Survival of the Evilest: We Must Reimpose Sanctions on the Islamist Sudanese Government

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Former President Obama lifted sanctions on the Islamist Sudanese government on January 13, 2017. The Islamist Sudanese government had long survived even with the sanctions in place. Don’t dismiss the genius behind its longevity by believing — as many have — that things have changed; that the influence of the hardliners, radical Islamists, has diminished during the past 20 years. The hardliners remain deep inside the government, still trying to build a global Caliphate and incite jihad.

Sudan’s Leaders

The leaders of Sudan are all hardliners who were committed to building a global Caliphate long before ISIS. They play a game of “Change the Face.” It’s a Darwinian dance to alter the regime’s appearance and fool the outside world while pursuing their agenda to bring Sharia and Arabization to all of Sudan and then to the entire African continent.

The late former Sudan Prime Minister, Hassan al Turabi, was a Change the Face expert. Turabi looked like a jolly old uncle, but the tiny Sorbonne-educated Muslim Brotherhood leader not only oversaw the forced Islamization and Arabization of the south, he managed the murahaleen, Arab militias that raided villages in South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, burning crops and livestock, killing men and taking women and children into slavery. They were forerunners of the Janjaweed (devils on horseback), responsible for the Darfur genocide.

Turabi accepted Bibles from naïve American pastors and nodded winsomely when they gushed that they were both “people of the Book”! He charmed the brains out of many Western visitors, but his Islamic ideology never changed. How could it? He was the founder of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, working for the globalization of radical Islam, and of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sudanese branch.

Another Change the Face expert was Sudan’s previous foreign minister (architect of the jihad in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains) Ali Karti. Karti washed the blood of black Africans off his hands, put on a tailored suit and attended the National Prayer Breakfast. He charmed members of Congress with his sincerity and some invited him to their districts to spread his message of desiring peace and unity for Sudan, not having a clue what it actually means. (In these cases “peace” means Islam, which literally means submission. “Unity” means Arabization — all of Sudan’s hundreds of indigenous black African people groups to deny their own cultural heritage, language and customs, and embrace Arabization.)

Part of the Strategy

Change the Face and the related “Charm Offensive” are part of the overall strategy that has kept the Islamist Republic going in spite of unspeakable atrocities, persecuting Christians and other religious minorities, and perpetrating five genocidal jihads.

The genocide waged on southern Sudan (now Republic of South Sudan) and the Nuba Mountains/Blue Nile region resulted in the death of over 2.5 million people, with some 5 million displaced. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement brought the South’s misery to a standstill and the Nuba Mountains/Blue Nile region achieved a ceasefire arranged by the first U.S. Sudan Special Envoy, former Senator Reverend John Danforth.

But in 2011, the Sudan government began another genocidal attack on Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State that is still going on. Nuba Christians have been particularly targeted, the Bishop of the region revealed in his 2011 testimony to the House of Representatives. And Khartoum has supported insurrectionists in the South, trying to destroy the new nation.

The Case for Sanctions

Most people have lost track of “saving Darfur.” They may be surprised to know that Darfur still needs saving. Sudan scholar Eric Reeves says 600,000 have died and some 2.8 million displaced in that genocide.

Untold numbers of women have been raped, including those violated in the Sudan Army’s mass rape of hundreds of girls and women. In addition, a recent report from Amnesty International documents the Sudan government’s use of chemical weapons more than 30 times in the past year against one town.

Shouldn’t this be enough for the Sudan Islamist regime to merit sanctioning? But there’s more. Sudan is the global jihad incubator. It plays host to numerous jihadi groups throughout the country. And it’s more than just a “host.”

Darfur is occupied by terrorist groups spreading from Sudan to Mali. The Darfur Sudan United Movement’s General Abakar Abdallah and activist Jerry Gordon write in FrontPage Magazine:

New terrorist groups continually arrive in Darfur from Libya through Dongola, in North Sudan … These terrorist groups … are believed to include Boko Haram and ISIS jihadis. Villagers who have encountered them reported they are a mixture of Arabs and Africans. The latter look like Nigerians … They possess ISIS flags and wear the Kodomul (black turban). They are moving on Toyota pickup trucks similar to those used by ‘Peace Forces’. The Sudan regime pretends that these ‘Peace Forces’ are combating illegal immigrants. In reality they are helping bring in terrorists and Chadian rebels from Libya to Darfur.

But additionally, the Khartoum regime continues training jihadists in its own terror camps that the United States has been warned about since the 1990s. And Khartoum is sending trained jihadists all over the world, disguised as refugees or as wealthy Sudanese citizens.

This Darwinian survivor-regime stores up treasure for itself, making one deal after another while its people suffer. In addition to contracts with France for 16 million tons of gold in eastern Sudan, the regime recently announced a deal for 97 million tons of gold and silver in the Red Sea Minerals Project, to begin in the year 2020.

Global jihad will be well financed!

Khartoum also has agreements with Arab nations to provide farm land in Nubia, Beja land (Eastern Sudan), Darfur and elsewhere, displacing the indigenous people and stealing their land. The regime intends to change the demography of the country to erase its African identity.

Survival of the Evilest

What can defeat the survival of the evilest? The unified opposition of Sudan’s marginalized people from Nubia, Darfur, Beja Land, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State — the anti-jihad, anti-Caliphate, pro-secular democracy, pro-freedom and equality Sudanese — could put together a New Sudan. But they can only do this if the United States and others do not stand in their way under the illusion that the Khartoum regime are Islamists they can “work with.”

Then Sudan could change its face one last time. But this time, to the face of a secular democracy that would ensure religious freedom and equality for all Sudanese. Sudan would then face the United States as a real intelligence partner and a genuine ally in the war against global jihad. (For more from the author of “Survival of the Evilest: We Must Reimpose Sanctions on the Islamist Sudanese Government” please click HERE)

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It’s Time to Reel in the Obama-Appointed Ambassador Who Meddled in Macedonian Politics

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Macedonia has a population smaller than Queens and is roughly the size of Vermont. It is stuck in the southern Balkans, wedged between a hostile Greece and sometimes revanchist Albania and Bulgaria. It is not the center of the universe.

So why are some members of Congress having to ask our Macedonian ambassador, Jess Baily, to explain reports that he’s been acting as the bullying sovereign of the country, shoehorning political parties into forming a “red-green” coalition between leftist and Islamic-based parties?

And is it true, they also want to know, that the ambassador is siphoning off government money to groups founded by the left-wing billionaire activist George Soros?

Members of both the House and the Senate sent their letters to our ambassador in Skopje, that nation’s capital, on Jan. 17 and gave him two weeks to reply. President Barack Obama’s appointee hasn’t responded yet, though after I called the State Department and the embassy to inquire, the State Department did reach out to at least one congressman to tell him a response was being drafted.

But things have gotten so bad that congressional hearings and congressional delegations to the small Balkan country are being contemplated. Members of Congress have also reached out to the new Trump administration to inquire into the matter.

Tony Perkins, the president of the pro-traditional values Family Research Council, has also taken a keen interest in the matter. He wrote this week:

While the U.S. goals for Macedonia include benign statements on investing in democracy, the State Department began favoring partnerships with Soros’ long litany of organizations in 2012. These organizations are anything but democratic. Instead, they are pushing progressive, violent, and radical ideals throughout Europe.”

Under pressure, State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday issued a statement backing the ambassador.

“Ambassador Baily and his team have been working in partnership with Macedonian authorities as well as with civil society to advance U.S. policy and U.S. goals. The Department of State has full confidence in our embassy and ambassador in Macedonia,” said Toner.

The questions from Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J, Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, from the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, were very similar.

They were also tough, so it’s not easy to see why the State Department and the embassy are dragging things outs.

“Unfortunately, we have heard credible reports that, over the past two years, the U.S. Mission to Macedonia has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as in the shaping of its media environment and civil society, in a manner that consistently favors the parties, media, and civil society groups of the center-left over those of the center-right,” begins the House letter.

They also seek to know whether the embassy under Baily has given preference to leftist media outlets over conservative ones in the disbursement of U.S. aid.

Both letters also ask if it was true that our embassy “selected the Open Society Foundation as the major implementer of USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) projects in Macedonia?”

The Open Society Foundation is a Soros creation that promotes the billionaire’s progressive ideology worldwide. Macedonian critics charge that since 2012, or two years before Baily’s appointment, USAID has been allocating most of its assistance to the Open Society Institute and nongovernmental organizations run or controlled by Soros. They put the figure at $5 million.

Conservative Macedonian political commentator Cvetin Chilimanov told me by telephone from Skopje Friday that Baily’s aim was to form a coalition government between the former communist Social Democratic Union and two ethnic Albanian parties, one of which, the Besa Movement, has a strong Islamic component and receives backing from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In other words, the ambassador is trying to shut out the strongly pro-American, pro-capitalist VMRO-DPMNE coalition, which actually won the most votes in the Dec. 11 elections.

This is an approach many in Skopje hope will change now that another team is in charge in Washington. (For more from the author of “It’s Time to Reel in the Obama-Appointed Ambassador Who Meddled in Macedonian Politics” please click HERE)

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Rogue Federal Bureaucrats Threaten Trump’s Agenda

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Recent scandals in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Internal Revenue Service demonstrated that it’s almost impossible to fire federal employees, many of whom reportedly intend to go rogue by not implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Conservatives are hopeful the time has come for civil service reform that would rein in this permanent class of government workers who have voiced outright hostility to the new administration. Some have even called it the “fourth branch of government” or “alt-government.”

“This is a situation where people voted and elected a president who is lawfully trying to complete those tasks [he promised in the campaign], while unelected bureaucrats are willing to overturn the will of the people,” Ben Wilterdink, director of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Task Force on Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development, told The Daily Signal.

Among federal employees, about 95 percent of political contributions went to Democrat Hillary Clinton during the presidential race, according to an analysis by The Hill.

Some of those federal workers are now in consultation with departed Obama administration officials to determine how they can push back against the Trump administration’s agenda, The Washington Post reported last week.

At the State Department, for example, nearly 1,000 government workers signed a letter protesting Trump’s executive order on refugees. A few days later, Trump had to fire acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she announced she wouldn’t defend the administration’s refugee policy.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said State Department employees who oppose the policy “should either get with the program, or they can go.”

“If a federal employee doesn’t like the ideological foundation or likely outcomes of a presidential directive, it doesn’t mean that the directive is not legal. It means that the views of the federal employee are in conflict with the views of the president who runs the federal government,” said Neil Siefring, vice president of Hilltop Advocacy and a former Republican House staffer, in a column for The Daily Caller.

“In that instance,” Siefring added, “the solution should not be to resist the actions of the president in their professional capacity as a career civil servant in the workplace. The solution is for that federal employee to honorably resign, not actively or passively hamper the White House.”

What if an employee won’t resign? Addressing the problem with the federal workforce won’t be easy, according to experts interviewed by The Daily Signal.

“You can fire federal employees, it’s just that nobody wants to put up with the process,” Don Devine, former director of the Office of Personnel Management during the Reagan administration, told The Daily Signal.

Multiple appeals can be made through the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and the National Labor Relations Board.

“It’s almost impossible to discipline employees because it can be appealed to through the merit system, the labor relations systems, or through the EEOC,” Devine said. “We don’t have a civil service system; we have a dual civil service-labor relations system.”

During the Obama administration, two of its biggest scandals involved the IRS and Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2013, a Treasury Department inspector general report determined the IRS had been targeting conservative groups. In 2014, a VA inspector general’s report revealed falsified appointments in which some veterans died while waiting for care.

Years later, conservatives remain frustrated that federal workers weren’t held accountable.

“I will take your IRS employees and raise you the EPA, where story after story, a worker was viewing porn on work time and couldn’t be fired because the process is fraught with appeals,” Wilterdink said. “It’s hard to argue we have an accountable government when someone can’t be fired for years at a time.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. House revived the Holman Rule, named after a Democrat congressman who introduced it in 1876. It would allow lawmakers to cut the pay of individual federal workers or a government program.

There are other proposals for holding federal workers accountable. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, introduced a bill in January to hold seriously tax delinquent people ineligible for federal civilian employment, federal contracts, or government grants. This bill was proposed in response to IRS data that found more than 100,000 federal civilian employees owed more than $1 billion in unpaid taxes at the end of fiscal year 2015.

Adding to the challenge is the process commonly known as burrowing. Frequently, political appointees from one administration convert to a career position that comes with civil service protections, allowing them to continue implementing policy—or resisting the new administration’s approach.

The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 was passed to stop raw political party appointments from securing federal government jobs, or a spoils system. The law introduced the merit system into hiring practices and made numerous civil service positions untouchable after they were filled.

However, burrowing has caused a de facto spoils system, Wilterdink said, because, “the pendulum has swung so far to protecting federal employees” that it allows administrations to keep their people in office long term.

Significant reform doesn’t mean recreating a spoils system, according to Robert Moffit, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation who was an assistant Office of Personnel Management director during the Reagan administration. Moffit said a balanced approach would be more desirable.

“You need to have strong managers in each agency to make sure the president’s agenda is properly executed,” Moffit told The Daily Signal. “You must also have a bright line between career and non-career staff so there is no politicization of the merit system.”

Moffit also supports legislation to allow the president to order the firing of career officials who either “broke the law or severely undermined the public’s trust.”

“Even President [Barack] Obama referred to what IRS officials did as outrageous and nothing happened,” Moffit said. “The VA matter is still unresolved. The people responsible for those waiting lists aren’t accountable and people died.” (For more from the author of “Rogue Federal Bureaucrats Threaten Trump’s Agenda” please click HERE)

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Conservatives Pressure 12 Democrats on Supreme Court Pick

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Two conservative advocacy organizations hope to stop Senate Democrats from blocking President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

“The focus is to put pressure on Democratic senators to decide between following the will of American people and the voters in their state or to follow Sen. Chuck Schumer and the radical left down a path of obstructionism,” Judicial Crisis Network senior adviser Gary Marx told The Daily Signal.

The Judicial Crisis Network and Heritage Action for America have both launched campaigns to bolster the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, was nominated by Trump to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia.

Judicial Crisis Network has formed a coalition enterprise to engage in a $10 million campaign of television and digital advertising, research, and grassroots activism. The group claims this is the “most robust operation in the history of confirmation battles.”

Judicial Crisis Network and Heritage Action are targeting Democrat senators from states that Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. Judicial Confirmation Network is also focusing on Colorado, which is Gorsuch’s home state, while Heritage Action has Minnesota, a state Trump narrowly lost, on its list.

1. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin
2. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado
3. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio
4. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania
5. Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana
6. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota
7. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
8. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia
9. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri
10. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida
11. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
12. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana

“Any vulnerable senator who signs up for Schumer’s obstructionist strategy will pay a heavy price,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network. “Exit polls showed that over one-fifth of voters said the Supreme Court was a primary reason for their vote, and of that large percentage of Americans, Trump won those voters by a resounding 57-40 margin.”

In a phone interview with The Daily Signal, Severino noted that the group’s pro-Gorsuch campaign is about holding senators accountable to their constituents.

Before Gorsuch was nominated, Schumer, the Senate Democrat leader from New York, said in an MSNBC interview, “We are not going to settle on a Supreme Court nominee. If they don’t appoint someone who is really good, we are going to oppose them tooth and nail.”

Tea Party Patriots’ co-founder and national coordinator, Jenny Beth Martin, who is assisting Judicial Crisis Network’s grassroots effort, told The Daily Signal that “our big initiative includes making phone calls to senators, doing sign-waiving events, letters to the editor, social media posts, and also reaching out to constituents in the key swing states with Democratic senators.”

Judicial Crisis Network also launched a new pro-Gorsuch ad, which began airing on Friday in Montana, Indiana, North Dakota, Colorado, and the District of Columbia, according to a press release. This ad is part of the over $2 million initial advertising buy that started on Tuesday night after Gorsuch was nominated. The campaign is part of the organization’s $10 million overall effort.

Heritage Action’s campaign also targets senators in 10 states where Trump won, although it also targets Klobuchar of Minnesota rather than Stabenow. The group, a sister organization of The Heritage Foundation, asks its support to call these senators and ask for a swift confirmation. It also encourages senators to promptly carry out their constitutional role of “advise and consent.” (For more the author of “Conservatives Pressure 12 Democrats on Supreme Court Pick” please click HERE)

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Trump Administration Slaps Sanctions on Iran for Missile Test and Other Provocations

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The Trump administration followed through on Friday with a new round of sanctions on Iran, two days after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn announced that it was “officially putting Iran on notice” for a missile test and its hostile regional policies.

The sanctions were targeted at 13 individuals and 12 entities for their support for Iran’s ballistic missile program or for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which has been designated under an executive order for providing material support to various terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Those targeted under the sanctions cannot access the U.S. financial system or deal with U.S. companies. They also are subject to secondary sanctions, which would prohibit foreign companies and individuals from dealing with them or risk being blacklisted by the United States.

An anonymous senior U.S. official said Friday’s sanctions were an “initial step” in responding to Iran’s provocative behavior and would be followed by more steps if Iran continues on that path.

Iran’s Jan. 29 missile launch, which reportedly was tracked by at least one U.S. satellite, ended in an explosion after the missile travelled 630 miles, an apparent failure.

Some reports cited U.S. officials suggesting it was a Khoramshahr missile, which has yet to be displayed in public.

The German newspaper Die Welt cited intelligence sources who claimed that Iran also tested a nuclear-capable Sumar cruise missile that same day.

U.S. officials also charge that Iran has armed and assisted the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen, which reportedly launched a Jan. 30 attack by suicide bombers on a small boat that killed at least two sailors on a Saudi warship patrolling the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast.

Last October, a U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Mason, was unsuccessfully targeted by two anti-shipping missiles launched from Yemen, which prompted the U.S. Navy to launch cruise missiles to destroy Houthi missile launch sites along the coast.

Friday’s sanctions announcement is the first concrete response by the Trump administration, pushing back against Iran’s latest provocations.

The Obama administration preferred to ignore Iranian missile tests and its malign regional activities because it sought to preserve the flawed nuclear agreement, which it considered a positive legacy. This only emboldened Iran.

President Donald Trump warned in a tweet on Friday:

Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, responded on twitter that Tehran is “unmoved by threats” and will not stop its missile program.

Iran and the United States appear to be on a collision course, with more sanctions and perhaps military clashes on the horizon. (For more from the author of “Trump Administration Slaps Sanctions on Iran for Missile Test and Other Provocations” please click HERE)

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Starbucks Gets Scalded in Backlash After CEO Criticizes Trump’s Travel Ban EO

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Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is harming shareholders by damaging the brand he globalized by criticizing President Trump’s executive order on Syrian refugees and travel bans.

Schultz wrote to Starbucks employees on Sunday, January 29, following Trump’s announcement on the previous Friday. The coffee chain CEO issued a broad-based attack against Trump.

The company’s share price has dropped lower (about four percent) following a disappointing earnings announcement and sank deeper (about 3.7 percent) following Schultz’s letter to employees that slammed Trump’s policies.

Schultz’s action serves as a warning to investors that they need to be aware of the CEO’s personal politics and whether the chief executive will create an unnecessary controversy by expressing those views.

Judging by the timing, Schultz let his progressive heart guide a hasty, emotional reaction, ignoring the predictable response by Trump supporters.

His letter said the American Dream is “being called into question” and claimed he was hearing from employees “that the civility and human rights we have all taken for granted for so long are under attack.”

Unleashing his frustration over the new president, Schultz discussed company actions challenging policies that are near and dear to Trump’s supporters.

Schultz expressed actions he is taking to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and mentioned Starbucks employees are “Dreamers.”

He touted the company’s history of hiring refugees and said Starbucks would be “doubling down” on this effort with “plans to hire 10,000 of them over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business.” As part of this effort in the U.S., he wants to employ refugees that support our armed forces.

Under the heading of “Building Bridges, Not Walls, With Mexico,” Schultz discussed the company’s investment in the country, adding the company would support Mexicans affected by trade and restrictions on immigration.

Finally, Schultz said eligible employees would have access to a company health care plan if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

The response to Schultz’s letter was prompt and brutal on social media with posts calling for a boycott.

Facebook posts slammed Starbucks for its intention to hire refugees over American workers and U.S veterans.

Twitter rocked the company as well. Fortune reported #BoycottStarbucks was the top trending topic on Twitter the day after the Schultz letter.

Social media also distributed derogatory cartoons including a Starbucks store rebranded as “ShariaBucks” with a banner “Now Hiring: Muslim Refugees.”

Starbucks responded to the social media onslaught by emphasizing the company has a policy that encourages hiring veterans and active duty spouses.

Despite the company’s effort to respond to critics, its brand is damaged. The social media blitz and news stories labeled Starbucks as putting refugees before veterans.

Starbucks shareholders are paying the price because of Schultz’s inexcusable self-inflicted wound.

You don’t need to have a Ph.D. in political science to realize political passions are running extremely high, and no good can come from taking a position that conflicts with “America first.”

Like many on the Left, Schultz failed to recognize the mood of the country and the political land mines for not thinking about the consequences of his actions.

Schultz’s fumble exposes a management liability at progressive companies. While Starbucks touts diversity as a core value, the celebration of differences doesn’t apply to political thought. In many companies, conservatives are either absent or treated like social pariahs.

Starbucks is especially vulnerable to consumer backlash. First, Schultz previously used his company as his personal political soapbox. He has commented on race and told gun owners not to carry in their stores.

He also told a shareholder to sell his shares because the individual thought Starbucks’ support of a gay marriage referendum in Washington was bad for business.

Unlike Silicon Valley companies that expressed opposition to Trump’s executive order, Starbucks is a consumer product company with viable competing coffee alternatives on almost every corner.

Other progressive CEOs with vulnerable consumer brands have exercised restraint and not exposed their companies to backlash from Trump supporters.

After making a critical comment about Trump following the election, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi — a Hillary Clinton supporter — quickly recovered. She joined the president’s group of business leaders, the Strategic and Policy Forum.

Similarly, Disney CEO Bob Iger, a long-time backer of Hillary Clinton, also joined Trump’s business group.

Nooyi and Iger’s decision to join the Trump Train is recognition that they are putting shareholders before their personal politics.

Starbucks shareholders wish Schultz would do the same. (For more from the author of “Starbucks Gets Scalded in Backlash After CEO Criticizes Trump’s Travel Ban EO” please click HERE)

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Look Out! New Border Tax Will Increase Your Cost of Living

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Tax reform is one of the most important things the Trump administration might achieve. High on the new president’s list of priorities, the reduction of tax rates for corporations and individuals would be a tremendous boost for our economy, not to mention the purely moral aspect of allowing people to keep more of the money they’ve earned. However, there is one little-understood aspect of the proposed tax reform package that should have all Americans worried: the benignly named “border adjustment tax.”

This new tax is being floated as a way to raise revenue to cover the cost of the border wall, as well as to make up for other decreases in the corporate tax rate, and also as a way to incentivize exports and punish imports. Many people still mistakenly believe that importing goods and services is somehow bad while exporting them is good. This misunderstanding of trade policies is going to hurt American consumers considerably.

Here’s how the tax works. Proposed by Kevin Brady, R-Texas (F, 51%) and Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (F, 52%), the border adjustment tax would disallow the deduction of business expenses incurred in other countries from a company’s taxable income. Currently, if a company buys inventory overseas and sells it domestically, it only gets taxed on the profits, not the entire revenue. This is the same for domestic companies that do all their business in the United States, and it’s easy to see why. If you purchase $100,000 of equipment to produce goods that only sell $110,000, it makes no sense to tax the whole $110,000, as doing so would make an otherwise profitable enterprise too expensive to sustain. Taxing only the profits allows companies with a large volume of sales but a narrow profit margin to continue to operate successfully.

Eliminating this system for imported goods means that many imports will simply not be worth the money. That means fewer available options for you and me. Those bananas grown in Costa Rica may disappear from supermarket shelves, forcing us to subsist on less exotic, homegrown produce. Turnips maybe. Yuck. Other imports will still be profitable, but only at increased prices, so once again, the American consumer is harmed by the tax.

The other piece of the border adjustment tax, designed to encourage exports, allows exporting companies to deduct business expenses, but exempts revenue earned abroad from taxation entirely. Thus, the company in the example above would be able to reduce its taxable income by the $100,00 in expenses, while not being taxed at all on the $110,000 in revenue. This means that, from the IRS’s perspective, the company will look like it lost $100,000, and can use that claim to qualify for tax refunds. In other words, it would be possible for a profitable exporter to get checks from the government, as if they were on the brink of bankruptcy.

Now, this is hardly fair, but perhaps the more important point is the incentive effect it will have on business. Notice that in the cases of both the exporter and the importer companies are punished for selling to Americans. Under such a tax structure, no company, whether it be located in the United States or elsewhere, will want to sell its products to American consumers if it can find buyers elsewhere. The tax advantages of selling to foreigners will simply be too great. This is not to say that no one will sell to Americans, it’s just that they will need an added incentive to do so, an incentive most likely to found in the form of higher prices.

So, let’s review, The border adjustment tax will remove some imports from the market, giving us fewer choices about what to buy, for the rest, it will raise the prices we pay. The tax also unfairly rewards those who sell their wares abroad, giving them no reason to want American customers unless they can charge higher prices as well. Americans get it both coming and going.

For a populist administration that claims to care about the plight of the working man, pushing a tax plan that will substantially increase his cost of living seems an odd choice.

Then again, no one ever said politics was rational. (For more from the author of “Look Out! New Border Tax Will Increase Your Cost of Living” please click HERE)

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They Lied All Along: Republicans Plan to ‘Repair’ Not Repeal Obamacare

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Is it possible to repair a house on fire without extinguishing the raging inferno in it?

Republicans think we are stupid enough to believe so.

First they promised to repeal Obamacare “root and branch.” Then they promised to “repeal and replace” without explaining its meaning — other than to legitimize the premise of Obamacare as a partial force for good. Now, they are on to “repair.”

The Hill has the relevant quotes from two of the most important committee chairmen (Senator Walden, R-Ore. (F, 36%) and Senator Alexander, R-Tenn. (F, 15%)) drafting the repeal bill … which will not repeal Obamacare:

“I’m trying to be accurate on this that there are some of these provisions in the law that probably will stay, or we may modify them, but we’re going to fix things, we’re going to repair things,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), a key player on healthcare, told reporters Tuesday.

“There are things we can build on and repair, there are things we can completely repeal,” he said.

Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is sounding a similar note. […]

“I think it is more accurate to say repair ObamaCare because, for example, in the reconciliation procedure that we have in the Senate, we can’t repeal all of ObamaCare,” Alexander said. “ObamaCare wasn’t passed by reconciliation, it can’t be repealed by reconciliation. So we can repair the individual market, which is a good place to start.”

As we noted before, every word of this premise is false because the price-hiking coverage regulations are inextricably linked to the subsidies, as noted by the courts and CBO. Therefore, the regulations can be repealed through budget reconciliation. Moreover, the Senate parliamentarian doesn’t have the final say on addressing Senate precedent.

However, there is a more important point to bring out from this story. These people lied to all of us. They told a bald-faced lie. Absolutely nothing changed structurally about Obamacare from the time they made these promises during the past three elections until now. If anything, premiums went up even more than expected and there are even fewer insurers than previously predicted, making the case for repeal an easier political sell.

Likewise, nothing changed procedurally from the time they promised to use budget reconciliation to repeal at least most of the main elements of the law. Republicans always knew that they would need to get rid of the actuarially crippling regulations, which would then unfreeze the insurance market, lower costs, bring back choice and competition, and engender much less of a need for subsidies. All the while, everyone always planned to maintain the subsidies and Medicaid expansion for a one to two-year transition period while other free market health care and health insurance reforms were put in place.

Yet, Republicans, particularly those in the Senate, never had any intention of repealing it because they don’t believe or understand free markets, are owned by the big pharma/big government complex, and have no desire or ability to articulate a winning issue to the public without shooting themselves in the foot.

This day was predicted long ago

In 2012 and 2014, conservatives worked against Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 40%) and his sitting RINO Senators (such as Thad Cochran, R-Miss. (F, 22%), Pat Roberts, R-Kan. (F, 51%) Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala. (F, 20%) and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. (F, 15%)) and his chosen challengers in open seats (such as Sens. Tillis, R-N.C. (F, 35%) and Cassidy, R-La. (F, 47%)). Voters were warned that they had no intention of repealing Obamacare. Conservatives cautioned that if Ted Cruz’s, R-Texas (A, 97%) plan to defund Obamacare at its inception was not followed, the law would never be repealed. That if we failed to build a Senate majority upon a solid foundation and stronger leadership, Obamacare would never be repealed even if we were so fortunate to control all three branches. [See my op-ed at Fox News Opinion on October 25, 2013, “Building a GOP Majority on Quicksand”]

Groups like Senate Conservatives Fund were maligned as pursuing “purity for profit” and undermining the creation of a GOP majority that would truly repeal Obamacare. Establishment voices accused the grassroots activists of needlessly creating a civil war over disagreements on strategy. Yet, we knew all along it was a disagreement over beliefs and courage, not strategy. Unfortunately, the establishment used their superior funding (from groups like the Chamber of Commerce that wanted to keep Obamacare all along) to run on repealing the law “root and branch,” as McConnell famously said. Now, some of these very senators are leading the charge to repair the law, which is not feasible.

Trump must intervene

Obviously, President Trump is having a busy week with his immigration policies and the Supreme Court pick, among many other issues. He can’t address everything in the first month of his presidency. But there is no way to ignore Obamacare. Unless it is FULLY repealed, within a few years no middle-income American will be able to live in freedom and dignity without permanent government support and intervention in healthcare. We will have no freedom in one sixth of our economy. Moreover, the crushing job loss, debt, and diminished wages from the Obamacare regulations are weighing down the economy and will undermine the president’s ability to grow the economy with some of his other plans. It will limit his ability to secure a legacy as a jobs president.

The plan forward

Trump should dispatch Vice President Pence to work with the House Freedom Caucus as well as Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (F, 52%) and ensure that the House passes the full repeal bill — along with the regulations. They should make it clear that there are no excuses for the Senate to not overrule the parliamentarian, but at the same time they should not wait around for the lords of the Senate to do the right thing. The reconciliation bill should be structured as follows:

An 18-month transition for retaining the subsidies and the Medicaid expansion. However, immediately freeze both programs from new registrations.

Repeal Obamacare’s taxes immediately and the regulations by mid-year so that insurance companies can have certainty to offer cheaper, competitive plans in 2018

On the administrative end, have Tom Price, R-Ga. (D, 62%) get rid of any cost-sharing subsidies and risk corridor bailouts for insurance companies. This will force them to utilize the lifting of regulations to lower prices and actually compete for business rather than relying on subsidies.

Meanwhile, individual states should work on reducing their own onerous health care and health insurance regulations in order to maximize the market effect of reducing federal insurance regulations.

At that point, Trump should relentlessly use his bully pulpit to name and shame the Senate into fulfilling their promise. It can be done if we actually got the momentum rolling in the House. As Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. (A 94%) and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio (A, 96%) said in a statement today, “We committed to the American people to repeal every tax, every mandate, the regulations, and to defund Planned Parenthood. That’s what the American people expect us to do — and they expect us to do it quickly.”

In the meantime, conservatives should put the pressure on the Senate by launching a new round of primaries. Members like Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. (F, 50%), Bob Corker, R-Tenn. (F, 45%), Roger Wicker, R-Miss. (F, 28%), and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (F, 33%) could be prime targets in states won by Trump.

As Bobby Jindal said, “Republicans who want to retreat from repeal to repair should be replaced.” (For more from the author of “They Lied All Along: Republicans Plan to ‘Repair’ Not Repeal Obamacare” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Will Trump Defy Pressure to Betray Promises on Religious Liberty?

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The anticipation behind a Pres. Trump executive order protecting religious liberty within the federal government would appear to be all for naught, according to a recent report, leaving social conservative concerns out in the cold.

As Politico’s Annie Karni reported Friday:

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump helped lead the charge to scuttle a draft executive order that would have overturned Obama-era enforcements of LGBT rights in the workplace, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.

A draft executive order on LGBT rights — which outlines how to roll back former president Barack Obama’s protections and expand legal exemptions based on religious beliefs has been circulating among journalists and worried progressive groups this week.

Put simply, the draft executive order is balanced, solid, commonsense, and worthy of immediate signage. Others in the White House, however, see things differently.

“There are some in Trump’s family that have some views on these things,” a source close to the discussions told Karni. “That’s where the decision is ultimately being made.”

If true, this is horrible news for the voters who helped bring Trump across the November finish line on his promises to protect religious liberty (among other social conservative concerns). In fact, such a blatant reversal would constitute nothing short of a betrayal of those coalitions.

“This president’s number one priority is demonstrating to the people that got him elected that he is doing the people’s business,” the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano told Politico.

And Carafano’s right — the 2016 election was a referendum on Barack Obama and the Left’s criminalization of Christianity. And countless social conservatives were willing to look past a great many things of their GOP nominee in pursuit of those promises.

During his RNC acceptance speech in Cleveland, Donald Trump recognized that it was evangelicals who brought him to the ball. Right alongside the assuaging promises for a worthy successor to Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court were irrefutable promises to protect human life and the consciences of private-sector businesses to service ideas that violated their deeply held convictions rooted in our history and tradition.

The people elected a president who promised to 1) protect their religious liberty, by signing the First Amendment Defense Act; 2) abolish the Johnson Amendment; and 3) ending the taxpayer funding of the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. Had those voters really wanted a continuation of Obama’s extreme anti-religious zealousness, they could have easily voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton instead.

Overturning prima facie discrimination against anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the Left’s sexual identity agenda is more important than changing longstanding Johnson Amendment policy. And, in fact, administration officials promised conservatives this would be done. This is why conservatives backed off the legislative fight to overturn Obama’s discriminatory order in the national defense bill after the election.

While religious liberty opponents claim that because Trump made overtures to the sexual identity lobby during the campaign — and that this promise would contradict the other — is made on a patently false (albeit popular) assumption that rests on the gross mischaracterization that religious liberty protections are “anti-LGBT.”

Rather, as The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson explains at The Daily Signal: “Opponents to the executive order misrepresent the order by claiming it would repeal an Obama-era executive order elevating LGBT status to a protected class in federal contracts … Rather, it protects the religious liberty rights of all Americans in very tailored ways that address problems of today.”

The notion that barring government contracts with businesses that believe in authentic marriage or don’t have men use female bathrooms in their corporate offices is somehow “anti-” anything is absurd. Quite the contrary. Doing business with any contractor irrespective of their views is the default position. Barring those who don’t have transgender bathroom accommodations is itself discriminatory and sets a horrible precedent in the private sector. Let liberty work.

Pres. Trump would be the best ambassador for this message; it would fit right into his branding. He could sign this executive order and say, “Look, I’m a businessman and I want to get the job done. If you are a contractor who gets the job done, you’re hired. If not, you’re fired! I don’t care about what you do in your offices, and I have no plans to discriminate against any side of social debates in this country. In order to get government out of this debate, I’m repealing Obama’s discriminatory and ill-conceived order that has only further divided this country.”

Trump must also remember that by catering to the sexual identity boycott lobby, he will never win a single new vote and will only divide and demoralize his own base. The same individuals and powers behind the immigration-related protests and boycotts are behind the boycotts against religious institutions.

In the first few weeks of the Trump administration, there have been some soundly fulfilled promises worthy of applause from conservatives.

This, however, does not look like one of them.Some might just call anything they read in Politico “fake news.” But this is not just coming from Politico. Everyone knows that these liberal forces are in the White House and conservatives will not win these policy fights by remaining complacent. Conservatives must remember: We can’t be like liberals and hope for change. We must ensure of change. Trust, but verify™.

This is doubly true when it comes to social conservatives, who have essentially been relegated to the back of the bus in the Republican Party … even though their ideas are codified in the GOP platform that Trump praised.

This current situation could be very well be, as The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano told Politico, the avoidance of an “unforced error” early in the administration. This could very well just be one piece of an “Art of the Deal” brand puzzle that will dazzle us all in due time.

But “hope,” warns Francis Bacon, “is a good breakfast, but … a bad supper.” (For more from the author of “Will Trump Defy Pressure to Betray Promises on Religious Liberty?” please click HERE)

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Four Major Takeaways From President Trump’s Nomination of Justice Gorsuch

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Now that the dust has settled in the aftermath of the president’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the battle lines are being drawn, here are four major takeaways.

1. Trump is Fulfilling Campaign Promises — Fast

First, more than any president in memory, Trump is acting swiftly on his campaign promises, and when he said to the American people the night of the Gorsuch announcement that “I am a man of my word,” you had to say to yourself, “Like him or not, he’s doing exactly what he said he would do.” This is incredibly significant.

In February 2016, in the heat of the Republican primaries, I wrote an article titled “Donald Trump, Vacillator-in-Chief,” starting with this: “If Donald Trump ends up being our next president, I will pray that he will be the greatest president we have ever had and I will fervently hope that I’m absolutely wrong about all of my concerns. Until then (or at least until we decide on the Republican nominee), I will sound the alarm and raise my voice as loudly and clearly as I can.

“Do not be duped by Donald Trump!”

Among other examples in the article, I stated that Trump “vacillated wildly when asked whether his sister (of pro-partial birth abortion fame) should be nominated as a Supreme Court justice including: yes; no; I was joking; I wasn’t joking; I have no idea what she believes. (This is a partial, very rough summary.) Then add to the mix that in 2000 he said there should be no abortion litmus test for federal judges.”

That he did the very thing he promised he would do — and quite swiftly at that, given the turmoil surrounding his first weeks in office — is something to commend.

I also pointed out that “During Thursday night’s debate, Leon Wolf tweeted this quote from Trump: ‘I have great respect for Justice Scalia,’ followed by, ‘Trump Less than 5 months ago … slammed Scalia for not supporting affirmative action.’”

As the campaign wore on, Trump’s positions became more and more consistent, to the point that he convinced me that he was serious about nominating a pro-life justice in the mold of Scalia.

So, let it sink in. Donald Trump is keeping his word. (And, as noted in the quote from my February article, I’m glad I was proven wrong. My hope now is that our president will weigh his words even more carefully so that what he promises to do is what he should do.)

2. The Great Divide Between Right and Left

Second, the ideological divide in our country between left and right has never been more stark. (The horrifically costly divisions during the time of the Civil War were along other lines.)

The conservative praise for Gorsuch is off the charts, and I could fill this entire article with links to quotes from well-placed individuals (like Senator Ted Cruz) to influential organizations (like the Family Research Council) to conservative websites (like the National Review Online) all praising Gorsuch as someone truly in the mold of Scalia, a real Constitutionalist, a worthy pro-life nominee.

The reaction against Gorsuch from the left has been at least as strident — if not far more — than the reaction from the right, and it can truly be called hysterical.

An op-ed headline on USA Today announced, “Time for outrageous obstruction against Gorsuch: Jason Sattler,” while Nancy Pelosi said at a CNN Townhall meeting, “If you breathe air, drink water, eat food, take medicine, or in any other way interact with the courts, this is a very bad decision,” labeling Gorsuch a “very hostile appointment.” Could you make yourself a little clearer, Ms. Minority Leader?

It is true that there is a history of hysterical reactions to Supreme Court picks in the past, but the reactions to Gorsuch are just the very sharp, quite obvious tip of the iceberg of massive social divide. Or did a former aide to President George W. Bush suggest the military overthrow of President Obama, as a former aide to Obama just did to Trump? Or did conservative entertainers call for a violent coup against the newly-installed President Obama, as Sarah Silverman just did to Trump? (And let’s not forget Madonna’s expressed desire to blow up the White House.)

The opposition to Gorsuch simply illustrates the intensity and depth of the chasm between right and left.

3. The Democratic Party Can Not Be Appeased

Third, there will be no appeasing the Democratic Party.

As much as Trump may want to be a team player (I do believe he’d like to be seen as someone who can bridge divides) and as much as he is a master negotiator, there will be no appeasing the current Democrat leadership, which is simply dead-set against him.

Forget about common political courtesies.

Forget about building a consensus.

Right now, there’s as much chance as that happening with the Democrats as there is of Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood being nominated pro-life champion of the year.

Of course, Trump’s style of campaigning and leadership has certainly contributed to the conflict, but the Democratic response to Trump’s pick so far — namely, oppose him at all costs, and use every tactic in the book to do it — should be a strong reminder to Trump that a friendly, let’s meet in the middle attitude will be totally counterproductive right now.

The simple fact that some of the same Democrats who voted for Gorsuch in 2006 are now firmly pledged to vote against him says it all.

4. Pray for the Supreme Court

Fourth, believers who pray regularly for our president should also pray for the members of the Supreme Court, especially for Gorsuch should he be appointed, as seems highly likely.

I say that because nothing can be taken for granted with our justices, and hardly anyone would have imagined that Justice Kennedy, appointed by Ronald Reagan, would one day be the swing vote in redefining marriage (really now, who would have imagined during Reagan’s presidency that the Supreme Court would one day sanction homosexual “marriage”?), nor would many have guessed that Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, would have been the swing vote in favor of Obamacare.

It is true that neither Kennedy nor Roberts have the pedigree of Gorsuch, but the significant failings of these two justices should put a cautionary damper on our enthusiasm, at the least, reminding us to pray for Justice Gorsuch to judge righteously if appointed.

The late Justice Scalia famously wrote that “A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”

Unfortunately, that is the system of government which we currently have, and with Neil Gorsuch having the real potential to serve our nation well past the year of 2050, an investment of prayer on his behalf makes good sense.

And while we’re at it, we should pray for God’s mercy on our land. If ever we needed it, it is now. (If I sound like a broken record here, it is quite intentional. America needs the mercy of God!) (For more from the author of “Four Major Takeaways From President Trump’s Nomination of Justice Gorsuch” please click HERE)

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