In six months, the Trump administration plans to produce a plan to shrink the size of government, eliminate programs, and reduce the federal workforce—and is seeking public input on how to proceed.
The memo from Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney directs federal agencies:
As part of their planning efforts, agencies should focus on fundamental scoping questions (i.e. analyzing whether activities should or should not be performed by the agency), and on improvements to existing business processes.
Requiring agencies to justify their functions is long overdue, said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. He said the “scoping” should include determining if activities are “nonessential, whether they violate federalism, and whether they would flunk a cost-benefit test.”
Still, he said the success of the plan could depend on the will of both Congress and political appointees implementing the reforms.
“This could be the best shot we have of eliminating agencies,” Edwards told The Daily Signal. “A lot will depend on the quality of political appointees, and are they committed to smaller government. During the [George W.] Bush administration, a lot of the political appointees were just corporate climbers.”
“Also, will members of Congress be supportive? After [President Donald] Trump’s skinny budget, we saw a lot of Republicans in Congress, unfortunately, defend programs in their region,” Edwards added.
Trump has moved at a very deliberative pace in filling political positions thus far, noted Robert Rector, a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation, who is skeptical of the plan.
“Policy changes can’t come from the bureaucracies themselves,” Rector told The Daily Signal. “Policy change needs to come through Congress and comes when you bring outsiders in to impose reforms.”
Rector said neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Department of Housing and Urban Development were likely to come back with viable plans for change.
“If they did, it’s the exact opposite of what reform you would want,” he said.
In a White House video, Mulvaney said, “President Trump calls it draining the swamp. What it really means is making government more accountable to you, more effective and more efficient.”
The Mulvaney memo doesn’t outline cuts, but with the requirements, the video says, “Mulvaney is building a case to cut government a year from now.”
Mulvaney released the 14-page memo Wednesday, titled “Comprehensive Plan for Reforming the Federal Government and Reducing the Federal Civilian Workforce,” that aims to save tax dollars and require each government agency to submit a proposal to modernize and streamline operations in 180 days. The OMB is seeking input from the public, and will incorporate the final plans into the fiscal year 2019 budget proposal issues next March. President Donald Trump’s signed an executive order on March 13 directing the OMB to submit a comprehensive plan to reorganize the federal government.
The Mulvaney memo proposes “crosscutting reforms” to streamline all programs over the next four years, including reducing the number of federal employees.
But the plan will have opponents. The leader of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers, said, “There are some good ideas and some very dangerous ideas” in the memo.
One he didn’t like stresses more outsourcing, when the government already spends twice as much on contractors as employees, according to the union.
“Nobody knows precisely what these contractors do, how well they do it, who they’re hiring, or where they’re working,” American Federation of Government Employees President J. David Cox said in a statement. “In contrast, the data on federal employees’ jobs, pay, productivity, demographics, and location are completely transparent and widely scrutinized, as is appropriate.”
Cox also defended funding for the Environmental Protection Agency workforce. But the union president did find some common cause with the Trump administration’s report.
He said that it would be useful to evaluate layers of management—or the problem of having too many supervisors per worker.
“As representatives of front-line employees, AFGE members can tell you that excessive ratios of managers to workers on the front lines creates operational inefficiency and takes resources away from the direct provision of services to taxpayers,” Cox said in the statement. “The government does have too many managers and some of those positions should be converted to jobs that serve the American people.”
Reducing the workforce is important, but eliminating whole government programs is where the money is, Edwards said. The report requires agencies to justify why government should be involved in a specific function.
“There is no doubt the left has built a fortress to defend programs,” Edwards said. “Federal money goes to the states and then to city and local governments and every level will defend that money. So will government employees, contractors, and interest groups. It’s a fortress, but it’s not insurmountable. When Republicans are able to cut spending, it doesn’t hurt them politically. It usually helps them.” (For more from the author of “Trump White House Moves Forward with Plan Government Employee Union Dubs ‘Dangerous'” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/donald-trump6-1024x682.jpg6821024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-13 23:14:422017-04-13 23:14:42Trump White House Moves Forward with Plan Government Employee Union Dubs ‘Dangerous’
Two top tax-writing Republicans in the House are calling on the Department of Justice to reopen its investigation into whether former IRS official Lois Lerner unlawfully targeted conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady and Tax Policy Subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Wednesday, noting the Obama administration refused to review the information the committee gathered in its extensive investigation into the matter. According to the congressmen, there is clear evidence Lerner willfully partook in criminal activity during her tenure as the Exempt Organizations Division director, yet former President Barak Obama insisted there was “not a smidgeon of corruption” at the agency.
“On April 9, 2014, the House Committee on Ways and Means voted to send a letter to the Department of Justice referring former IRS Exempt Organizations Division Director Lois G. Lerner for criminal prosecution,” Brady and Roskam wrote. “As indicated in the attached letter, the Committee’s nearly three-year investigation uncovered evidence of willful misconduct on the part of Ms. Lerner. Despite this fact, and for what many believe were purely partisan reasons, the prior administration refused to review Ms. Lerner’s misconduct.”
The lawmakers cited evidence showing Lerner provided misleading information to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s questions and the use of her personal email, which put taxpayers’ confidential information at risk of exposure, as reasons for reopening the investigation.
The DOJ announced in October, 2015, it would not pursue criminal charges against Lerner at the close of its two-year probe. The investigation faced challenges due to Lerner’s crashed hard drive, the absence of email archives and the destruction of over 400 electronic backup tapes, and it was unable to prove the IRS official “intentionally discriminated against an applicant based upon viewpoint” and cited line-employees’ “ignorance, inertia” and “negligence” for delays in tea party applications for r 501(c )(3) status. (Read more from “Top Tax-Writing Republicans Renew Call for DOJ to Investigate Lois Lerner over IRS Scandal” HERE)
As further evidence the United States is inching dangerously toward armed conflict with Russia, China, and Iran, the actual term “World War 3” is being searched on the Internet at an all-time high. Google began tracking topics in 2004. Since that time, the term hasn’t drawn very much of the world’s attention, with the exception of years 2006, 2015, and now, 2017.
Interest in the term “World War 3” first peaked in 2006, when the sovereign state of Israel was engaged in skirmishes with Hezbollah, the Palestinian group some have likened to a terrorist organization. It was called the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006. After enduring an onslaught of homemade missiles by Hezbollah soldiers, Israel retaliated and ended the war laying waste to many parts of Lebanon, the country from which many of the attacks were staged.
Israel was heavily criticized for its heavy-handed bombardment of the sovereign country of Lebanon. The war came to an end in August but not before, apparently, many folks were concerned enough about a global war erupting that they performed a great number of Internet inquiries regarding world war.
Interest in “World War 3” peaked again in November of 2015. That’s when a Russian airliner Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed in the Egyptian desert of Sharm el Sheikh. What was at first considered a tragic accident, soon evolved into an apparent act of terrorism. Later, the Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack. It uploaded pictures of a soda-can-bomb it says it used to bring down the passenger jet, killing all 224 souls aboard.
Now, in 2017, the term “World War III” has once again peaked an interest among Internet users. But this time, the interest dwarfs all previous years. Google describes its rating system in the following way, “Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. Likewise a score of 0 means the term was less than 1% as popular as the peak.” Currently in 2017, the term sits at 100. In 2015, it was at 69, and in 2006, it was at 40. All of which makes many who are watching the current international conflict take place understandably uneasy.
President Donald Trump’s administration, not content with allowing Russia to deal with ISIS, the Syrian Free Army, and others, decided last week to launch a barrage of cruise missiles into Syria in a ‘symbolic’ objection to the reported gassing of Syrian civilians.
Trump, who vowed repeatedly never to go into Syria, waited only 77 days before lighting the fuse that could potentially set off, what some fear to be, according to google, World War 3.
Although the US has been bombing Syria for more than three years, this marks the first time the White House had ordered military action against forces loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
However, as late as Wednesday, Trump backtracked a bit promising the Americans “We’re not going into Syria,” but many of his critics simply don’t believe him. Syria and its allies (Russia and Iran) don’t believe him either and issued their own statements on the matter.
In a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Moscow yesterday, Putin stated,
We have reports from multiple sources that false flags like this one – and I cannot call it otherwise – are being prepared in other parts of Syria, including the southern suburbs of Damascus. They plan to plant some chemical there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack.
With war rhetoric with Russia being at an all-time high since the Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s easy to see why so many people are now googling the term “World War 3.”
Hopefully, we can prove them wrong.
By sharing information about who’s behind this aggression and saber rattling, and why it’s happening, you can deal a blow to the military industrial complex. Please take a look through our archives here — to find the real story.
(For more from the author of “Sign of the Times: Google Searches for ‘World War 3’ Hit Highest Peak EVER” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/google-485611_960_720.png678960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 23:23:542017-04-12 23:23:54Sign of the Times: Google Searches for ‘World War 3’ Hit Highest Peak EVER
It has become quite clear that Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin has come to deeply regret throwing the weight of his security state behind now-President Donald Trump’s election campaign. Unlike the administration preceding him, Trump has acted decisively to combat Russia’s worldwide influence. From the American missile strikes against the Assad regime in Syria to the inclusion of Montenegro to NATO, Putin massively miscalculated in his strategy to use his state-media and other influence and intelligence operations to support President Trump’s bid for the presidency.
Moscow is infuriated that Trump officials have charged Russia with being intimately involved in Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons attack on innocents in Syria last week. According to top U.S. officials, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed a hospital to cover up for the Assad regime’s use of the Sarin nerve agent (which is classified as a weapon of mass destruction) against Syrian men, women, and children. A senior National Security Council official told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. was able to confirm the aforementioned events thanks to a combination of open source intelligence, signals intelligence, and evidence samples.
In another move that angered Moscow this week, Trump approved the addition of Montenegro to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which was originally conceived — and remains partially purposed — to stop Russian intrusion into northern and eastern Europe. Russia fiercely opposes the expansion of NATO, which the Kremlin sees as an adversarial military entity.
Russian strongman Putin has basically admitted the honeymoon period between he and Trump is over, telling state-media on Wednesday: “One could say that the level of trust on a working level [with the United States government], especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated.”
His remarks come as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian officials. Tillerson was initially set to converse with the Russian president, then Putin cancelled their meeting. Now it appears that they will indeed meet Wednesday.
Tillerson’s counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, has added himself to the long list of Moscow officials who have become upset with Trump’s policies.
“I won’t hide the fact that we have a lot of questions, taking into account the extremely ambiguous and sometimes contradictory ideas which have been expressed in Washington across the whole spectrum of bilateral and multilateral affairs,” Lavrov pouted during his meeting with Tillerson. “And of course, that’s not to mention that apart from the statements, we observed very recently the extremely worrying actions, when an illegal attack against Syria was undertaken.”
Doubling down on his anti-Putin stance, President Trump has personally added weight to critiques against the Russian leader. Discussing the Syrian strikes on Fox Business Wednesday, Trump said Putin “is backing a person that’s truly an evil person.”
Trump has also ramped up pressure on Russian allies in Iran and China. White House officials continue to refer to Moscow as being on a diplomatic “island,” utilizing the metaphor to showcase Putin’s waning influence over global affairs.
Additionally, both U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Secretary Tillerson have called out Russia for its moral depravity in a way rarely seen in overt channels.
Last week, both Haley and Tillerson unleashed intense critiques against Russian involvement in Syria. Russia has “no interest in peace” in Syria, Ambassador Haley opined. Secretary Tillerson added that Russia and Iran “bear moral responsibility” for Assad’s slaughter.
During the American presidential campaign, Russia acted decisively in selling out in Trump’s favor. To be clear, no firm evidence has ever been presented to indicate that the Russians swung the election in Trump’s favor or even successfully influenced a single voter. Still, from the time in which he was the GOP frontrunner up to Election Day, Russian state television had nothing but good things to say about candidate Trump.
President Trump held his cards close, while his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was much more up front in criticizing the Russian government.
All indications seemed to imply that Trump was the dream candidate for Moscow. He refused to criticize Putin for his country’s vast human rights abuses, seemed open to cooperating with Russia on a variety of issues, and was openly skeptical about NATO and the European Union.
In response, Moscow appeared to observe the rhetoric of Clinton and Trump as an indicator for future action. To the honest observer of Russian media, it became very clear who the Kremlin supported, given that the state controls the media agenda. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia took their efforts a step further and attempted to influence the election in Trump’s favor by harming Secretary Clinton’s favorability. An intelligence community assessment stated that “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference” for Trump and attempted to “denigrate” and “harm” Clinton’s electability.
In their rage, leftist media outlets floated countless conspiracies involving Trump being allegedly controlled by Putin. In one such example, Clinton partisan and former CIA official Mike Morrell called Trump an “unwitting agent” of Russia. To this day, zero evidence has surfaced to confirm their wild allegations. The establishment media, like the Russians, appeared to misread Trump in a similar manner.
The Russians grossly miscalculated. It’s hard to imagine, just 82 days into a presidency, that Hillary Clinton would move so decisively against the Putin regime in the way that President Trump has. In less than ninety days, Trump has managed to infuriate Putin to the point where, in a sulking fit, he canceled a meeting with the U.S. secretary of state.
President Trump was never the “unwitting agent” of Russia the media made him out to be. In the end, Trump played the Russian government like a fiddle, leaving the Kremlin more vulnerable than ever. (For more from the author of “Putin and the MSM Just Learned a Painful Lesson … Trump Played Them Like a Fiddle” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/32445930143_0e442d0896_b.jpg5951024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 22:56:262017-04-12 22:56:26Putin and the MSM Just Learned a Painful Lesson … Trump Played Them Like a Fiddle
In the wake of the controversy surrounding United Airlines’ forcible ejection of a passenger in order to make room for four employees, America’s most unpopular governor, Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., is demanding government take action to inconvenience everyone else who flies on planes as well.
On April 9, four passengers were asked to give up their seats on a full United Airlines flight from Chicago to Kentucky to make room for off-duty airline employees who were needed in Louisville the next day. Three passengers went peacefully and one did not. The man who refused to leave the plane created a social media firestorm after video of him being forcibly dragged out and injured surfaced.
The video has caused national shock and outrage, with many — including Gov. Christie — demanding action be taken against United Airlines. The action the governor favors, of course, is government action.
Appearing on Fox News Wednesday, Christie made the case that the Trump administration should stop the practice of airline overbooking.
“They kicked those people off … to make money and they’re doing it with the permission of the federal government,” Christie said. “So what I’m saying to the administration is, stop them from doing it.”
To that end, Governor Christie sent a letter Tuesday to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao declaring that New Jersey will look for ways to stop overbooking. The letter also demanded the federal government begin issuing regulations to stop the practice.
“The recent conduct of United Airlines personnel has shined a bright light on an issue which the president’s announced regulatory reform could target and benefit travelers all across America,” Christie wrote.
Of course, President Trump wants to repeal regulations. Gov. Christie is arguing for the implementation of a new regulation. In his letter, he called the legal airline practice of overbooking “unconscionable,” insisting that the administration put a stop to the practice.
“The lives of traveling New Jerseyans are being affected every day by the abusive use of this practice,” Christie wrote. “We need this administration to stand up for our traveling Americans. We need to put it to a stop.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation website explains that airlines overbook their scheduled flights to compensate for “no shows.” A flight booked with empty seats is a flight that wastes money, and airlines simply have not been profitable enough in the past to absorb that cost. Christie’s idea is to force airlines to schedule unprofitable flights in the name of protecting consumers, potentially inflicting costs on these companies which they will pass to consumers in the form of more expensive airline tickets and higher airline fees.
The government already mandates consumer protections that require any airline that involuntarily removes passengers to compensate the passengers removed. United Airlines attempted to do this, offering up to $1,000 in flight vouchers for anyone inconvenienced. The price, however, was not raised high enough to entice their customers to get off the plane voluntarily.
The public outrage at United has already forced two apologies from the airline and from its CEO. The man injured while being dragged off the plane likely has a sizeable lawsuit in the works against the airline. And United’s competitors are already taking advantage of their damaged reputation to offer better customer service.
My @SouthwestAir flight attendant said today as I disembarked: ”Thank you for flying SW, where we beat our competitors not our customers."
In other words, the free market is already working to correct the customer abuses Chris Christie wants government to fix. And the government solution Christie proposes would further inconvenience every commercial flyer in the nation.
Which is typical for a government “solution.” (For more from the author of “NJ Gov. Chris Christie Wants Government to Fix Your Airline Problems by Making Everything More Expensive” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/12988514765_efe4ccb8ec_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 22:45:262017-04-12 22:45:26NJ Gov. Chris Christie Wants Government to Fix Your Airline Problems by Making Everything More Expensive
With just a few days on the Supreme Court under his belt, America’s newest justice will hear arguments in a religious liberty case nearly 150 years in the making next week – one that could have a sweeping impact on a majority of state constitutions.
It all began with a church playground and some tire scraps.
The case of Trinity Lutheran v. Cromer started in January 2013 after the state of Missouri denied a preschool access to a statewide public safety program that provides recycled tires for playgrounds simply because the preschool was operated by a church.
In short, they wanted to remove the pea gravel surfacing encompassing the recreational space with safer – and much more boo-boo averse – tire scraps.
Why were they turned down? Because Missouri is one of the majority of U.S. states that have what’s known as a Blaine Amendment. These are legal relics from the 19th century that were dreamed up during a fervor of anti-Catholic sentiment in American history.
Now the question before the Supreme Court, now rounded out with Justice Gorsuch, is whether or not laws like those in Missouri that block public funds from going to religious organizations – regardless of the purpose – are indeed in line with the First Amendment.
The Blaine Amendment is named after former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine of Maine, who in 1875 proposed a constitutional amendment stipulating that “no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefore, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations.”
The policy initiative was a response to Catholic schools seeking equal footing in the public square for their desired academic and spiritual curricula. See, at the time, public schools were overwhelmingly Protestant in tone and curriculum; when Catholics asked for equal treatment in education, anti-papal politicians responded in kind.
While Blaine’s law never made it past the U.S. Senate, similar measures took hold in state constitutions across the country. Now some 37 states still have them on the books, leading to situations like that of the Trinity Lutheran playground.
Proponents of such amendments – like the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the ACLU, and the Satanic Temple – view these sorts of laws as a means of preserving the so-called “separation of church and state doctrine.” However, such a doctrine appears nowhere in the Constitution nor Bill of Rights (absent from the Philadelphia Convention), and didn’t make an appearance in the legal discussion until 1947. [See: Lee, “Our Lost Constitution”]
But Erik Stanley, a senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom and director of the group’s Center for Christian Ministries, says that what these kinds of laws effectively do is impose a harsher vision of the “separation of church and state” than the Constitution requires, while discriminating against organizations — which violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
“You can’t violate the Free Exercise Clause by trying to have some greater degree of separation of church and state at the state level,” Stanley explains. “Essentially, what Missouri is trying to do is say, ‘Well, upholding our definition of the separation of church and state in our state constitution is treating religion worse than everybody else.’”
One case that Stanley points to is a religious discrimination case from the 1970s in which an 18th century Tennessee law barred Paul McDaniel – a Baptist minister – from being a state constitutional delegate. In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court found that the Tennessee law violated the free exercise of religion by making McDaniel’s civil liberties conditional on his willingness to renounce his religious liberties. Therein lies the parallel between this case and a children’s playground in the Show Me State.
“There’s no valid, neutral reason to exclude Trinity Lutheran Church” from the tire scrap program, Erik Stanley said, saying that the church went through the application process and was highly rated for the program. “The only real reason to exclude them was because of their religious status, which is the same as what happened in McDaniel.”
Blaine Amendments don’t just keep playgrounds from getting publicly available safety equipment. Back in October I wrote about how a similar provision in Oklahoma is keeping kids with special needs from using public scholarship money at schools that fit them.
One such example was Wyatt Johnson – born three months premature, hearing imparted, and now a teenager – whose family spent years in litigation trying to get his public scholarship money to Metro Christian Academy in Tulsa. (Sooner State voters opted against getting rid of the law with a ballot initiative in November.)
Furthermore, if you let the logic behind these sorts of rulings play out fully, you run into all sorts of absurdities.
“If [Missouri] can deny Trinity Lutheran access to this neutral benefit program which has nothing to do with religion, solely because of the fact that it’s a church, then they could deny all kinds of things,” Stanley explains. “They could say that we’re not going to send the fire department to a burning mosque or that they’re not going to send police to a synagogue break-in, because those are also neutral benefits that provide aid to religion.”
The question on everyone’s mind now is how Justice Gorsuch will rule in one of the most consequential cases of his first term.
Throughout his months-long confirmation process, Gorsuch’s record on religious liberty as a circuit judge was praised by First Amendment advocates. Now, as a jurist charged with the most difficult legal questions facing our republic, those who awaited his appointment with bated breath will finally get to see how he will rule on an issue so clouded in stigma and misconception.
Stanley is optimistic about the outcome of the case, saying Gorsuch “proved himself to be a friend of religious liberty in how he ruled on the 10th Circuit court,” and that the ADF team has “every reason to believe that he’ll continue that at the Supreme Court.”
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for April 19. (For more from the author of “Gorsuch’s First Few Weeks on the Job Could Have a Monumental Effect on Religious Liberty” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Neil_Gorsuch_10th_Circuit-2.jpg32642448Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 22:40:402017-04-12 22:40:40Gorsuch’s First Few Weeks on the Job Could Have a Monumental Effect on Religious Liberty
President Donald Trump’s order of a missile strike on a military base in retaliation for the Syrian government’s deadly chemical attack on civilians served as a strong, decisive message to bad actors worldwide, congressional Republicans say, and signified the new administration would hew closely to the traditional concept of American power.
In interviews with The Daily Signal, Republicans of all stripes said they were OK that Trump did not consult Congress before he authorized the strike, in which 59 cruise missiles hit a Syrian air base early Friday morning local time.
It was the first U.S. military action against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the country’s six years of civil war.
But as the Trump administration hints at a tougher approach to the Assad regime, Republican lawmakers say they expect to have a greater influence on future military action.
“With this very positive action in Syria, the president has now brought to the forefront the need for a discussion between Congress and the administration about strategy going forward,” said Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., a freshman lawmaker and Vietnam War veteran. “This event has become a catalyst for the next logical step that we have to have as a country. It’s an opportunity for us as a country to show collaborative leadership within our system.”
Bergman called for the Trump administration to propose an official Authorization for Use of Military Force for Congress to review. Rather than delineating a specific strategy, an AUMF—as the authorization is known—gives the basic legal authority for the U.S. military to use force against an enemy.
“Congress cannot be disengaged,” Bergman told The Daily Signal in an interview. “We need to be involved in creating an AUMF of the future and understand this not a political game. This is about national security.”
How Congress Can Authorize Force
The Trump administration, like its predecessor, is carrying out a military campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS, in multiple countries, including Syria.
It takes these actions under an existing AUMF from 2001 permitting the targeting of groups connected to the 9/11 attacks and the 2002 AUMF authorizing the Iraq War.
President Barack Obama, in his second term, urged Congress to give him new authority to use force against ISIS, but there was bipartisan reluctance to do so and lawmakers never took a full vote on such an authorization.
After the U.S. missile strikes last week, some lawmakers—of both parties—said Trump should seek congressional approval for an AUMF that specifically authorizes the U.S. military to fight Assad.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said it would not be appropriate to use the 2001 authorization, which was intended to fight al-Qaeda, because the Assad regime “is certainly not connected to that group.”
“If you go back to the Federalist Papers, the Constitution is clear the commander in chief is the commander when the military is in the field, but Congress and the American people are responsible for calling out the military to move into battle—whether it’s through a war declaration or authorization for use of military force,” Lankford, a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said she supported Trump’s decision to strike the Syrian air base, but that Congress should consider any proposed future military action in Syria.
“If the president intends to escalate the U.S. military’s involvement in Syria, he must come to Congress for an Authorization for Use of Military Force which is tailored to meet the threat and prevent another open-ended war in the Middle East,” Pelosi said in a prepared statement to reporters.
Some Republican lawmakers interviewed by The Daily Signal were more nuanced in their views, saying they are prepared to wait for the Trump administration to first firm up a broader strategy for the Syrian conflict before proposing any future force.
“No recent president in decades has ever needed to go to Congress for such a single strike occasion,” Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “That’s exactly the type of situation where the president is given authority under the Constitution to act. I do expect and feel confident the president will brief members of Congress when we return [from Easter recess], and I think we will be brought up to date on what the policy might be and future actions might be. We will have to wait and see if it scales to an all-out war.”
So far, Trump’s strategy is unclear.
During the presidential campaign, Trump emphasized his focus in Syria would be on defeating ISIS, which maintains its base in that country. And in the early weeks of his administration, the White House articulated that facilitating the removal of Assad from power was not a priority.
Last week, Trump’s calculus seemed to change when the president said the chemical weapons attack had “crossed a lot of lines for me” and that his attitude toward Syria and Assad “has changed very much.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer seemed to suggest Monday that Trump would act against Syria not just if it again used chemical weapons, but also when it used conventional munitions such as barrel bombs—powerful explosive devices often filled with shrapnel.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates the Syrian government dropped 12,958 barrel bombs in 2016, resulting in the deaths of 653 civilians.
“If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you will see a response from this president,” Spicer said in his daily briefing.
‘Nothing Has Changed’
Spicer walked back and clarified his comment later Monday.
“Nothing has changed in our posture,” Spicer said in a statement to reporters. “The president retains the option to act in Syria against the Assad regime whenever it is in the national interest, as was determined following that government’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens.”
Other Trump administration officials in recent days have sought to downplay the prospects for future military action against the Assad regime.
Defense Secretary James Mattis, speaking to reporters Tuesday, said the administration’s priority in Syria “remains the defeat of ISIS.”
“Our military policy in Syria has not changed,” Mattis said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is meeting with Russian government officials this week, told reporters that the U.S. seeks a negotiated resolution to the Syrian civil war and wants Moscow’s help in pushing Assad from power.
“The final outcome does not provide a role for Assad or the Assad family in the future governance in Syria,” Tillerson said in a Wednesday news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Trump, in an interview on Fox Business that aired Wednesday morning, said simply: “We’re not going into Syria.”
Later Wednesday, Trump called Assad “a butcher” and said U.S. relations with Russia could be at an “all-time low.”
“Right now, we’re not getting along with Russia at all—we may be at an all-time low in terms of a relationship with Russia,” Trump said during a news conference at the White House with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO. “This has built for a long period of time, but we’re going to see what happens.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Trump administration should clearly articulate its priorities in Syria to Congress.
“I am someone who believes strongly we should never send troops into harm’s way unless we have a clear plan to win,” Zeldin told The Daily Signal in an interview, adding:
Part of executing a strategy to win includes getting everybody on the same page to what winning looks like. There is debate that will take place whether Assad should stay in power, and what role the U.S. should have in the region and around the world. While not every part of this debate should be televised for the adversary to see, at the same time there is a responsibility to ensure we are making the right decisions so that the American public is supportive of our efforts.
Lankford said the Trump administration ought to be focused both on defeating ISIS and helping to remove Assad, because the Syrian dictator’s leadership fuels terrorism.
“We hope Assad’s status is resolved diplomatically, but you can’t do diplomacy without a credible military threat behind it,” the Oklahoma Republican said.
If the Trump administration does not provide “a clearly articulated vision” for its strategy in Syria, Lankford said, “Congress should not move forward on any action.”
“No one knows what the American policy is in Syria right now, and what it stands for and will not stand for,” Lankford said. “None of our allied countries in the region will help in the fight unless they know where America stands. The Trump administration has to fix that or the international community will have no reason to engage.”
Constitution ‘Pretty Clear’
Other Republican lawmakers are more specific about what set of U.S. actions in Syria should require congressional oversight.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Congress should review any proposed “boots on the ground” in Syria dedicated to targeting the Assad regime.
“The Constitution is pretty clear, you are gonna have a debate in the Congress,” Jordan said in a speech Tuesday in his home district that was attended by a Daily Signal reporter. “That’s the way the founders laid this thing out. If it’s gonna escalate, if it’s gonna be something with boots on the ground or anything like that, I think we’ve got to be real careful about that, and it would warrant a full debate in the House and the Senate before we go any further.”
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., also of the Freedom Caucus, said he expects the Trump administration to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war—as Obama did.
But if Trump failed, and then sought military action against Assad, Congress should have a say, Harris said.
“If further escalation involving serious military force is necessary, the president should consult with Congress first,” Harris told The Daily Signal in an interview.
“For instance, if the administration decides its diplomatic efforts weren’t working and decided they needed to attack the Syrian air force, that is probably something they should obtain congressional approval for,” Harris said.
He doesn’t believe Trump would need Congress’ blessing if the president sought to create no-fly and safe zones in Syria to protect civilians, the Maryland Republican added.
‘Part of the Action’
In the interviews, the Republican lawmakers were not unified in describing how Congress should be incorporated into Trump’s Syria plan.
The GOP lawmakers appear prepared to give the president some freedom now that he has shown himself not to be wedded to the isolationist foreign policy approach he espoused in the campaign.
“I think President Trump has a lot different view of the world than candidate Trump,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “He won’t sit back and say, ‘This is how I want the world to be’ without regard for the facts of a given situation.”
“This president is an action guy,” Kelly said, “and I trust he will rely on the advice given by his military advisers. But Congress does need to be a part of the action. That’s our responsibility constitutionally, and I would never walk away from that.” (For more from the author of “Republican Lawmakers Expect Role for Congress in Military Force against Syria” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/5114510558_3d0946b2a0_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 22:37:022017-04-12 22:37:02Republican Lawmakers Expect Role for Congress in Military Force against Syria
In late March, a group of protesters staged a demonstration at a memorial dedicated to victims of communist regimes by raising their middle fingers toward it.
The group gathered at the Victims of Communism Memorial in the District of Columbia and proceeded to broadcast their obscene gesture against the statue on Twitter. According to The Federalist, the small protest was part of a larger one held against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s conference—a pro-Israel gathering.
The photo was posted by a Twitter user with the handle @BlackAutonomist, a black liberation, pro-Palestine activist, according to his bio. Some commenters on the photo mocked the idea that communism has victims and posted imagery of a burning American flag.
The Daily Signal contacted the protester who posted the photo, and the individual rejected the opportunity to comment.
Lee Edwards, a founder and chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, responded to this report by telling The Daily Signal:
I invite all those who recently disrespected the Victims of Communism Memorial to attend the 10th anniversary of the Memorial’s dedication on June 9 and to talk to the Chinese victims of Tiananmen Square, the Cambodian victims of the Khmer Rouge, the Russian victims of the Gulag, the Korean victims of the fanatical Kims, the Cuban victims of the Isle of Pines, the Hungarian victims of the 1956 Revolution, and all the other victims of communism.
“After which, I would hope they would tender an abject apology for their shameful action,” Edwards, who is also a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, added.
In contrast, Danilo Maldonado Machado, a Cuban graffiti artist known as El Sexto who was jailed under the communist regime, reacted to the memorial by posing in front of it with a solemn expression.
In response to the middle finger demonstration, Maldonado told The Daily Signal, “It is only fair that there is a monument to the indigenous victims … the victims who daily pass in these regions should [not] be disrespected.”
Maldonado also recently testified to a Senate subcommittee against the Castro regime by saying, “I ask the people and the government of the United States to pressure Raul Castro’s regime to release the thousands of political prisoners existent in my country … at least 85 percent of the present prison population would be considered innocent in any democratic country and would have never been sent to prison.”
The institution that sponsored the memorial, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, is a nonprofit created to commemorate those who were victimized under communist governments. It also advocates for the freedom of people who are still living under such regimes.
The memorial was opened on the 20th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate speech against the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, in which he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” President George W. Bush dedicated the statue.
According to the Victims of Communism website, private funds were raised to pay for the memorial and it was designed to look similar to the “Goddess of Democracy” statue erected by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, during their bloody protest against the Chinese government.
Etched into the front of the memorial is the dedication, “To the more than one hundred million victims of communism and to those who love liberty.” The back inscription says, “To the freedom and independence of all captive nations and peoples.” (For more from the author of “Protesters Make Obscene Gesture at Victims of Communism Memorial” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/840px-Victims_of_Communism_Memorial_DBKing_A.jpg768840Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 22:31:172017-04-12 22:31:17Protesters Make Obscene Gesture at Victims of Communism Memorial
With members of Congress home in their districts for the next two weeks, negotiations over a health care bill repealing and replacing Obamacare remain ongoing as Republicans continue working to gain consensus on a plan.
After the House GOP’s health care bill was pulled from the floor last month, Republicans left Washington, D.C., with little progress made on their campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare.
But conservative and centrist Republicans have continued to discuss the path forward for health care reform with fellow lawmakers, the White House, and even Democrats in hopes of brokering a deal.
According to USA Today, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., is in “final negotiations” with Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., co-chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group, and members of House leadership of a deal they hope will win the support of a majority of House Republicans.
The plan to repeal and replace Obamacare would allow states to seek waivers to opt out of some of Obamacare’s regulations, but keep in place a provision that requires insurers to cover customers with pre-existing conditions.
“What we’re trying to do is work through issues that are important to all of us but make sure that pre-existing conditions are taken care of,” Meadows told USA Today.
Meadows and fellow members of the House Freedom Caucus have been urging Republican leaders to put forth legislation that tackles the rising cost of health insurance premiums.
Conservatives felt the original health care bill failed to do that, and in the face of considerable opposition from Freedom Caucus members and centrist Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill late last month.
Since then, Meadows has been in frequent contact with his fellow Republicans, GOP leaders, and Vice President Mike Pence in hopes of brokering a deal that repeals some of Obamacare’s insurance regulations—which conservatives say drove up the cost of premiums—but also protects sick patients.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a Freedom Caucus leader, said the group has always been concerned with making sure people with pre-existing conditions are protected.
The conservative caucus backed a plan from Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., that would require insurers to cover patients with pre-existing conditions so long as they maintained continuous coverage.
“We just want to reward responsible behavior,” Jordan told The Daily Signal.
The Ohio Republican said the roughly 30-member Freedom Caucus supports Meadows and his efforts to find consensus on a health care bill, and Jordan said the group’s chairman has briefed his fellow conservatives. But Jordan also stressed that they want to see the proposal’s language first before agreeing to a deal.
“[Meadows] has been working hard to try to figure out a way we can actually bring down premium costs for American families,” Jordan said. “In order to do that, there are certain Obamacare regulations that have to be repealed. That’s what we’ve been focused on and we’ll continue to focus on, and we’re trying to get to an agreement there.”
While Meadows has continued talks with fellow Republicans and the White House, Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., co-chair of the Tuesday Group, has been speaking with House Democrats in an attempt to pursue bipartisan health care reform, he told Axios.
“If we attempt to muscle this thing through on a partisan basis, I feel we’ll have a similar result,” Dent said, referencing Obamacare.
Working with Democrats, he said, would require Republicans to scrap the current health care bill and start over.
Joining Dent and Meadows, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, is also getting in on the health care talks.
According to Axios, the Republican has talked to both Dent and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, about reforming the health care system.
Members of Congress returned to their districts Friday for a two-week recess, and Republicans are already fielding questions from constituents about the future of the Affordable Care Act and their plans to replace the law.
Though lawmakers are scheduled to remain home until the end of April—they’ll return to Washington with four days to pass a stopgap spending bill—Meadows isn’t ruling out an early return.
“It’s our encouragement to have a vote as soon as we possibly can, even perhaps before we return back to D.C. in 13 days,” Meadows told a North Carolina radio station Tuesday.
The Freedom Caucus chairman also said a deal is “very close”—a statement the White House agreed with.
“We clearly are getting closer, more votes are moving in our direction, and these ideas are very helpful as we are getting closer,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said during a press briefing Tuesday. “We feel buoyed by the direction this is going.”
Before members left Washington, Republicans unveiled a late change to the health care bill, called the American Health Care Act, after President Donald Trump urged them to make some progress on the proposal.
On Thursday, the House Rules Committee added an amendment sponsored by Reps. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., and David Schweikert, R-Ariz.—both Freedom Caucus members—to the legislation that created an invisible risk-sharing program, which they say is intended to lower premiums and protect sick customers.
The amendment was created to address the concerns of both centrist Republicans and conservatives, who both took issue with the original health care bill and backed the change. (For more from the author of “Health Care Talks Continue as Republicans Face Questions on Obamacare Repeal” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/obamacare-3.jpg8001200Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-04-12 21:57:332017-04-12 21:57:33Health Care Talks Continue as Republicans Face Questions on Obamacare Repeal
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a ultimatum to Russian President Vladimir Putin over his support of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. He made the comments Tuesday to reporters after a meeting with diplomats in Italy.
Tillerson pressured the G-7 countries to join together against Assad’s regime, and demanded that Putin choose between his ally in Syria accused of war crimes and Hezbollah, or join his detractors, led by the United States. He also made it clear that the United States placed at least part of the blame on Russia for the chemical attack.
“Last week Bashar al-Assad’s regime killed even more of its own people using chemical weapons,” he explained. “Our missile strike in response to his repeated use of banned weapons was necessary as a matter of U.S. national security interests. We do not want the regime’s uncontrolled stockpile of chemical weapons to fall into the hands of ISIS, or other terrorist groups who could and want to attack the United States and our allies” . . .
“It is also clear that Russia has failed to uphold the agreements they had entered into under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Tillerson added. “These agreements stipulated Russia as the guarantor of a Syria free of chemical weapons, that they would also locate and destroy all such armaments in Syria. Stockpiles and continued use demonstrate that Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on its 2013 commitment. It is unclear whether Russia failed to take this obligation seriously, or Russia has been incompetent.” (Read more from “Tillerson Issues Tough Ultimatum to Putin” HERE)
