strategies.

The Trump administration should build on the positive momentum generated from its recent affirmation of its “ironclad commitment” to defend South Korea and Japan by closely coordinating on an allied response.

The launch is yet another violation of United Nations resolutions prohibiting any North Korean launch using ballistic missile technology and the allies should press Beijing for further restrictions on North Korea financial activity, most notably coal exports to China.

Given Chinese foot-dragging on fully implementing required U.N. resolution sanctions, the Trump administration should go beyond the timid incrementalism of the Obama administration by more vigorously enforcing U.S. laws against North Korean transgressions.

While President Barack Obama talked a good game on sanctions, his administration pulled its punches, sanctioning a limited number of entities while holding other actions in abeyance until the next North Korean provocation. Obama’s most significant actions against the regime last year were the result of requirements contained in Congress’ North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act.

The Trump administration should use the extensive authorities already contained in existing legislation and executive orders to impose targeted financial measures against a broader array of North Korean entities. Just as importantly, the U.S. should end its self-imposed restraint against third-party sanctions against Chinese entities facilitating North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Washington should also consult with Seoul to accelerate the planned deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) ballistic missile defense system to South Korea.

Both governments have agreed to the deployment but it is not scheduled to occur until later this year. North Korea’s resumption of missile tests shows the need to more quickly augment allied defenses.

The U.S. and South Korea should continue the planned annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises which begin in early March. Washington should reassure our allies by including U.S. strategic assets, such as B-52 and B-2 bombers as well as dual-capable aircraft and nuclear naval vessels.

However, the allies should tone down public messaging about “decapitation attacks” and preemptive strikes that are potentially destabilizing and could lead either side to misinterpret the other’s intentions, fueling tension and raising the risk of miscalculation.

Responding to the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threats is like a military version of playing “whack-a-mole.” Unlike the arcade game, however, in the real world there is the very real danger that the mole will whack back. (For more from the author of “North Korea Tests a Missile, and Donald Trump” please click HERE)

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How Trump’s Executive Orders Line up With Past Presidents

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President Donald Trump is moving rapidly to fulfill campaign promises early. With little activity from Congress so far, Trump has used executive actions to achieve what he pledged to do.

Trump is on track to begin his fourth week in the White House having issued 12 executive orders. While questions have surfaced over Trump’s use of executive power, recent history demonstrates that Trump’s actions are in line with past presidents.

By the end of his third week in office in 2009, President Barack Obama had issued 14 executive orders.

Trump and Obama each issued five executive orders in the first week in office. Prior to Trump, Obama was the first modern-day president since John F. Kennedy to issue more than two in the first week.

Traditionally, a president’s early orders aim either to make good immediately on campaign commitments or rescind the previous administration’s policies. Trump has done both.

On Trump’s first day, he signed an order to begin dismantling Obamacare. Obama, on his third day in the White House, signed an executive order on closing the detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. In the face of congressional opposition, it has yet to close.

In addition to his 12 executive orders, Trump issued 12 presidential memorandums and two proclamations—totaling 26 executive actions.

An executive order is one of three basic types of written instructions a president can employ to achieve a desired outcome through the executive branch of government. The total number of executive orders issued by American presidents is over 15,000, according to data collected by the American Presidency Project.

President George Washington issued a total of eight executive orders, according to the data, while John Adams, James Madison, and James Monroe were the only presidents to issue just one.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt holds the record with 3,721—five of which were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1935. More recently, President Bill Clinton issued 364 and President George W. Bush issued 291 during their two terms.

Trump’s actions are consistent with presidents of the modern era. In his first year as president, Obama issued 39 executive orders, Bush issued 54, and Clinton issued 57.

Trump’s 12 executive orders address rolling back Wall Street regulations, reducing government regulations, placing ethics restrictions on administration officials, implementing a temporary ban on travel from seven terrorism-prone nations, enforcing border security, cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities, expediting environmental reviews, and reducing the burden of Obamacare.

His latest orders focus on “making America safe again,” which includes implementing a task force on “crime reduction and public safety,” preventing violence against law enforcement officers, and enforcing federal law to stop international trafficking of “humans, drugs, or other substances, wildlife, and weapons.”

Trump’s executive actions drew controversy, especially his order temporarily suspending immigration or travel from seven terrorism-prone countries. A federal judge in Seattle paused enforcement of the order Tuesday, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld that ruling Thursday.

Over his two terms, Obama issued 276 executive orders, some of which conservatives criticized and even went to court over. Some of the most contested ones addressed illegal immigrants, health care, gun control, cybersecurity, the environment, education, and gender identity.

In his second term, Obama touted his executive power, saying: “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.”

Many Trump supporters looked forward to seeing him fulfill his campaign commitment to reversing some of Obama’s executive actions, with Republican controlling the White House as well as both chambers of Congress. (For more from the author of “How Trump’s Executive Orders Line up With Past Presidents” please click HERE)

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How Tom Price Can Begin to Unravel Obamacare From Inside the Agency That Implemented It

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Tom Price took the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday, capping a lengthy confirmation process that ended in the wee hours of the morning.

Now, as the health and human services chief, Price can begin fulfilling a yearslong goal of unwinding Obamacare. But instead of dismantling the health care law from the halls of Congress, he’ll be acting from inside the agency that oversaw its implementation.

The Senate confirmed Price 52-47, and the former House Budget Committee chairman is taking over the Department of Health and Human Services as the White House and Congress prepare to follow through on their campaign promises to repeal Obamacare.

An orthopedic surgeon who served more than a decade in the House, Price has spent the last seven years in Congress opposing the Affordable Care Act. The new HHS secretary introduced his own health care plan in 2009—he’s reintroduced that same proposal, the Empowering Patients First Act, in every Congress since then.

The Georgia Republican will take the helm of the agency at a crucial time. GOP lawmakers are debating how to dismantle the law, with a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act expected to take place by March or April.

Unwinding Obamacare

But even as congressional Republicans finalize their course for unwinding the law, Price can now use his executive power to begin chipping away at Obamacare’s framework.

The Affordable Care Act gave the federal government the power to write and implement many of the law’s regulations through the federal rule-making process—like the exemptions from the individual mandate that are available to consumers who encounter hardships and the mandate that requires insurance plans to cover contraception and abortifacients.

And already, President Donald Trump is using that authority to make changes to the law.

“You live by the administrative state, you die by the administrative state,” Ed Haislmaier, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation who worked on health policy for Trump’s transition team, told The Daily Signal.

During a confirmation hearing in January, Price told a Senate committee he believed insurers needed some assistance from the Trump administration before 2018.

“What they need to hear from all of us, I believe, is a level of support and stability in the market,” the Georgia Republican said.

And as the new health and human services secretary, Price can begin providing them with that relief by tightening the monitoring of consumers purchasing coverage on Obamacare’s exchanges—changes insurers asked the Obama administration to make long before Trump took office.

That includes making changes to special enrollment periods, or the time outside the standard enrollment window a person can purchase health insurance, and verifying the eligibility of consumers purchasing coverage during open enrollment and special enrollment periods.

The Obama administration created several special enrollment periods, which a consumer can qualify for if they lose their health insurance, get married, or move to a new state.

But insurance companies warned last year that Americans were taking advantage of the special enrollment periods and purchasing coverage only when it was needed.

That led to an increase in costs for plans and higher costs for consumers, insurers said.

“The Trump administration you would expect to go in and say, ‘We’re going to prioritize minimizing costs and disruption, and we’re not going to let people enroll at the drop of a hat,’” Haislmaier said.

The new health and human services secretary can also eliminate federal regulations that already exist at the state level, such as oversight over proposed rate increases and network adequacy.

Under the current system, insurance companies looking to raise their rates must receive approval from state regulators and the federal government, which review the plans insurers want to sell for the upcoming benefit year.

“If you’re approaching it from the Obamacare mindset, then you make insurers go through all of that at the federal level after they’ve done it at the state level,” Haislmaier said. “If you come in at the Trump administration, they’re saying, ‘We’re not interested in nationalizing insurance. If it’s OK with the state, it’s OK with us.’”

According to draft documents obtained by Politico, the Trump administration is also weighing whether to make changes to a provision of Obamacare that dictates how much more insurers can charge older Americans than younger Americans.

The provision prohibits insurance companies from charging their older customers more than three times what they charge younger customers. According to the documents, the Trump administration proposes changing the ratio to 3.49-to-1.

Health policy experts, though, worry that such a change may not be legal, since the Affordable Care Act specifically set the ratio for insurance companies. Changing the ratio from 3 to 3.49 would require action from Congress.

Still, Trump administration officials believe that since 3.49 “rounds down” to 3, the changes can be made without a change in statute, according to The Huffington Post.

Eliminating Mandates

In addition to enhancing the monitoring of consumers who sign up for coverage, Price can take aim at one of Obamacare’s most controversial provisions: the contraception mandate, which requires plans to cover contraceptives and abortifacients without cost-sharing.

Price, an opponent of abortion, has criticized the contraception mandate in the past for infringing on religious liberty.

As the leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Georgia Republican could have his agency rewrite the regulations tied to the mandate or choose not to enforce it.

Price could also revise the list of services insurers are required to cover—called the essential health benefits requirement—to amend or exclude preventive health.

The White House set the stage for the new Health and Human Services secretary to begin making changes to Obamacare just hours after the president took the oath of office.

On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition to repeal and replace.”

The order was light on specifics, but health policy experts said it gave the executive branch the authority to begin addressing the thousands of regulations tied to Obamacare.

And some wondered if the individual mandate was on the chopping block.

Price could decide not to enforce the individual mandate, the part of Obamacare that requires consumers purchase insurance or face a fine, or extend hardship exemptions to all enrollees.

But Haislmaier said that for Price, the decision regarding enforcement of the mandate would need to involve the White House, since such a move would require coordination between multiple agencies.

For the executive branch, deciding whether to enforce the individual mandate also is a game of timing.

Republicans are considering passing a repeal bill that gets rid of the individual mandate, among other major provisions of Obamacare.

Turning to Congress

Haislmaier questioned whether it would be necessary for the Trump administration to take action on a part of the law Congress may get rid of on its own.

“If the mandate is going to be repealed in repeal legislation, is it worth the bother of the administration doing it?” Haislmaier asked.

Like with the executive order on Obamacare, the White House began the process for making changes to the health care law through the rule-making procedure before the Senate confirmed Price.

Last week, the Trump administration submitted a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget. The details haven’t yet been released to the public, but the rule aims to stabilize the Obamacare markets, likely through the changes reference above.

Once the details are released, it’s Price who will oversee the efforts to provide relief for insurers. (For more from the author of “How Trump’s Executive Orders Line up With Past Presidents” please click HERE)

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Clinton Foundation Partner Hiked Opioid Overdose Reversal Drug Price by 680 Percent

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The head of a pharmaceutical company, who partnered with the Clinton Foundation, has increased the price of an auto-injector used to treat opioid overdoses by 680 percent over the course of three years.

Spencer Williamson, the president and chief executive officer of the Richmond, Virginia-based Kaleo Pharmaceuticals, is under fire after the price of a two-pack of Evzio, a device that treats life-threatening opioid overdoses, skyrocketed from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 today.

Thirty-one Democratic senators are now demanding answers on the price hike.

“We are deeply concerned about reports that Kaleo dramatically increased the cost of its naloxone injector device, Evzio, an FDA approved medication used for the emergency treatment of an opioid overdoes – from $690 for a two pack in 2014 to $4,500 today,” the letter sent from the senators to Williamson said. “This drug is now in the hands of first responders and families struggling with substance use disorder across the country. It is particularly needed in rural areas where access to life-saving emergency services can be limited. Such a steep rise in the cost of this drug threatens to price-out families and communities that depend on naloxone to save lives.”

The senators ask Williamson to detail the pricing structure of Evzio and to provide documentation as to why the company changed its pricing structure. In addition, the lawmakers seek the total amount that Evzio has received in reimbursements over the last 12 months, among other demands. (Read more from “Clinton Foundation Partner Hiked Opioid Overdose Reversal Drug Price by 680 Percent” HERE)

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Trump Friend Says Priebus Is ‘in Way Over His Head’

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One of President Trump’s longtime friends made a striking move on Sunday: After talking privately with the president over drinks late Friday, Christopher Ruddy publicly argued that Trump should replace his White House chief of staff.

“A lot of people have been saying, ‘Look, Donald has some problems,’ and I think he realizes that he’s got to make some changes going forward,” Ruddy said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Ruddy went on to detail his critique of White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus: “It’s my view that Reince is the problem. I think on paper Reince looked good as the chief of staff — and Donald trusted him — but it’s pretty clear the guy is in way over his head. He’s not knowledgeable of how federal agencies work, how the communications operations work. He botched this whole immigration rollout. This should’ve been a win for Donald, not two or three weeks of negative publicity.”

(Read more from “Trump Friend Says Priebus Is ‘in Way Over His Head'” HERE)

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What Is Likely to Happen With Trump’s Travel Ban

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As promised, after assuming office President Donald Trump immediately began signing executive orders reversing several policies of the Obama administration — including the famous “travel ban.” And as expected, Democratic politicians and liberal activists objected. As usual, they used the courts to try to get what they couldn’t get politically.

Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” put into place a 90-day ban on immigrants and refugees from seven countries known for terrorism. The explanation in the EO stated, “Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States.”

The president has argued that he was doing what the law allows him to do. The relevant federal statute authorizes the president to suspend immigration as long as necessary in order to protect the country.

Doing What the Law Lets Him Do

The Attorney General of the state of Washington decided to challenge the EO. He apparently went “judge shopping,” and found a sympathetic federal judge in Seattle who had once represented refugees pro bono. Judge James L. Robart did not recuse himself, even though the law requires federal judges to recuse themselves from cases where they have a conflict of interest.

He issued a temporary restraining order halting the ban. The state of Minnesota also joined the lawsuit. The Trump administration appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, asking for an emergency stay of the TRO. The Ninth Circuit is the most liberal of the federal circuit courts. The economist Thomas Sowell once said that someday that court “may declare the Constitution unconstitutional.”

A three judge panel refused to lift the TRO. In a 29-page decision issued on February 9, the court declared that the EO was not likely to be found constitutional, and the failure to enter a stay would not cause irreparable injury.

The administration asserted that the court doesn’t have the authority to review the EO. “It is beyond question, that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action,” the judges responded.

And they weren’t going to help the administration improve it. “More generally, even if the TRO might be overbroad in some respects, it is not our role to try, in effect, to rewrite the Executive Order.”

The Panel’s Reasoning

How did the panel justify their decision, when the EO seems to be perfectly legal under federal law?

First, the three judges addressed whether the two states had standing to file the lawsuit. In order to bring a lawsuit in federal court, someone must have a personal stake in the issue and show the injury will cause real damage soon that can’t be repaired later.

The panel declared that the states had shown that the ban would hurt their public universities by keeping students from attending and the damage would be irreparable. This has been criticized as a stretch. The connection between the state and immigrants attending its universities affected by the ban isn’t very direct. Nor is the harm imminent, as no immigrants have been stopped yet from attending.

Second, the court addressed the question of whether the ban would succeed on the merits and be upheld by a higher court. The court said it wouldn’t because it wasn’t constitutional.

The panel opined that it violates the due process rights of certain types of immigrants. In particular, the three judges said they “cannot rely upon the Government’s contention that the Executive Order no longer applies to lawful permanent residents.” They also hinted that the ban wasn’t likely to succeed because it constitutes religious discrimination against Muslims.

The court was dismissive of the administration’s claim that the TRO could cause the country irreparable harm. “The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States.”

Critics of the decision argue that this ignores the fact that several nationals from those countries have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism. Being killed by terrorists would certainly constitute irreparable harm for the victims.

The President Is Not Pleased

Trump tweeted his outrage that the opinion didn’t even mention the federal law authorizing his EO.

If Trump appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, he could lose there too. With his SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch not yet on the court, it tilts to the left. Even if the swing vote Anthony Kennedy votes with the conservative wing, the result would be a 4-4 split, which means the Ninth Circuit’s decision stands.

Of course, the Ninth Circuit is the circuit court whose decisions are most reversed by the Supreme Court. Even some on the left are criticizing the decision. Liberal Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz explained on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that the EO was constitutional, but the legal battle would take too long. He said Trump would be better off rewriting it. The ruling “looks like it’s based more on policy than on constitutionality,” he noted.

Trump is reportedly now redoing the EO to comply with the Ninth Circuit’s opinion. “We’ll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country,” he announced during a press conference yesterday. “You’ll see something next week.”

If a court overturns the new order, it will be the first time Washington state sets immigration law for the nation. (For more from the author of “What Is Likely to Happen With Trump’s Travel Ban” please click HERE)

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‘Indivisible,’ With Ties to George Soros, sows Division Against Trump, GOP Lawmakers

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Democrats who used to work on Capitol Hill are helping to disrupt Republican lawmakers’ town hall meetings across the country through a nationwide effort to oppose and “resist” President Donald Trump’s agenda.

They call their group Indivisible Guide, a name that came from an actual guide posted online telling activists how to pressure members of Congress. Among topics: what to say when going to town halls and calling or visiting a member’s office.

Leaders of the organization have loose ties to George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager who bankrolls liberal causes, according to the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank that investigates nonprofits.

However, in an email Friday to The Daily Signal, board members of Indivisible Guide denied financial backing from Soros:

We have received donations from more than 4,000 people since putting a donate button on our site two weeks ago. We think George Soros funds many worthy programs, but he has not funded us. We understand why it’s convenient for Republicans to dismiss widespread popular disapproval as astroturf, but anyone looking at the numbers for the Women’s March and other recent events knows better.

The Capital Research Center argues that Indivisible Guide’s board has indirect ties with left-leaning groups funded by Soros, as well as with other liberal organizations.

“Indivisible is ultra-slick leftist astroturf activism at its finest,” Matthew Vadum, senior vice president at the Capital Research Center, told The Daily Signal in an email. “At least three of the group’s five principals—Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, and Angel Padilla—have ties to organizations funded by George Soros. Indivisible is apparently not yet a nonprofit, but plans are in the works to register it as a nonprofit.”

According to Vadum’s research:

Ezra Levin, a former staffer for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and his wife, Leah Greenberg, are the president and vice president of the Indivisible Guide’s board, respectively.

Levin is also associate director of the Corporation for Enterprise Development, an anti-poverty nonprofit. Melissa Bradley, who sits on that group’s board, previously worked for Green for All, a group founded by liberal commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones. She was appointed as a Soros Justice Fellow through the Open Society Foundations, which Soros founded.

Greenberg previously worked for Humanity United, which is funded by Soros’s Open Society Institute.

The secretary of Indivisible Guide, Angel Padilla, works for the National Immigration Law Center, which is funded by Soros through his Open Society Foundations. And treasurer Matt Traidi is the research team director for the Service Employees International Union, a major donor to and endorser of Democrat politicians, Capital Research Center notes.

Indivisible Guide boasts that it has disrupted town halls held by Republican lawmakers in Utah, California, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, and Nebraska. And the group, which amplifies its message over Twitter and other social media, promises it isn’t finished.

Politico reported that local activists shouted down Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. Police had to escort Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., at a town hall meeting because of protesters.

One CNN report presented the disruption of a town hall meeting held Thursday night by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, as a sign of a “grassroots” reaction to Trump such as the taxpayer-based tea party movement was against the Washington establishment:

ActBlue, a political action committee that raises millions of dollars for Democrat candidates, also raises money for Indivisible Guide. Its appeal says, in part:

As former congressional staffers and advocates, we want to help provide local activists with information, tools, and support to take action. Most of all we want you to be part of this nationwide movement.

Let us be clear: donating is the last thing we want you to do. If it’s a choice between going to your local group’s meeting or donating to us, please go to the meeting. Really.

The website of Indivisible Guide, also known simply as Indivisible, provides scripts for what activists should say when calling the office of their House or Senate members on various issues—among them opposing senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s role in the White House, Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, his refugee policy, and most other policy positions.

The website says:

More than 4,500 local groups have signed up to resist the Trump agenda in nearly every congressional district in the country. What’s more, you all are putting the guide into action—showing up en masse to congressional district offices and events, and flooding the congressional phone lines. You’re resisting—and it’s working. … we want to demystify the heck out of Congress and build a vibrant community of angelic troublemakers.

Longstanding liberal groups MoveOn, the Working Families Party, and the American Civil Liberties Union have joined Indivisible Guide’s effort.

Just two days after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Indivisible Guide, MoveOn.org, and the Working Families Party organized a teleconference for activists that attracted 60,000 listeners, Politico reported.

Indivisible did another call with the ACLU focusing on Trump’s executive order aimed at increasing the vetting of immigrants from seven terrorism-prone Middle Eastern countries; it drew about 35,000 listeners.

MoveOn.org is conducting “Resist Trump” rallies across the country. The ACLU issued pamphlets about how to demonstrate, including for protesters who attempted to disrupt Washington during Trump’s inauguration.

In running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the Working Families Party “the closest thing there is to a political party that believes in my vision of democratic socialism.”

Actor and liberal activist George Takei, of “Star Trek” fame, tweeted Friday:

(For more from the author of “‘Indivisible,’ With Ties to George Soros, sows Division Against Trump, GOP Lawmakers” please click HERE)

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Rescind the Executive Order — and Replace It With Many Tougher Ones

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President Trump needs to deny the Left a victory over his immigration executive order. The court challenge heard by the infamously unconstitutional and extremist 9th Circuit threatens to set a precedent that will codify open borders and leave the president powerless to protect us. Trump can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and deny the Left their unconscionable and unconstitutional attempted power grab by rescinding this EO and issuing stronger multiple replacements as stand alone orders.

The president cannot lose here. We must protect our borders; keep out the terrorists and rein in out-of-control immigration. It is the signal issue that got him elected. It is also the signal action needed to save this country from the Left’s malevolent intentions. The Left is attempting to subvert our country by simply replacing its population with a more malleable, sympathetic one. Unlike the immigrants of yesteryear, today’s are largely illiterate, welfare-dependent, unwilling to learn our language and definitely hostile to American culture and traditions. And while they are in many cases fleeing conditions created by their countries’ socialist policies, they nonetheless bring socialist ideas with them. As our country has become more “multi-cultural”, it has drifted ever leftward.

This was no mistake.

President Trump can and must rescind this executive order. Despite it’s hesitation, the [en banc] 9th Circuit is virtually guaranteed to agree with the ruling by District Judge Robert Chambers halting Trump’s immigration ban. As the initial complaint was not justified by immigration law, which provides the president clear authority to do what he did, it would set a horrible precedent in eroding the president’s ability to protect the nation. If it goes to the Supreme Court, it will likely lose. Justice Kennedy will side with the leftists. With an 8 person court, even a 4-4 decision would mean the 9th Circuit ruling holds. Even with Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, a likely Kennedy defection would mean 5-4 for the Left. And support for Trump’s position is not even certain with Gorsuch.

Rescinding the EO would be a victory, not a defeat. First, it would prevent the Left from getting a major win in court that would alter permanently a president’s ability to control our borders. The lawsuit and likely favorable court ruling defy immigration law. They should not be allowed to get away with it. As abominable as it is, the current state of enforcement is better than what would result. The Left would like to thwart Trump’s agenda with endless lawsuits. Their victory here will encourage much more of the same.

But more importantly, Trump should reissue a score of executive orders that address the same issues as the current one, but make them even more muscular. If the Left is going to play dirty like this, make them pay for it. Give them something they will dislike even more and force them to fight many battles instead of just one. Perhaps that will cool their ardor for obstructionist lawsuits and nationwide, Democrat funded violence that threatens to drag this country into civil war:

1. Replace the 3 month ban on immigration from seven terrorist-producing nations with a 6 month ban on the same seven nations. President Obama issued a six-month ban on refugees from Iraq in 2011. He did so after two Kentucky-based Iraqi refugees were discovered to be former insurgent IED makers. So much for our supposedly infallible vetting process. Despite much-ballyhooed improvements, the current vetting procedure places almost all emphasis on processing refugees as quickly as possible, with few, if any national security safeguards. The seven nations were also first identified by the Obama DHS.

2. Consider expanding the list to all nations of terrorism concern. The State Department keeps a list which formally includes State Sponsors of Terrorism: Syria, Sudan, Iran, and Countries of Particular Concern: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Those countries on the DHS list not identified by the State Department, i.e. Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Iraq, should be added to State’s list.

3. Extend suspension of the refugee admissions program (USRAP) to a full year as requested by numerous members of Congress and cities all over the country begging for relief. (It now only lasts 120 days). President Trump does not need an executive order for this. He can simply send a letter to Congress, informing it of his intentions. Refugee caps for FY 2017 would be reduced to zero.

4. Issue all other components of the current EO as separate, standalone orders. Many of these are not challenged by the court in this EO, but are desperately needed. For example: ending the Obama administration’s insane policy of allowing U.S. entry of foreign nationals who have aided terrorists, focusing on those refugee minorities facing the worst persecution (e.g. the Christians that Obama ignored), enacting uniform screening standards for all immigrants, suspending the visa waiver program, completing the Biometric Entry-Exit Tracking System, visa reciprocity, and data transparency.

Trump needs to rescind this executive order to snatch victory out of the Left’s intolerable hands. He needs to replace it with others that will punish the Left for their vicious, relentless, unconstitutional and often illegal tactics, and force them to fight every single item, piece by piece.

Posted with permission of the author.

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5 Reasons Why Planned Parenthood Must Stop Receiving Our Tax Dollars

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Planned Parenthood makes many lofty claims about its “services” critical to women’s health. But just digging a little deeper into its actual practices and history reveals something much less positive — and a lot more sinister.

As a pro-life blogger and speaker, who escaped abortion myself in Communist China, and chose life for my “imperfect” child, I feel called to expose abortion lies wherever I see them. This weekend, tens of thousands of people will protest Planned Parenthood nationwide; it’s a critical moment to raise awareness of the abortion giant and its misdeeds.

More than any organization in America, Planned Parenthood is responsible for perpetrating lies about abortion — and lies about its own “women’s health” services. There’s no doubt, the public relations strategy of the abortion giant is built on deception.

If the American public really knew the truth about Planned Parenthood, I truly believe most Americans would immediately stop supporting and defending it. That’s why my latest video gives five reasons why Planned Parenthood must stop receiving our tax funding — the entire $553 million dollars they currently receive annually.

In fact, Congress will soon begin debate over a budget reconciliation bill on this issue. We can expect mainstream media to go crazy over this bill, claiming it will harm women’s health. But the truth is, all it will do is halt abortion providers from receiving about 75 percent of their current taxpayer funding for one year. (Read more from “5 Reasons Why Planned Parenthood Must Stop Receiving Our Tax Dollars” HERE)

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Could Moderate Nationalism Save Us From Post-Christian “Americanism”?

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As the president’s chief strategist Steve Bannon insists, the election of Donald Trump was a victory for “nationalism.” On that observers agree. But that’s where consensus ends. What exactly does that term mean? Is it something that should frighten us? Fill us with hope? Leave us ambivalent, neutral, or watchful? The answer to that crucial question depends both on what we mean by nationalism, and how its resurgence affects both domestic and foreign policy.

Thoughtful commentators on the right have been weighing in on this subject, especially lately. I’ll offer a round-up of their views in a moment. But first I would like to reiterate a distinction I offered here months ago, before it seemed even likely that Donald Trump would win the election. As I wrote then, there are two lodestars of loyalty among American conservatives, which can complement each other but also compete:

The Golden Egg: moral, civic and economic principles that could, in theory, be applied to any country on earth, and to any group of immigrants we admitted to America, however large. These principles are simply true for every human being, and we must insist on that fact. Instead of the left’s relativism and politics of group resentment, these principles offer conservatives an inclusive, persuasive program which should appeal to any voter of good will. You can find an excellent summary of America’s guiding principles right here at The Stream. Key among them are truths such as “Every human being has equal value and dignity,” and “Judeo-Christian religious faith guards our freedom.” If pursued consistently, these principles should always produce a more peaceful, prosperous, free country than would otherwise be possible.

And:

The Goose: real, existing, historically-founded facts that explain why these principles have worked here in America, while failing spectacularly when tried elsewhere — for instance in the Latin American republics that declared independence shortly after the 13 colonies did, wrote similar declarations and comparable constitutions, and degenerated into a 200-year cycle of dictatorships and chaos. The most important of these facts was the dominance of a tolerant, Anglo-Protestant culture grounded in some 800 years of English resistance to oppressive governments. Change this fact too radically or too quickly, and the principles we treasure will wither and die.

America as a Mere Abstraction

Back in 2003, when “Golden Egg” enthusiasts had almost completely captured the thinktanks, magazines, and other institutions of conservatism, I wrote a long “think piece” warning against the dangers of unmoored ideology that neglected the “Golden Goose,” called “America the Abstraction.” Jim Antle saw fit to reach back some 14 years and cite that piece yesterday in The Washington Examiner. (Antle’s piece is itself an excellent starting point for understanding today’s debate—I encourage all to read it.) As I wrote then:

If you are trying to boil down citizenship to its philosophically respectable components, and if ideology is all you are interested in, then it does not really matter where you were born. Or who your parents were. Or whom you love. Or the hymns you know by heart, the folk tales you treasure, the God you worship. None of these merely human matters measures up, ideologically speaking. None of them can be enshrined in a manifesto, or beamed across the world via Voice of America, or exported in music videos. They do not raise the GDP, or lower the interest rate, or increase our command of oil reserves. They cannot be harnessed to drive the engine of globalization. Therefore, to some people, these things do not matter. Such pieties can be harnessed in the run-up to a war, can form part of the Army recruitment ads and propaganda campaigns, and may even find their way into presidential speeches. But essentially there is no difference between a fourth-generation American and an Afghan refugee who just landed at JFK—so long as they both accept the same ideology.

How did we get to this pass? How did conservatism, which once centered on the fierce defense of tradition, religion, and particularism, turn into an ideology — that is, a philosophy in arms, a political system shorn of its ties to real people and places, slimmed down by dropping historical baggage, packaged for export on the global market of ideas? The simple answer is the Cold War. …

The post-war conservative movement labored mightily to craft … a version of Americanism that could be promoted internationally, which Europeans and Asians, Latins and Africans alike could adopt as an alternative to Marxism. …

Increasingly, America was defined according to the most expansive, abstract reading of the Declaration of Independence, combined with a version of market economics well-suited to the unrestricted “pursuit of happiness.” Anything that did not fit that formula tended to fall down the memory hole: the Anglo-Celtic roots of the Founding, the specifically Christian (mostly Protestant) identity of America, the very existence of the Confederacy, and the profoundly Western roots of our culture. …

To conservatives schooled in this mode of argument, restrictions on immigration are simply insane; anyone, anywhere who will sign on to the Declaration of Independence is already an American. Keeping him out makes no more sense than building a Berlin Wall to divide Manhattan’s East Side from its West. Embittered blacks, or religious conservatives, or leftists who do not accept the Cold War ideology of America are not real Americans. An ideological litmus test becomes the standard of citizenship. American foreign policy must cease to pursue the concrete interests of a concrete, national community and become the tool by which an abstract creed is imposed across the world — hindered only by the resistance of the benighted and bigoted, who are fated to end on the ash-heap of history.

A compatible view of these crucial issues comes from Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review, who write:

The outlines of a benign nationalism are not hard to discern. It includes loyalty to one’s country: a sense of belonging, allegiance, and gratitude to it. And this sense attaches to the country’s people and culture, not just to its political institutions and laws. Such nationalism includes solidarity with one’s countrymen, whose welfare comes before, albeit not to the complete exclusion of, that of foreigners. When this nationalism finds political expression, it supports a federal government that is jealous of its sovereignty, forthright and unapologetic about advancing its people’s interests, and mindful of the need for national cohesion.

Nationalism Can Be Dangerous

Jonah Goldberg, in the same magazine, respectfully differs, declaring his preference for the Golden Egg:

Our shrines are to patriots who upheld very specific American ideals. Our statues of soldiers commemorate heroes who died for something very different from what other warriors have fought and died for for millennia. Every one of them — immigrants included — took an oath to defend not just some soil but our Constitution and by extension the ideals of the Founding. Walk around any European hamlet or capital and you will find statues of men who fell in battle to protect their tribe from another tribe. That doesn’t necessarily diminish the nobility of their deaths or the glory of their valor, but it is quite simply a very different thing they were fighting for. …

[N]ationalism is healthy in small doses, but we must remember that all poisons are determined by the dose. Because nationalism is ultimately the fire of tribalism, having too much of it tends to melt away important distinctions, from the rule of law to the right to dissent to the sovereignty of the individual. This is why every example of unfettered nationalism run amok ends up looking very much like socialism run amok (and vice versa). The passionate populist desire for unity above all recognizes no abstract barriers to the general will.

Ben Shapiro warns, also at National Review:

Trump’s definition of nationalism is not the conservative definition of nationalism. Conservatives love America because we believe it is a nation founded on an idea. Our interests ought to prevail because our principles ought to prevail: limited government, individual liberty, God-given natural rights, localism in politics, religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, and so forth. If America ceased to believe those things or stand for them, we would not deserve to win. “Make America Great Again” would then ring hollow with the same blood-and-soil nationalistic violence of the Old World. If greatness is measured in utilitarian terms rather than ideological ones, nationalism is merely tribalism broadened, a way of valuing the collective over the individual.

America’s Founding Principles, De-Christianized, Can Be Poisonous

Of course, the critics of nationalism are right, up to a point. They correctly warn that an unreflective attachment to hearth and home, totem and tribe can quickly get out of control and erupt in the kind of ugliness we see around the world, which took its most infamous form in Hitler’s Germany.

But that’s not the only kind of danger. Countries bound together only by an abstract ideology can be very dangerous too — as we see not just from the Soviet Union and revolutionary France, but more recently in the empire created by ISIS, and the relentless drive for power of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Goldberg and Shapiro recognize this of course. They read their history, and know that ideologies can be dangerous. They just don’t seem to think that America’s can be. They don’t seem to see that American principles, while truer than most, can also be abused and applied to evil ends.

But isn’t that exactly what happened when our judicial elites declared that our Constitution enshrined the right to abortion? That central to our right of liberty is the right to make up the meaning of the universe exactly as we wish to? (See Casey v. Planned Parenthood.) That same-sex couples have the right to legally recognized marriage because of their human “dignity”?

You and I might rightly say that these are false inferences from our principles, but they are currently the official governing philosophy of the United States legal system. Stripped by judicial intellectuals of their tolerant, Protestant Christian context (the “originalist” reading of the Constitution that Justice Scalia insisted on), our founding principles can prove very dangerous indeed; they were fatal to almost 60 million unborn American children.

Our Founders were fallen men, and their ideas were not divinely revealed from heaven. The profound truths that did emerge in America’s founding were not some brilliant ideas that Enlightenment thinkers came up with and scribbled down. Instead, they emerged over centuries in a very specific context: the Christian soil of England, with its Saxon resistance to political authority and Protestant obsession with spiritual independence. That was the soil the Pilgrims and other English settlers carried over with them on their ships. Scrape it away, replace it with alien sand or secular gravel, and Liberty’s tree might wither. Or to go back to my first metaphor, the Goose might keel over and die. (For more from the author of “Could Moderate Nationalism Save Us From Post-Christian “Americanism”?” please click HERE)

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