Radical Political Operatives Plan to Disrupt Trump Inauguration, Harass Mike Pence at His Home

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The radical political operatives aspiring to disrupt Donald Trump’s inauguration next week are planning to throw a “dance party” on the lawn of Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s temporary home in Washington, D.C., Fox News reports.

Confirmation of the upcoming event came in the form of audio recorded by Trevor Loudon on behalf of Capital Research Center’s documentary division, Dangerous Documentaries. Capital Research Center is also the originator of the Bombthrowers website.

The audio was obtained as part of Capital Research Center’s upcoming documentary on left-wing protesters, “America Under Siege: Civil War 2017.” The film, directed by Judd Saul, is set for release before Inauguration Day.

The audio features a female member of the #DisruptJ20 organization, which has ties to left-wing financier George Soros, explaining the group’s plans to “do everything we can to try and stop people from being able to access the inauguration.”

The woman says on the recording that her group intends to holds a “pure dance party at Mike Pence’s house” on Wednesday, January 18, two days before Trump and Pence take their respective oaths of office.

“It’s his last few days living in Chevy Chase before he moves into the vice presidential residence, and we’re going to send him off with a bang,” the woman says. Chevy Chase is a neighborhood in Northwest Washington not far from the vice president’s official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory on Embassy Row.

Pence’s left-leaning neighbors in Chevy Chase have given him a frigid reception but the so-called dance party by the Marxists and anarchists of #DisruptJ20 takes leftist animosity against the former Indiana governor to a new level.

After harassing Pence, the group will focus on the pro-Trump “DeploraBall” the next day at the National Press Club.

On the recording, the woman describes the DeploraBall as the “alt-right neo-Nazi … party to celebrate Trump.”

“We’re gonna crash it,” she says.

On the morning of the Inauguration, Friday, January 20, members vow to block entrance points as well as roads and transportation leading to the swearing-in ceremony.

“We’re going to be doing blockades,” she says. “We’re going to [be] blockading checkpoints into the security zones. We’re also going to be blockading roads and other modes of transit into the city.”

Friday 10 a.m. the group is planning an “anti-Capitalist, anti-fascist bloc” that “will be an unpermitted march that will be leaving from Logan Square.”

A #DisruptJ20 spokeswoman spoke to Fox News about her group’s agenda. “We’re exercising our freedom of speech and really want to set a tone for the next few years that there’s a massive body of people … who are very concerned about the dangerous direction Donald Trump is taking our country in.”

Fox News reports that one organizer said he hopes to “turn the inauguration into as big of a clusterf— as possible.”

The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition has laid out its own inauguration plans, saying it hopes to galvanize tens of thousands of people at permitted locations — like Freedom Plaza and the Navy Memorial — to march and protest in a more conventional way. ANSWER is an ultraleftist organization supportive of the dictatorships in Cuba and North Korea. (For more from the author of “OUR SCOOP ON FOX NEWS: Trump Inauguration Disrupters Admit to Planning ‘Dance Party’ on Mike Pence’s Lawn” please click HERE)

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Here’s the Potential Short List for Trump’s Supreme Court Pick

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President-elect Donald Trump has narrowed his potential Supreme Court picks to only the federal appeals court judges on his broad list of potential nominees, according to CNN.

CNN reported that Vice President-elect Mike Pence said the team is “winnowing” the list that “is made up of mostly federal appellate court judges.” That doesn’t automatically mean all the others are off the list yet, according to Pence.

Appeals court judges on the list of 21 are Steven Colloton, Neil Gorsuch, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, William Pryor, and Diane Sykes. However, the story also mentions Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen.

Pence met with senators Wednesday about the potential pick, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.

“There’s been some of the people on that list who have already gone through the process here as far as approving,” Manchin told CNN. “I guess they would look at someone who has gone through, somebody who’s made it through here before would have a chance.”

Trump said during his Wednesday press conference he would be making a decision on a Supreme Court justice choice within two weeks of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Daily Signal as to whether the CNN report on the short list was accurate.

Here’s a look at all of the seven appeals court judges on the list, in alphabetical order.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen was named to the state’s high court by Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican. Larsen, 48, in 2002 became an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Larsen, who also taught law at the University of Michigan, received her law degree from Northwestern and clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a President George W. Bush appointee, has served since 2004 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Alabama, and there was a fight to get him on the court. Interestingly, Pryor’s comment about “nine octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the Supreme Court” deciding on the death penalty became an issue during his appeals court confirmation fight. Pryor’s confirmation came only after the May 2005 “Gang of 14” bipartisan Senate compromise, to break a Democratic filibuster of several Bush judicial nominations and also prevent the Republican leadership from invoking the so-called “nuclear option,” of curbing the filibuster. In a 53-45 vote, the Senate confirmed Pryor the following month. Pryor, 54, has a political background. He became Alabama’s attorney general in 1997 after his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. Trump designated Sessions to be his next attorney general. Pryor was elected in his own right in 1998 as state attorney general and was re-elected in 2002. In 2013, he was confirmed to a term on the United States Sentencing Commission. Pryor received his law degree from Tulane University.

Judge Thomas Hardiman was appointed by Bush in 2007 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Pennsylvania. The Senate confirmed him 95-0 in March 2007. Hardiman, 51, previously was a federal district judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania, a position confirmed by a voice vote in October 2003. A Notre Dame graduate, Hardiman practiced law in Washington and Pittsburgh.

Judge Steven Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Iowa was appointed in 2003 by Bush. The Senate confirmed him in September 2003 by a vote of 94-1. Colloton previously served as a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. The 53-year-old graduate of Yale Law School clerked for the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Judge Neil Gorsuch, 49, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Colorado, was appointed in 2006 by Bush. The Senate confirmed him by a voice vote in July 2006. Before that, Gorsuch was a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. The Harvard Law School graduate clerked for both current Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and former Justice Byron White.
Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Wisconsin was named by Bush. The Senate confirmed her by a vote of 70-27 in March 2004. Sykes, 58, had been a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 1999. Before that, she was a trial court judge in both civil and criminal matters. She received her law degree from Marquette University.

One federal appeals court judge on the list of 21 who wasn’t mentioned in the CNN story is Judge Raymond Gruender, 53. He was named by Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Missouri. The Senate voted 97-1 to confirm him in May 2004. He previously was a prosecutor and served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. He received his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

With a few exceptions, such as Justice Elena Kagan and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, most justices in modern times have been federal appeals court judges. The list Trump considered was intriguing because it included many state supreme court justices, as well as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

Generally, there is a reason most justices are drawn from federal appeals courts, said John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

“Federal appeals court judges have written more legal opinions about matters that are likely to go before the Supreme Court, while state supreme court justices have ruled mostly on state law and not federal law,” Malcolm, a former deputy assistant attorney general, told The Daily Signal.

But there is also merit to having state supreme court judges, said J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

“I’m big fan of state Supreme Courts just because I think they might have a better understanding of overreach by the federal government, but the list I saw, they are all good names and any one would be fantastic,” Adams told The Daily Signal. (For more from the author of “Here’s the Potential Short List for Trump’s Supreme Court Pick” please click HERE)

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Leftist Mobsters Lambaste College Bands Playing at Trump’s Inauguration … Because ‘Tolerance’

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College marching bands invited to perform at the 58th Presidential Inaugural Parade are being pressured to turn down the offer or face the wrath of the oh-so-tolerant anti-Trump camp.

The Olivet Nazarene University Tiger marching band received backlash from alumni who launched an online petition urging the faith-based Illinois school to withdraw from the event. The petition claims that President-elect Donald Trump has “consistently articulated and advocated policies that undermine the Christian commitments of communities like Olivet”:

His well-documented sexism, his political alliances with white supremacists, and his hostility towards immigrants and refugees are just a few positions incompatible with Christian teachings in general and the Nazarene message of holiness in particular.

…

For Olivet to embody the faith it proclaims, we have a responsibility to stand with those marginalized by the President-elect’s divisive rhetoric rather than march in celebration of it.

Marist College, a private liberal arts school in New York, confirmed last month that their band will perform at the parade. Since then, the school has received the typical leftist outrage reactions from social media users:

Jennifer Hoffman, a 2003 Marist College alum, even created a petition requesting the school to reconsider its decision to play at the parade:

We are all disappointed with the Marist’s decision to participate in Trump’s inauguration. Trump’s history of racism, bigotry and sexism does not reflect Marist College values. We are concerned that participating in this inauguration will send the message that Marist supports Trump’s values, even if that is not the college’s intention.

“Celebrating a transition to this administration celebrates an election which overrode the votes of millions, and a candidate who regularly advocates for hateful, not peaceful, behavior,” Hoffman writes.

Talladega College, the oldest historically black college in Alabama, has probably received the harshest rebuke for accepting Trump’s invitation to have its marching band perform at the parade, despite campus protests, alumni petitions, and social media posts condemning the decision.

“After how black people were treated at Trump’s rallies, you’re going to go and shuck and jive down Pennsylvania Avenue? For what?” Seinya SamForay, one of many commenters on the school’s social media pages, told the AP. “What they did is a slap in the face to other black universities.”

Twitter users called the move “shameful” and an “outrage”:

Despite all the insanity, Talladega College President Billy Hawkins recently confirmed that the band will participate in the parade and dropped some awesome truth-bombs in the process. In a statement released last week, Hawkins noted the extra-political significance of performing at such a monumental event.

“As many of those who chose to participate in the parade have said, we feel the inauguration of a new president is not a political event but a civil ceremony celebrating the transfer of power,” Hawkins said.

Talladega University alumni and Hampton University President William R. Harvey described the parade as a valuable opportunity for students to learn “the importance of supporting the leader of the free world, despite one’s political viewpoint.”

“It will be a wonderful learning experience for the students in the band. It will be a teachable moment for them to understand the importance of supporting the leader of the free world, despite one’s political viewpoint,” Harvey said. “After all, the reason for being of any college or university should be to promote learning and not to enhance apolitical agenda.”

The school has also received overwhelming support from online donors who contributed to a GoFundMe campaign to help cover expenses like travel and lodging. In less than two weeks, the page has raised more than $285,000, far surpassing the initial goal of $75,000.

While many other college and university bands have chosen to boycott the Inauguration Day festivities, Olivet Nazarene, Marist, Talladega, will have the privilege of performing for millions of viewers. These schools should be commended for their courage to stand up against the SJW speech police and their willingness to honor the presidency, regardless of who fills that office. (For more from the author of “Leftist Mobsters Lambaste College Bands Playing at Trump’s Inauguration … Because ‘Tolerance'” please click HERE)

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Limbaugh: Liberals Are Putting Conservatism, Not Just Sen. Sessions, on Trial

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The Senate confirmation hearings for Sen. Jeff Sessions’ attorney general nomination show that the liberal establishment learned nothing from the 2016 elections and will continue to wage war on conservatives as if they were enemies of the republic — and humanity.

Democratic attacks on Sessions are not grounded in any concern that he is a racist or has something terrible in his ancient history. They know that Sessions is not a racist and that he is an honorable man. His disqualifying sin, in their eyes, is that he is a conservative — and a Southern one at that, which makes it even easier to demonize him as a bigot.

For if you watched the hearings, you saw that it was not Sessions particularly who was on trial but conservatism and all subscribing to it.

Nor is the rule of law a genuine concern to Democrats, despite their gnashing of teeth over faux fears that Sessions would refuse to enforce certain progressive laws already on the books. They only care about the rule of law when invoking it benefits them politically. In fact, one of the main reasons they oppose Sessions is that he indeed is committed to the rule of law and the impartial administration of justice. They are agenda-oriented above all and willfully trample the rule of law when it interferes with their progressive ends.

When Republicans grill liberal nominees for judicial and executive positions, which is rare, they don’t badger them over their political views. They don’t shame them for the crime of being liberal. They press them on whether they would honor the Constitution and the rule of law and whether they would act within the legal constraints of their positions. But Democratic interrogation of Republican nominees invariably descends into a shaming of the nominee for his political beliefs — or for his votes on measures they disagree with, even when the votes are for measures that are unarguably constitutional.

The liberal establishment in the Democratic Party and in the liberal media (and Hollywood and academia) simply cannot grasp that half the country is conservative. In fact, 11 percent more Americans identify as conservatives than as liberals.

It never occurs to most of these leftist movers and shakers that conservatives have noble and justifiable reasons for their views. They oppose Obamacare not because they have no compassion for the poor and downtrodden but because it is destroying everything in its path — because it raises rates and reduces quality of care and medical choices. They don’t oppose radical, reckless and economically smothering environmental policies because they don’t care about clean air and water, because they place their selfish financial interests above the health and welfare of Americans or because they are science deniers. They reject the presumptuous, dishonest and extreme conclusions of a make-believe, highly politicized scientific consensus, and they know that the left’s proposed draconian measures wouldn’t materially alleviate the problems even if they exist and are man-made as the left speciously contends. They oppose the flooding of our borders with immigrants who aren’t coming legally and the admission of insufficiently vetted potential terrorists not because they are bigoted toward Muslims or uncompassionate for people but because they believe in preserving the American idea and in protecting American citizens. They oppose confiscatory taxes and continued escalations of the national debt not because they are sinister engineers of ever greater income inequality (which liberal policies actually exacerbate) but because these things cripple the nation’s economic engines and reduce prosperity across the board. They are not opponents but champions of voting rights because they demand that people who vote be actually legally entitled to vote. They oppose abortion not because they disrespect and undervalue women but because they value all human life, especially the most innocent. They support a strong military not because they are imperialists and want to impose American will throughout the planet but because they believe American strength is conducive to peace. The same analysis applies to almost any political issue. Conservatives’ views are prudential and morally sound.

But listen to Meryl Streep — both the content of her patronizing remarks and her condescending tone. Listen to Sen. Pat Leahy, Sen. Cory Booker and their fellow Democrats castigating Sessions for his reasonable votes on issues that happen to interfere with the sacred liberal agenda.

Americans — at least half of us — are tired of being maligned by the left as evil, stupid and bigoted because we won’t fall in lockstep with this agenda.

One might think that after eight years of failed liberal policies, Democrats would be more inclined to eat crow than to lecture the rest of America for rejecting their manifestly destructive policy prescriptions. If so, one would be wrong and wholly ignorant of the liberal worldview and mindset.

It’s bad enough that liberals can never accept accountability for their failures, but it is really unbearable to listen to their highhanded, misguided lectures. They lost for a reason, but they’ll never stop fighting and trying to shame the rest of us, so kudos to President-elect Donald Trump for giving it back to them even better than they are dishing it out. How refreshing. Finally! (For more from the author of “Limbaugh: Liberals Are Putting Conservatism, Not Just Sen. Sessions, on Trial” please click HERE)

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How a Jeff Sessions Justice Department Can Change Course on Crime

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Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions’ two-day marathon confirmation hearing left Americans with many takeaways—some on his many qualifications for the office of United States attorney general to which President-elect Donald Trump has nominated him, and others on the merit, or lack thereof, of his opposition.

In the weeks leading up to this hearing, opponents in Congress and the media grossly misrepresented Sessions’ record on several issues, including crime and criminal justice.

There were consistent themes throughout the testimonies at Sessions’ hearing that touch upon criminal justice issues and how the next attorney general might approach these matters differently from the current administration. These include support for law enforcement, respect for the rule of law, enforcement of immigrations laws, and punishing bad actors, not innocent third-parties, for white-collar crime.

Support for Law Enforcement

Sessions captured in his opening remarks the reality for law enforcement under President Barack Obama’s leadership:

[I]n the last several years, law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the unacceptable actions of a few bad actors. They believe the political leadership of this country abandoned them.

Sessions showed concern for police deaths and a commitment to reducing them, noting that “last year, while under intense public criticism, the number of police officers killed in the line of duty increased 10 percent” from 2015. He said that “this must not continue.

Sessions’ supportive stance toward police is bolstered by the words of Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, who called Sessions “a true partner to law enforcement” whose record demonstrates his commitment to “officer safety.”

In particular, Sessions remarks on the importance of community policing, the building of trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve, and the need for law enforcement officers to protect all communities could signal a strong approach for addressing increased crime rates in certain cities, including Chicago.

Respect for the Rule of Law

Sessions also testified, as Heritage Foundation scholars have long observed, that “we have eroded respect for law and the whole constitutional structure where Congress makes the laws, not the executive branch.”

The Obama administration consistently took unilateral action to change the law—from refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act or enforce federal drug laws, to enforcing agency guidance documents (e.g. on private employment practices, or the sale of non-Affordable Care Act compliant health policies)—rather than the law as passed by Congress.

In a positive break from the Obama administration, Sessions noted that a guidance document is not an “amendment of the law” and that “department and agency attorneys don’t have the ability to rewrite the law to make it say what they would like it to say.”

Sessions consistently professed reverence for the Constitution and separation of powers, stating that regardless of whether he supported legislation as a senator, once he becomes attorney general he will ensure that the laws as passed by Congress are “properly and fairly enforced.”

As part of his pledge to “never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute,” Sessions vowed to recuse himself in any future investigations involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Such clear respect for the rule of law would greatly reduce the partisan culture that has built up within the Justice Department under Obama.

Enforcing Immigration Laws

The topic of immigration also loomed large throughout the hearing, and here Sessions also showed dedication to the separation of powers and the rule of law. Heritage scholars have noted how the Obama administration wrongly claimed “that its authority to set priorities and exercise prosecutorial discretion allowed it to institute an amnesty scheme without congressional action, despite the laws against illegal immigration.”

Sessions was spot on when he stated that “this country has every right to deport persons who are here unlawfully; who violate our criminal laws … and they should indeed be promptly deported.”

“If you continue to go through a cycle of amnesty,” he went on, “you undermine respect for the law and you encourage more illegal immigration into America.” Sessions’ statements indicate that as attorney general, he will leave immigration and deportation policy as a matter for Congress to decide rather than trying to set immigration policy through the back door.

Cracking Down on White-Collar Crime

Sessions’ testimony indicated disagreement with the Obama Justice Department on the issue of white-collar crime, another area where the current Justice Department has occasionally pursued dubious enforcement policies.

Although Obama’s Justice Department promised to hold individual wrongdoers criminally accountable for white-collar crime, it would far more often hold the corporate entity accountable.

Heritage legal scholar Paul Larkin has explained how corporate criminal liability can be problematic. For starters, it is less efficient than tort liability to redress corporate wrongdoing, writes Larkin, and it is “unfair to innocent employees, retirees, and stockholders.” Imposing heavy fines and penalties on the corporate entity, after all, punishes those individuals for someone else’s misconduct.

At Sessions’ confirmation hearing, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii., asked Sessions whether he would continue investigations into white-collar crime and corporate wrongdoing and hold “individual corporate office holders” accountable for violating the law.

Sessions answered that “corporations are subject as an entity to fines and punishment for violating the law, and so are the corporate officers. And sometimes it seems to me … that the corporate officers who caused a problem should be subjected to more severe punishment than stockholders of the company who didn’t know anything about it.”

As Heritage scholars have written elsewhere, Sessions’ view is correct: “Just as ‘a corporation can only commit crimes through flesh-and-blood people,’ a criminal punishment, if it is to serve any special purpose not already accomplished by a civil fine, must inflict pain on one or more corporate directors, officers, or employees” who violated the law.

Sessions also pledged to seek transparency in the department’s distribution of settlement funds—funds the Obama administration occasionally abused in handouts to politically favored third-party organizations.

Despite opposition from some Democratic senators, it seems clear that Sessions will be confirmed. His hearing also made clear that on issues from civil rights to criminal sentencing, as Heritage legal scholar Hans A. von Spakovsky writes, “[e]xpect Jeff Sessions to ensure that the department is once again run on a professional, ethical, objective, and nonpolitical basis—one that respects the Constitution, the rule of law, and the best interests of justice.” (For more from the author of “How a Jeff Sessions Justice Department Can Change Course on Crime” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Strange Pattern of Concessions to Cuba’s Communists

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There seems to be something about Cuba’s military dictators that really fascinates our 44th president. Cuba was the first item President Barack Obama mentioned when he enumerated his foreign policy “achievements” in his farewell address; and with just a week to go, he has rushed anew to make concessions to the communists in Havana.

The concessions this time was to end what has been inelegantly known as “wet-foot, dry-foot.” This was a Clinton era amendment to LBJ’s 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act that allowed Cuban escapees who touched U.S. dry land to stay, but turned back to Havana those caught at sea.

Ending wet-foot, dry-foot doesn’t end the Adjustment Act, but it does renders it moot in most ways. The Act allows Cubans who have been in the U.S. for a year to receive permanent residency, while the Clinton amendment granted those who arrived through rafts or by crossing border a one-year temporary parole to wait for the Act to kick in.

Absent the one-year parole, it is harder for the special concession granted those who escaped from the communist island to kick in.

Wet-foot, dry-foot was ripe for reform. It was replete with perverse incentives. For example, it enticed thousands of Cubans to take to rafts to Central America, undertake a perilous journey through unstable countries, and then be smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Such is the desire to leave Castro’s “Socialist Paradise” that over 46,500 made across the Rio Grande in the last fiscal year, which ended September 30. A smaller number undertook a dangerous voyage across the shark-filled 95-mile Florida isthmus on rafts sometimes even made out mattresses.

But the blanket approach that Obama took, as well as his decision to once again deal in secret with Havana, most probably through his deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, a Svengali-like figure at the White House, once again disappoints.

The fact of the matter is that the 85-year-old dictator Raul Castro knew more about this policy change just as it was about to be announced that members of Congress or of Obama’s own State Department.

Obama also terminated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, which allowed Cuban doctors sent overseas to apply for U.S. asylum in these third countries. Havana exploits its doctors and nurses, sending them abroad so the communist government can collect convertible currency on their behalf, a practice that has long been deplored.

But Castro hated it, because it gave his doctors a chance at freedom, so Obama obliged him. And that’s the thing about Obama: his apparent desire to please the octogenarian American-hater in Havana is only matched by his obvious disregard for the Cuban people’s legitimate desire for freedom.

He seems to forget that they are trapped inside an authoritarian military dictatorship. In his announcement he once again said that “the future of Cuba should be in the hands of the Cuban people”—as if they lived in Ohio or the south of France.

There doesn’t seem to be any clear way that those persecuted for their political or religious beliefs can find a haven here.

Everything regarding Cuba that Obama announced not just Thursday but for the past two years can be rescinded come this Friday by President Donald Trump—along with much of the Obama legacy.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who poured scorn on Obama with his reaction to the announcement, made that clear by stating:

I had the opportunity to discuss this issue with Vice President-elect [Mike] Pence this evening, and I am heartened by the fact that in a week we will have a new administration committed to discarding the failed Cuba policy of the last two years.

(For more from the author of “Obama’s Strange Pattern of Concessions to Cuba’s Communists” please click HERE)

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See Where Fencing Has yet to Be Built along Mexico Border

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The U.S. government has built fencing along roughly one-third of the 1,933-mile southern border with Mexico.

The border state with the longest boundary—Texas, at about 1,241 miles—is covered by only 115 miles of fencing.

Data obtained by The Daily Signal shows there is plenty of space for President-elect Donald Trump to make good on his campaign promise to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

But according to experts, physical barriers are only one component of border security, and Trump could encounter similar challenges to his predecessors in trying to construct a wall—or more likely, additional fencing—across complicated, unpredictable terrain.

170110_border-length-fence_v3

Trump and congressional Republicans say they could use a 2006 law signed by President George W. Bush called the Secure Fence Act that mandated a minimum of 700 miles of “physical barrier” on the southern border without specifying any particular location where fencing must be built.

The law was never fully implemented, and it did not set a deadline for the fencing to be built, meaning Trump could pick up where Bush left off.

The incoming administration just needs money from Congress to do it.

“We’re going to build a wall,” Trump reiterated in his first press conference as president-elect on Wednesday. “I don’t feel like waiting a year or a year and a half. We’re going to start building.”

According to Customs and Border Protection, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, there is currently about 654 miles of fencing along the border. Christiana Coleman, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, told The Daily Signal 36 miles of that fencing is double-layered and 14 miles have three layers.

Coleman said the fencing consists of roughly 350 miles of single-layer pedestrian fences, most which stand about 18 feet, and 300 miles of low-level vehicle barriers that can be easily bypassed by pedestrians. The fencing is not continuous. The last segment of the fencing was built in 2014, she said.

170110_fencing-levels

The government is obligated by statute to reach the 700-mile floor, meaning it must still build nearly 50 additional miles of fencing at minimum.

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service stated that under the law, the government can build beyond the required 700 miles.

Trump has said that he would not seek to build a wall, or fencing, across the entirety of the nearly 2,000-mile border. He said he envisions the wall covering about half the border because of “natural barriers.”

Trump has estimated the cost of the wall to be from $8 billion to $12 billion. Other estimates have put the cost at $25 billion.

Coleman noted that challenging terrain and other considerations require alternative border security tools, such as “virtual fence” technology using towers, manned and unmanned aircraft, and surveillance sensors.

Building a wall or fence in Texas is especially difficult because U.S. citizens privately own about two-thirds of the border in the state, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

The government would have to purchase land from Texans to build on it.

During his confirmation hearing this week, John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who is Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, emphasized these constraints, saying that “a physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job,” and added, “it has to be really a layered defense.” (For more from the author of “See Where Fencing Has yet to Be Built along Mexico Border” please click HERE)

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The False Narrative Of “Repeal and Replace” Is Preserving Obamacare

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What is the GOP plan to replace Obamacare? That is the question vexing all of the Republican beard strokers in Washington these days. But it is the wrong question to ask and it is built upon an erroneous premise. Along with false information about Senate procedures, it is contributing to the reluctance to repeal this disaster.

The real questions that should be on the GOP’s mind are: what is wrong with our health care system, how did Obamacare exacerbate all of its existing vices, and how we can roll back not just the Obama-era anti-market interventions, but reform even some destructive policies that existed prior to Obamacare?

The entire mantra of “repeal and replace” was flawed from day one because it accepted the Democrat premise that Obamacare actually served a semi-useful function, albeit with some glaring flaws, and therefore, must be replaced with something similar. It presupposes a solution without understanding the problem. It’s like the mindless calls for “immigration reform” and “criminal justice reform” without specifying what is wrong to begin with and which problem is being solved with the “reform.”

Health care reform is no different, although much more complex by its very nature.

Much like immigration reform, conservatives should absolutely have a contrasting plan on health care, but not because of Obamacare. Obamacare needs to be repealed, period. Not replaced. Conservatives should have been supporting true free market health care long before Obamacare. Rather than replacing Obamacare in pursuit of similar goals, the plan should be rooted in diametrically opposite premises, guiding principles, and goals.

The root problem with Obamacare

In pursuit of the utopian goal of universal coverage for every last American, liberals have created a living hell of unsustainable crushing costs for everyone. At its core, this is what government has been doing for decades with mandates, regulations, and subsidies. This has created a death spiral of government-induced rising costs, a need for subsidization, and a further self-fulfilling increase in prices in health care and health insurance due to the circuitous cycle of government market distortions. Obamacare merely took all of those liberal health care policies and stepped on the gas pedal, making the price of health care and insurance astronomically high, inducing a need for well over $1 trillion in combined federal and state subsidies and spending on health care overall.

To be clear, while the tax hikes, extra spending, and unconstitutional requirement to purchase insurance or for employers to offer health insurance are onerous, by far the worst elements of Obamacare are the actuarially insolvent insurance coverage regulations. Those regulations, most prominently guaranteed issue (must cover all pre-existing conditions, even if they never had any insurance) and community rating (charge everyone the same unsustainable price), have driven the cost of insurance into a death spiral. The second worst elements are the massive subsidies and the Medicaid expansion, which not only drive up the government’s budget in order to cover the self-inflicted high costs, but indirectly create an even greater inflationary pressure on consumer prices.

“Repeal and Replace” accepts the premise of that root problem

When Republicans refer to “repeal and replace” they really mean bait-and-switch because they are accepting the premise that we need to keep the pre-existing condition coverage mandates that are responsible for unsustainable costs along with refundable tax credits (which are subsidies in all but name only) in order to sustain the higher prices. Accordingly, when they say they are concerned we must not repeal Obamacare unless we have a replacement plan in place, they mean we must not repeal the coverage regulations until we have similar regulations in place. Likewise, they mean we must not repeal the subsidies until we have a pale-pastel version of the subsidies in place.

This entire approach is rooted in ignorance of free markets but also in a broken political barometer. Even though Republicans are in their strongest electoral position since the Civil War precisely because of the crushing Obamacare premiums, they still believe that on net they will somehow lose by repealing what they were asked to repeal. The loss of coverage and unaffordable costs are on Democrats, not Republicans. The number of people who would somehow lose coverage by getting rid of the mandates (remember, there was always guaranteed issue for those who already had some form of insurance beforehand) and would not be eligible for any other program is very small relative to the number of those who would see relief and the benefit to the broader market.

As for the subsidies and Medicaid expansion, everyone already agrees that we would have a two-year transition to give us plenty of time to lower costs both through repeal of the insurance mandates and through further free market reforms. But that decline in prices will never be actualized if Republicans don’t use budget reconciliation to get rid of the insurance regulations, particularly guaranteed issue and community rating. With the wide perception that Republicans repealed Obamacare, they will get blamed from premiums not decreasing as promised because the media and the public will not realize that the insurance regulations remained in place.

Affordable health care: repeal, reform, and restore

The central goal of any conservative health care plan, on the other hand, should be reducing market costs of health care and health insurance, not expanding access or universal coverage as an ends to itself. The essential guiding principle of achieving that goal is eliminating as many of the government regulations and interventions that have driven up the costs of health care. Simultaneously, reform must foster as much opportunity for flexibility, portability, personal responsibility for individuals; innovation, and competition in the market place for health insurance, as well as fixing anti-market forces on the supply side of health care itself. The end result will not be utopia. Rather, it will provide the largest array of choices at the lowest costs for the broadest number of people — the best outcome we can ever aim for.

The primary focus of conservative health care reform should therefore be centered on countermanding those odious price-hiking regulations and interventions, while keeping government spending on health care to as little as politically feasible.

The absolute worst thing for Republicans to do is to maintain the pre-existing condition mandate, in effect, “replacing Obamacare with Obamacare.” This is what makes insurance so costly for everyone.

Instead, Republicans should be focused on reforming the entire system and restoring the free market. Republicans should work on lowering the costs for those who want to purchase insurance on their own, and that will help expand coverage. Also, equal tax treatment for the individual and employment markets, eliminating the anti-trust exemption for insurance, coupled with expanded HSAs and breaking down cross-state insurance barriers, will make insurance portable, affordable, and foster more options and competition. It will further incentivize healthy consumers to take responsibility for their own health insurance, shop wisely, not over utilize and distort pricing, which in itself will reduce the inflationary pressure and create numerous cheaper options for a variety of coverage plans. This will limit the scope of the pre-existing condition problem and shore up more funds to deal with the minimized scope of the problem.

Coupled with numerous supply side fixes, such as tort reform, breaking down onerous FDA regulations on drugs and devices, cutting regulations on telemedicine and scope of practice for health care extenders, updating rules on medical accreditation, allowing doctors to write off the cost of indigent care, and giving hospitals authority to turn away illegal immigrants with non-urgent care will go a long way in reducing the actual cost of health care. This, in turn, will take pressure off the need for third and fourth party payer and help restore insurance to its original purpose.

Rather than a death spiral of self-fulfilling price hikes and bankrupting subsidies, restoring the free market will create a self-fulfilling momentum of price decreases, efficiency, portability, and personal responsibility.

However, each one of these ideas needs to be ironed out and passed through regular order. Unlike Democrats, we don’t believe in throwing in 10 disparate ideas into one bill. In the meantime, Obamacare — with its core regulations — can and must be repealed immediately. If Republicans truly understood health care, they would see that is the only viable option on the table. (For more from the author of “The False Narrative Of “Repeal and Replace” Is Preserving Obamacare” please click HERE)

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HILARIOUS: Pencil-Neck, Anti-Gun Leftists Want To “Stop the Peaceful Transition of Power” Tweet

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This story is really better suited as an SNL short than an actual news article. Oh, and I have a protip for these, errr, activists, below the fold.

#DisruptJ20 organizer Legba Carrefour said Thursday that #DisruptJ20 members were “not in favor of the peaceful transition of power.”

The left-wing protest organization, #DisruptJ20, met Thursday to announce its intentions and plans to obstruct the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20. The group’s website reads: “We call on all people of good conscience to join in disrupting the ceremonies. If Trump is to be inaugurated at all, let it happen behind closed doors, showing the true face of the security state Trump will preside over.”

“We need to stop the peaceful transition of power,” Carrefour said at a press conference at St. Stephen’s Church in Washington, DC. “We need to stop this kind of fascist government from coming to power.”

Carrefour also rejected the calls of Democratic leaders to calm the anti-Trump protests.

“You saw Democratic luminaries from Obama to Hillary Clinton say, ‘Tamp this down, please stop this. The peaceful transition of power is of the upmost importance to the core element of democracy.’”

Fellow #DisruptJ20 organizer Lacy MacAuley backed up Carrefour, saying: “We absolutely are opposed to the transition” of power to Trump.

My advice?

Bring guns. Bring lots of guns.

Oh wait, you idiots believe that guns shouldn’t exist. Like, you can get in a time machine and, say, un-invent them.

So without guns, I guess the transition to President Trump will indeed be peaceful. Orderly.

And you schmucks will be very, very docile.

Guessing here: the only weapon you have to use on regular Americans is your breath, which probably smells of farts and elderberries — best case. (For more from the author of “HILARIOUS: Pencil-Neck, Anti-Gun Leftists Want To “Stop the Peaceful Transition of Power” Tweet” please click HERE)

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After Repealing Obamacare, GOP Should Replace with Something Better Than Previous System

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Seven years after the tainted, party-line passage of Obamacare, Republicans are in position to repeal it. The GOP has pledged a speedy repeal, but remains divided over what to offer as a replacement.

Obamacare critics who imagine they must put together their own legislative plan numbering hundreds or thousands of pages are mistaken. Instead, they should build a comprehensive policy by passing a series of smaller, more digestible bills to deal with specific problems.

Obamacare was a failure from the start, built on the shameless lie that people could keep their health plans and doctors and that costs would go down. Of course, the entire scheme was based on forcing individuals immediately, and employees with company plans eventually, into new, federally-approved systems.

The government would deny coverage it viewed as inappropriate, mandate benefits patients didn’t want, limit doctor choice for most everyone, and shift costs from the old to the young. Never mind if you were forced to pay more for less, you had to buy government-approved insurance or pay a penalty. To soften the economic blow taxpayers were forced to subsidize patients and providers alike. No surprise, the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies liked Obamacare and contributed millions of dollars to help push it through Congress.

The law relied on expanding Medicaid, a welfare program, putting federal and state budgets simultaneously at risk. Medicaid originally was created to cover the poor and never delivered good care. Now Medicaid covers people who aren’t poor and still doesn’t deliver good care.

Of course, Obamacare didn’t work out as expected — by the administration, that is. Premiums skyrocketed for policies people didn’t like. More sick than healthy people signed up, causing insurance companies big losses. Some insurers dropped out of the market entirely; others came to the federal government with hands extended. Patients found they had fewer choices even as they paid more. And the cycle continued.

The American people don’t like it. Congress should repeal it.

However, simply returning to the previous system isn’t a good solution, since it was flawed. What the GOP should do now is what the Obama administration should have done then: address specific problems with specific reforms. Rather than come up with GOPCare or TrumpCare, Republicans should simply adopt common sense changes which result in better health care.

For instance, Congress should protect our most critical safety net program, Medicaid, by block granting it to the states. The 1996 welfare reform applied this principle to the federal cash assistance program, AFDC, and literally broke the inter-generational cycle of poverty for millions of Americans, Block granting Medicaid would give states the ability to prioritize health care spending on their most vulnerable citizens. Permitting governors to design their own quality, cost-effective medical care delivery systems would benefit needy patients and taxpayers alike.

Insurers should be allowed to sell policies across the nation, making health insurance more competitive. Congress should override anti-competitive state mandates, which raise costs and reduce access.

Health insurance should be portable, which requires changing the tax treatment of health insurance. One possibility would be to shift the tax deduction from employers to employees. There are others, like restoring the availability of Health Savings Accounts.

Everyone agrees that people with preexisting conditions and chronic illnesses need access to affordable care — which is actually affordable. The federal government should promote state high-risk pools as well as private charitable care.

Medicare patients deserve greater choice. Beneficiaries liked the Medicare + Choice program, which Obamacare unfortunately restricted. The needs of seniors are varied; so should be their health coverage options.

These and other reform proposals could be enacted separately. But taken together, they would offer a serious, patient-friendly alternative to what we now have. Congress could begin working on these reforms even before repealing Obamacare.

At the same time, Washington policymakers on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue should coordinate with the states on how the federal government can make it easier for states to improve medical care. As with Medicaid, states should be held accountable while being given more freedom to design policies best tailored to meet their citizens’ needs.

On January 20, eight years of irresponsible, liberal social engineering will come to an end. Republicans need to be prepared to govern. They will fill the White House, dominate Congress, and control most state governments.

It then will be imperative for conservatives to prove that they can propose as well as oppose. Eight years of resistance blocked much that was bad. Now is the time to redress the damage that occurred. Starting with health care.

Republicans don’t have to have all of the answers. But they do have to show that they are committed to finding serious solutions to the many problems before us. It’s time to do that now. (For more from the author of “After Repealing Obamacare, GOP Should Replace with Something Better Than Previous System” please click HERE)

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