Trump Looks to Rebound With Tax Reform

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The White House sees the possibility of broad support for tax reform, and an opportunity for President Donald Trump to take up an issue that hasn’t advanced in three decades—fresh off a legislative defeat Friday on replacing Obamacare.

“It’s been 30 years. We have an economy that has evolved, especially in the technology area that has made a lot of things change, and I think our tax code is outdated,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Monday. “Frankly, on the business side, we are uncompetitive. There is a reason companies are leaving America to go to other places.”

The United States has the highest corporate income tax rate of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the 34 most industrialized nations in the world.

After 2013 tax increases, small business owners can pay a top federal income tax rate of 39.6 percent, and an additional 3.8 percent investment surtax that became law as part of Obamacare. The 2013 deal also pushes the top federal tax rate on small business income to 43.4 percent.

Large corporations actually pay a lower federal tax rate of 35 percent, according to an analysis by The Heritage Foundation.

Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan had argued that a failure to pass Republican leadership’s American Health Care Act would inhibit achievement of tax reform. As it turned out, conservatives successfully opposed the bill for not fully repealing Obamacare.

“We will probably be going right now for tax reform, which we could have done earlier, but this really would have worked out better if we could have had some Democrat support,” Trump said Friday after the collapse of the health care bill.

After Ryan pulled the GOP health care bill for lack of enough Republican votes, the Trump administration reportedly is looking past conservative Republicans in Congress to try to build a coalition of centrist Democrats to pass tax reform.

Republicans for years have sought to reform a long, complicated tax code, simplifying it both to lower rates and to make compliance cheaper. The bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission also called for simplifying the code to reduce deductions.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said over the weekend, referring to Republicans and the health care bill: “They’re going to repeat the same mistake they made on Trumpcare with tax reform.”

Bipartisanship isn’t likely, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

But Norquist said tax reform will have to come without the $1 trillion in tax cuts that were part of the scuttled House GOP’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, which he supported.

A bill would have to be crafted to pass with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate to prevent a Democratic filibuster, he said.

“It is still possible to have some tax reform, but it would have to be with 51 votes in the Senate,” Norquist told The Daily Signal. “There aren’t eight Democratic votes for it.”

Norquist said he sees three likely options at this point: One, though unlikely, would be to redo the health care bill to cut the $1 trillion in taxes.

The second option would be a “watered down” proposal cutting the top corporate tax rate to 28 percent, rather than 20 percent as Republicans in Congress have proposed. The third option would be to go big on tax reform—or push for the entire House GOP proposal—but make the cuts temporary, “sunsetting” in 10 years, to win over moderate votes.

House Republicans’ “Better Way” blueprint for tax reform would produce the lowest marginal tax rates since the 1920s.

The top individual rate would drop from 43.4 percent to 33 percent. The top rate for corporations would drop from 35 percent to 20 percent, and the top rate for small businesses would drop from 43.4 percent to 25 percent.

The Tax Foundation, a conservative-leaning tax research and advocacy group, estimates the House plan would grow the economy by 9.1 percent over 10 years, while reducing revenue by $191 billion.

Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., together have introduced a tax reform proposal, and Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have introduced separate plans.

The Trump proposal most likely would try to follow the House blueprint, said Adam Michel, an economic policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation.

“I hope Republican leadership learned a little bit from the health care bill about building consensus among members,” Michel told The Daily Signal, adding:

It will be about simplifying corporate and individual rates, and simplifying and eliminating some deductions. The Obama administration supported lowering corporate rates and eliminating deductions at one point, so there is at least theoretically some bipartisan support.

Michel, however, said he doesn’t anticipate there will be bipartisan support for the bill in the current political climate.

Congressional Democrats appear ready to oppose Trump on everything except, perhaps, a proposal to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. (For more from the author of “Trump Looks to Rebound With Tax Reform” please click HERE)

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US Sending Around 200 More Troops to Middle East, Official Says

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Two companies from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are being deployed to the Middle East to bolster security in either Iraq or Syria at the request of the top American commander in Baghdad fighting ISIS, a U.S. defense official with knowledge of the order told Fox News.

It is not immediately clear where the roughly 200 additonal troops will end up. That decision will be made by Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top commander of the U.S.-led coalition charged with running the war against ISIS on the ground.

The Pentagon was expected to provide more details on the deployment Monday.

In recent weeks, multiple press reports said upwards of 1,000 additional American troops would deploy to Kuwait or Syria to act as a “reserve force.” These reports were said to be inaccurate by multiple Pentagon officials.

“I don’t foresee us bringing in large numbers of coalition troops, mainly because what we’re doing is in fact working,” said Townsend in a press briefing with Pentagon reporters earlier this month. (Read more from “US Sending Around 200 More Troops to Middle East, Official Says” HERE)

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Trump’s Border Wall Proposal Faces Many Obstacles

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President Donald Trump has now laid out exactly what he wants in the “big, beautiful wall” that he’s promised to build on the U.S.-Mexico border. But his effort to build a huge hurdle to those entering the U.S. illegally faces impediments of its own.

It’s still not clear how Trump will pay for the wall that, as described in contracting notices, would be 30 feet (9 meters) high and easy on the eye for those looking at it from the north. The Trump administration will also have to contend with unfavorable geography and many legal battles . . .

Trump promised that Mexico would pay for his wall, a demand Mexico has repeatedly rejected. Trump’s first budget proposal to Congress, a preliminary draft that was light on details, asked lawmakers for a $2.6 billion down payment for the wall. An internal report prepared for Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly estimated that a wall along the entire border would cost about $21 billion. Congressional Republicans have estimated a more moderate price tag of $12 billion to $15 billion. Trump himself has suggested a cost of about $12 billion. (Read more from “Trump’s Border Wall Proposal Faces Many Obstacles” HERE)

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Ex-Asst FBI Director: Disgraceful “Fifth Column” at War With Trump, Threatens Rule of Law

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A former assistant FBI director during the President Bill Clinton administration lashed out on the felonious intelligence community leaks, saying it is “disgusting” and “disgraceful” a “fifth column” is embedded working against President Donald Trump.

“From time to time there’s been leaks, but nothing like today,” James Kallstrom told Sunday’s “The Cats Roundtable” on 970 AM-N.Y. “We have a fifth column that’s marching strong against our president, marching strong against our culture and the American way. “And it is just disgusting.”

Kallstrom said the surveillance of President Trump’s campaign – whether it was lawful or not – should have been “shut down” when it incidentally captured American citizens, but “political appointments at high levels” have worked to discredit President Trump.

“I hope there is an investigation, and I hope we get to the bottom of it,” Kallstrom told host John Catsimatidis. “How many people had that information? Where was it disseminated? Who made the decision to release the names of American citizens?

“We need to get to the bottom of it and get to the bottom of it quickly. And that’s not a political thing. It doesn’t matter what party you’re from. This is about America and the rule of law.” (Read more from “Ex-Asst FBI Director: Disgraceful “Fifth Column” at War With Trump, Threatens Rule of Law” HERE)

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The Freedom Caucus Owes GOP Leadership an Apology

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Congressman Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, is really naive.

You see, when all Republicans running for office ran incessant ads during the past four election cycles promising to fully repeal Obamacare, Meadows actually thought they meant it! What a fool.
When Mitch McConnell promised to repeal Obamacare “root and branch,” Meadows actually thought that he meant … well … root and branch.

And when Mr. Meadows read the fifth sentence of Speaker Paul Ryan’s “Better Way to Fix Health Care,” which declared, “Obamacare must be fully repealed so we can start over and take a new approach,” well, he though it meant full repeal, starting over, and a new approach.

Meadows, along with a few of his compatriots, didn’t seem to get the memo: that this was all a joke. Who do they think they are? Amelia Bedelia? Doesn’t he know they only meant to repeal the funding mechanism of Obamacare to make it more insolvent?

That’s not the only thing for which Mr. Meadows owes an apology.

Meadows seemed to bring to Congress some foreign idea that facts and details about a bill and a policy matter. Doesn’t he know that “something” is better than “nothing?”

He also seems to have this archaic belief that one should actually understand the policies of the issues they are dealing with. You know, kind of the way an accountant knows accounting and an engineer knowns engineering, Mr. Meadows oddly believed that his colleagues understood what Obamacare is and isn’t. Sure, Obamacare is the seminal domestic policy issue of our time, but was Meadows really naïve enough to think policy-makers should … you know … understand a modicum of policy about health care?

Meadows seemed to take to heart the GOP’s criticism of Pelosi’s declaration, “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.” Silly country bumpkin from western North Carolina, this Meadows guy. As chief RINO Chris Collins said, “once we get it done, then we can really explain what’s in it.” Heck, if Dems can say that after spending 13 months on Obamacare, why can’t Republicans say the same thing after spending two weeks on a more insolvent version?

Where Meadows really went off the rails was when he expected his colleagues to understand the concept of adverse selection and that keeping the actuarially insolvent regulations but repealing the individual mandate would accelerate the death spiral. What does he think this is – an economics class? We’re talking about Republican politicians here.

Did he really think that patriots like Rep. Austin Scott would remember that such a plan was tried in the U.S. territories and it collapsed immediately? That was before his time. Well, it wasn’t … but still.

And why was Meadows so credulous to take Paul Ryan seriously when he said the better way to deal with pre-existing conditions was to fund state high-risk pools instead of mandating the destruction of the entire market? Did he actually think we were going to repeal the element of Obamacare that … er … made it Obamacare? I mean, you can’t get everything you want.

Also, Meadows is kind of gullible not to understand the simplicity of the GOP’s … well … not so simple narrative:

“This is full repeal or close to it.”

“Well, we can’t repeal the core of Obamacare because of reconciliation.”

“Don’t worry, this is a three-phase process and in step two, Tom Price will repeal the regulations administratively.”

“We don’t want to repeal the regulations because they “protect” consumers and help people!”

See, Meadows had the temerity to view the core elements of Obamacare … you know … the parts that actually drove up the premiums and drove out the competition, as a cancer that needed to be cut out. Didn’t he know his colleagues viewed them as “vital patient protections?” But he still should have understood that they wanted to repeal Obamacare … er … I mean the rest of it.

And doesn’t he know that the Parliamentarian is the presiding officer of the Senate, not the Vice President or his designee? And Ryan already checked with the Parliamentarian, and she said they can’t repeal Obamacare through reconciliation. Well, actually she didn’t say that. But still, is the price of hurting Elizabeth McDonough’s feelings or pressuring her really worth … you know … repealing Obamacare? Doesn’t Meadows have any feelings for the first female Parliamentarian? Don’t let one-fifth of the economy get in the way.

Also, thanks to Meadows now so many members won’t be able to spend more time with their families by losing their reelection after they owned the death spiral and precipitated single payer.

Most of all, Mark Meadows needs to apologize for not understanding what a Republican really is: a liberal who is not talented enough to run in a Democrat primary. (For more from the author of “The Freedom Caucus Owes GOP Leadership an Apology” please click HERE)

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Why Wisconsin’s Irrational Ban Needs to Go

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Two inmates arrive at a Wisconsin jail. One asks the other, “What are you in for?”

“Possession with intent to sell heroin. You?”

The first replies, “That’s it? I’m here for possession with intent to sell butter.”

True enough, this conversation didn’t happen. But it might as well have. Today in Wisconsin, a crony regulatory scheme is protecting local industry from out-of-state competition by threatening retailers with criminal penalties if they sell butter that has not passed a bureaucratic taste test.

Now, Wisconsinites are fighting back with a lawsuit aimed at bringing consumer choice back into their stores.

The regulatory law (Wis. Stat. Ann. § 97.176) dates back to 1953 and makes it “unlawful to sell, offer or expose for sale, or have in possession with intent to sell, any butter at retail unless it has been graded” in Wisconsin or by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It requires all butter sold in the state to receive and prominently featured U.S. or Wisconsin quality grade on the package, and strictly prohibits the sale of butter that is ungraded or graded outside of the U.S.

Wisconsin officials boast of a particularly rigorous grading process that evaluates butter based on 32 individual points of quality.

State law (Wis. Stat. Ann. § 97.72(1)) provides that first-time violators are subject to a fine between $100 and $1,000 and up to six months in jail. And should a local grocer dare to sell unlabeled butter a second time, repeat offenders may receive a fine of up to $5,000 and one year in the county lockup.

Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter is a popular, grass-fed alternative to butter produced by the grain-fed cows in Wisconsin. It is the top imported and third most purchased brand of butter in America.

Last year, over $71 million worth of Kerrygold butter was sold in the United States without a single reported health problem.

But it is legally banned for sale in Wisconsin because it is graded in its home country of Ireland, but not in the U.S.

Nevertheless, Kerrygold and other imported butters managed to openly sell in Wisconsin for decades as the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection was derelict in its duty to enforce the butter ban.

Only recently did state officials decide to dust off an old Wisconsin statutes book, warning local distributors that they are prepared to revive enforcement of the obscure state dairy law.

This threat was sufficient to coerce grocery stores into pulling all noncomplying butter products from their shelves.

Admittedly, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture is not combing the dairy aisle at each supermarket chain to scrutinize its butter selection. It gave retailers fair warning before bringing any enforcement actions. Nevertheless, the threat worked.

While some might think that the removal of select, imported butter brands would go unnoticed, the lack of Kerrygold butter in particular caught the eye and ire of some consumers.

One of those consumers was Jean Smith of Waukesha, Wisconsin, who was up in arms when she noticed that Kerrygold was no longer available in her area. Smith now packs a suitcase full of Kerrygold for personal consumption each time she returns from out-of-state trips.

Transporting butter from out of state is perfectly legal for her to do. The ban only pertains to the sale—or possession with intent to sell—of Kerrygold and similarly situated butter products.

But understandably, Smith hopes she won’t have to bring Kerrygold from out of state much longer.

Conservative lawyers at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty recently filed a lawsuit against the state on behalf of Smith, several other Kerrygold loyalists, and a specialty food store. They claim that the state butter ban violates the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Free Speech clauses of the Wisconsin Constitution.

According to the complaint, the butter law places an “arbitrary and irrational” burden on the free market and limits competition for local producers “for no reason other than a government bureaucrat has not sampled it and expressed his or her opinion as to its quality.”

The state does have an interest in protecting residents from the ills of contaminated food products. But does the nanny state have a legitimate interest in regulating a trustworthy product out of the market by threatening morally innocent store owners with potential criminal liability?

The complaint alleges that Wisconsin is the only state in America to impose such a burdensome requirement on business owners’ butter selections. Meanwhile, Kerrygold and similar products that comply with all other U.S. food safety standards remain available in the rest of country.

The state must now decide whether to use its limited resources to defend arbitrary and protectionist butter standards. Even if it succeeds, the state must then explain to citizens why their favorite butters are banned and why grocers trying to make an honest living ought to be treated like drug dealers.

That path does nothing to advance the welfare of Wisconsinites. A better path forward: Protect free markets, and protect consumer choice in butter. (For more from the author of “Why Wisconsin’s Irrational Ban Needs to Go” please click HERE)

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Virginia Judge Says Trump Order Is Not a Muslim Ban, but Actually Protects Citizens From Terror

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The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Linda Sarsour, a militant Palestinian activist, have lost their lawsuit against President Donald Trump over his immigration moratorium stopping foreign nationals attempting to enter the United States from six terror-tied countries.

Judge Anthony Trenga, who sits on the U.S. Eastern District Court of Virginia, said the president does indeed have the authority to protect the country’s national security interests.

“The President has provided a detailed justification for the Order based on national security needs, and enjoining the operation of [executive order] would interfere with the President’s unique constitutional responsibilities to conduct international relations, provide for the national defense, and secure the nation,” Judge Trenga said in his opinion.

“The President has unqualified authority to bar physical entry to the United States at the border,” Trenga added.

Several officials from the Hamas-tied Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) sued Trump over what they called a “Muslim Exclusion Order.” Officials listed on the docket have in the past expressed support for U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, cheered terrorist attacks, and campaigned against cooperating with the FBI.

In his 32-page ruling, Judge Trenga rejected that the moratorium is a “Muslim ban.”

The order “clearly has a stated secular purpose — to protect U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks,” Tenga said.

The moratorium — which was recently struck down by federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland — imposes a temporary stop on citizens from six terror tied countries — Syria, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan — from entering the United States.

As Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz has explained, the courts do not have the plenary power to interfere with the president’s executive order, and other decisions concerning national security and immigration matters.

The Department of Justice said in a statement in reaction to the ruling: “As the Court correctly explains, the President’s Executive Order falls well within his authority to safeguard the nation’s security.”

CAIR, the radical group that brought the suit, will appeal the ruling, according to their lawyers from the far-left American Civil Liberties Union.

An additional lawsuit was filed against the Trump order in a D.C. federal court Friday. The Universal Muslim Association of America (UMMA) — an Islamic group funded in part by a foundation connected to the regime in Iran — says the president’s executive order is harmful to Muslims and inflicts “a damaging stigma upon them based on their religious affiliation.” (For more from the author of “Virginia Judge Says Trump Order Is Not a Muslim Ban, but Actually Protects Citizens From Terror” please click HERE)

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Anti-Trump Clinton Supporter to Lead Pentagon Think Tank Under Mattis

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Patrick Cronin from the liberal non-profit Center for New American Security (CNAS) has joined the Defense Department under Gen James Mattis to run the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, a think tank within the Pentagon.

Bill Gertz, a national security expert and columnist at the Washington Times, reports that Cronin’s appointment has “set off criticism among conservative China analysts who are concerned about” his “views and writings on China.”

As Gertz reports, Cronin was the signatory to an anti-Trump protest letter which proclaimed unity in “opposition to a Donald Trump presidency.”

Initially, a Pentagon press release said that Secretary Mattis approved the selection of Cronin, but the think tank page has been updated to claim that Mattis was not involved in the process.

To make matters worse, it appears as if Cronin has previously signed multiple anti-Trump letters.

Not only that, but Cronin took his advocacy against Trump a step further than most of his fellow anti-Trump signatories.

Cronin, a self-proclaimed Republican, voted for Hillary Clinton in the November election. While some of his Republican colleagues veered towards third-party candidates, and others decided simply not to vote in the election, Cronin took the minority route and threw his weight behind Clinton.

“Only one candidate has thought through America’s challenges, understands policy, has a positive and inclusive vision, is smart about the world in which we live, and is ready to be president, and I intend to vote for her—Hillary Clinton,” Cronin said in June.

Cronin served as a senior USAID official under President George W. Bush. Before moving into the Pentagon, he worked as a senior director at the liberal CNAS, which is funded in part by the far-left Soros family.

Though the Pentagon now insists that Secretary Mattis had nothing to do with Cronin’s appointment, he is ultimately in charge of the Defense Department. Mattis had recently attempted to bring Cronin’s former colleague from CNAS, Michele Flournoy, into the Pentagon as one of his top deputies.

The defense secretary is reportedly pushing for another leftist from the Soros-funded Center for American Progress to join him at the Pentagon.

Mattis also tried to nominate Obama loyalist Anne Patterson — a hated figure in Egypt because of her ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — to the Defense Department, before the White House rejected her nomination. (For more from the author of “Anti-Trump Clinton Supporter to Lead Pentagon Think Tank Under Mattis” please click HERE)

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This Calif. Dem Just Gave the Dumbest, Most Ignorant Reason to Oppose Gorsuch … EVER

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Freshman Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., might have one of the most disturbing – albeit increasingly common – arguments against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee yet: He’s not a judicial activist.

Friday morning, the former Golden State attorney general made known that she wouldn’t support Judge Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Antonin Scalia because he “has consistently valued legalisms over real lives.”

Naturally, the idea that a judge ought not be more concerned with the application of the law, rather than its outcome, raised some eyebrows.

Harris links to her recent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, where the senator seeks to paint Trump’s nominee in the same league as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, a creature desperately in search of a heart.

The implication? Our jurists should be more concerned with emotions and outcomes versus faithful application of the law, and Neil Gorsuch is a big meanie-head.

But that supposedly absent heart debuted on the judge’s sleeve during the hearings. Faced with such questions and accusations multiple times this hearing, the answer or implication thereof has been simple: He didn’t like the outcome, but that’s the law as written (i.e., his job). If legislators don’t like it, change the law or pass a new one.

In her defense, Senator Harris is quite new to her position and may not quite be used to the job of a federal legislator, but she and the 534 members of Congress have the power to change laws and outcomes they don’t like. It’s all lined out in Article I of the Constitution.

But rather than embrace her role as a legislator and Gorsuch’s as a judge, Harris opts to openly defend judicial activism and cite it as the definitive reason for fighting his confirmation, quoting Thurgood Marshall’s aphorism to “do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

One only wonders what any of the founders would think of that statement from a member of the “weakest branch of government,” or the use of it to defend bench legislation by a U.S. Senator. Well, they wouldn’t like it.

As stated concisely by attorney T. Greg Doucette, “I’m sure there are intellectually honest reasons to oppose Gorsuch. ‘Legalisms over real lives – for a judge – is not one of them.”

(For more from the author of “This Calif. Dem Just Gave the Dumbest, Most Ignorant Reason to Oppose Gorsuch … EVER” please click HERE)

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Why the Deep State Is Gunning for President Trump

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According to some, the “Deep State” is just another conspiracy theory. It’s hard to prove claims about unelected and unaccountable officials in government and intelligence agencies. They operate in secret. In another sense, however, the Deep State is an obvious — and troubling — fact.

The president and those whom he appoints and we elect are but the tip of a deep iceberg. Below them sits a huge pyramid of bureaucracies and civil servants. The federal government is the largest employer in America.

But whom does this army of civil servants serve? They’re supposed to serve the American people. Too often, it seems, they put party loyalty above that.

Deep State Functionaries Give 90 Percent to Democrats

What party is that? Here’s a clue: federal employees working in 14 agencies donated $2 million to the recent presidential campaign. Of that 95 percent went to Hilary Clinton. No surprise that 99 percent of donations from State Department employees went to Clinton. But Department of Agriculture employee donations also went 99 percent to Clinton. So did gifts from Department of Education employees (99.7 percent) and Department of Labor employees (99.4 percent). Department of Justice workers contributed 97 percent. IRS employees gave 94 percent.

The State Department winked at Clinton’s use of her private server to handle classified information. You don’t need a conspiracy theory to see why. When the Justice Department exonerates Clinton, there’s no mystery there. The people who make these decisions, and the lower-level people who back them up, are all Clintonites. That is to say, left-leaning Democrats. They don’t take their cues from the American people or from the Constitution. They do what the Democratic Party wants.

By any reading of the statute, Clinton clearly violated the Espionage Act. Not once, but thousands of times. Her actions clearly compromised national security. Foreign powers surely could access her communications. Nevertheless, for the Deep State Democrats, party loyalty trumped national security. So she wasn’t prosecuted.

Obama Stuffed the Pentagon with His Followers

But how about the security agencies themselves? If you believe what you see in the movies, military top brass are all rock-ribbed conservatives. Yet Defense Department employees contributed 84 percent to Clinton. Homeland Security workers donated 90 percent. The figures suggest that the people in charge of our nation’s security are mostly rock-ribbed Democrats.

This partisan edge may explain why President Trump is having a tough time with some of his security appointments. General H.R. McMaster, his National Security Advisor, subscribes to the Obama-era fantasy that terror has nothing to do with Islam. General James Mattis, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense, seems to be picking his own appointees from Hillary’s discarded wishlist.

Mattis’ choice of Anne Patterson for undersecretary of defense for policy is particularly disturbing. This is the fourth most powerful position in the Pentagon. During Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, Patterson was Ambassador to Egypt. She was also an ardent supporter of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even after General El-Sisi turned the Brotherhood out of power, she lobbied to have them reinstated. According to Raymond Ibrahim, she was widely known in Egypt as the “Brotherhood stooge.” She “was arguably one of the most hated individuals by the millions of Egyptians who took to the streets against Morsi and the Brotherhood.” One senior Republican foreign policy advisor told the Washington Free Beacon:

Anne Patterson is the embodiment of the Obama administration’s failed approach to the Middle East … it’s beyond irresponsible to put her in charge of the Pentagon’s policy apparatus.

Mattis has since withdrawn Patterson’s name under pressure from the White House. But why did he pick her in the first place? Some say that the choice of McMaster and Mattis was just poor judgment. Maybe. Or maybe there aren’t that many good people to choose from. Trump needs candidates who are competent and can be confirmed swiftly by the Senate. Mattis’s quick confirmation suggests that the Democrats weren’t too worried about his policy views.

Could Mattis have been steeped too long in the culture of Obama’s Pentagon? Was he surrounded by people who couldn’t see a problem with the Muslim Brotherhood? During his eight year tenure, Obama replaced several hundred generals and admirals. He put in people who would go along with his anti-win policy. While Obama was gutting the Pentagon’s budget, he was also busy weeding out all those rock-ribbed patriotic types.

Are Iran’s Stooges Setting Our Foreign Policy?

Too many government agencies are top-heavy with liberals. That will make it extremely hard for the new administration to make a fresh start. The Deep State is stuffed with holdovers from the Obama administration who are committed to his failed policies.

A prime example is Sahar Nowrouzzadeh. She formerly worked for the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC). That’s a lobbying group for the Islamic Republic of Iran. She also served as the Iran Director for President Obama’s National Security Council. Experts call her one of the architects of the suicidal Iran nuclear deal. You’d think that the new administration would want to cut her out of the loop.

Yet Nowrouzzadeh is now in charge of Iran policy for the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. She got this position in 2016. Recently, a high-ranking official of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps boasted about a “guerrilla movement” of Iranian agents who work and live in the United States. But with people like Nowrouzzadeh working at State, they need hardly have bothered.

The Travel Ban Was Nixed by an Obama Crony

And then there are the courts. Federal judges might be expected to keep the Deep State in check. But some of them act more like partisan functionaries. A case in point is Judge Derrick Kahala Watson. He was appointed as a U.S district court judge in Honolulu by fellow Hawaiian and Harvard Law classmate Barack Obama. Judge Watson issued a restraining order against President Trump’s temporary travel ban. He didn’t cite legal grounds. So what was his argument? During the campaign, Trump had used heated rhetoric when speaking of Muslims.

The purpose of the travel ban is to protect Americans from radical Islam. The judiciary, in contrast, seems determined to put Americans at risk. The law itself is solidly on the side of the president. The president is empowered by 8 U.S. Code 1182 to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants” whose entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Alas, the lawyer left is not interested in the law. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy writes, “There is no way of crafting an order restricting immigration from Muslim countries that will satisfy them.” So what then? If the judges will not follow the law? If the bureaucratic holdovers from the Obama administration are more loyal to him than to the Constitution?

We Are Headed for an Ugly Showdown That Trump Might Lose

Then we are headed for a dangerous confrontation. It will be hard to resolve through courts. Will we end up with one law enforcement body following orders from a court, against another following orders from the President?

And then there’s the question of just how much power the President has over the Deep State. Columnist Daniel Greenfield suggests that Obama controls more of the government through his network of embedded loyalists than Trump does. As Mark Steyn puts it, “You don’t need a presidency for life, if you’ve got a bureaucracy for life.”

But why would leftist actors in Deep State risk such a dangerous encounter? Perhaps because they’re fairly confident they would win it. They have plenty of allies in the government and in the courts.

Add to that the support of universities and all those grads whom they’ve trained to believe that they can flout any laws they don’t like. In addition, they can count on a network of leftist nonprofits such as Obama’s Organizing for Action (OFA) which has 33,000 volunteers and 250 offices across the country.

Most of all, the Deep State can count on the “fourth estate” — the media — to cover for it by slanting the news. If, as some contend, we are in the midst of a “quiet coup” by a shadow government, you can be sure that the media will do its best to keep it quiet. Or even to justify it.

Those who think that Trump’s electoral victory will surely result in a safer and more secure America haven’t come to grips with the Deep State’s capacity to stir up deep trouble. (For more from the author of “Why the Deep State Is Gunning for President Trump” please click HERE)

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