REINS Act Will Check Executive Overreach, Restore Constitutional Balance

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As a new Congress begins, Republicans have made it clear that regulatory reform is a priority that puts the interest of all Americans first, especially concerning the economy.

It’s been said that sometimes government rules “have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business—burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.”

It is in fact President Barack Obama who made that statement in 2011 in his appeal “to strike the right balance” in executive rulemaking.

In an outstanding contradiction to the spirit of these words, the current administration brought our regulatory burden to a bloated $1.88 trillion in 2015—meaning that on average, each U.S. household is bearing an annual economic weight of $15,000. This underscores the reality that unchecked regulations smother business and family finances without distinction.

That’s where the REINS Act comes in.

Federal agencies currently have the power to make “major rules”—ones that have an economic impact of $100 million or more—without the oversight of Congress or the signature of the president. The REINS Act would put in place meaningful checks on agency overreach by requiring congressional approval and the president’s signature for major rules.

Absent these checks, we fall victim to oppressive regulations like the Department of Labor’s overtime rule, which hurts the very people it is trying to help and imposes unworkable burdens on businesses, universities, and employees.

In 2015, the Department of Labor raised the salary threshold under which people are eligible for overtime from $23,660 to $47,476. While the rule seems like it would provide more overtime pay to more people, the economic effect is that it smothers job creators.

With their administrative resources consumed by tracking more information with less flexibility, it turns out that businesses have to cut jobs as a result of the overtime rule. Even if businesses raise salaries above new overtime levels to avoid additional administrative costs, they are still left with less money to pay salaries overall—which means they can support fewer jobs.

As it stands, the Congressional Review Act of 1996 represents the only recourse Congress has for reversing harmful rules without having to scale the great wall of the filibuster. All but one of the joint resolutions of disapproval that Congress has passed under the Congressional Review Act have been vetoed by the president.

As a tool for checking executive overreach, the Congressional Review Act is begging for improvement, which the REINS Act offers by amending the original legislation.

If the overtime rule had been subject to a vote by Congress before it was enacted, as the REINS Act would require, American workers could have been spared the consequences of the heavy-handed and poorly-crafted regulation. Yet support for the REINS Act is not merely practical—it is also constitutional.

Article 1 of the Constitution assigns the responsibility of lawmaking to a House and Senate made up of elected officials, and it does so in order to ensure that the people who are affected by federal laws and regulations have a say in how those rules are made.

Without the balance that the REINS Act offers, Americans and their economy remain subject to the decisions and missteps of unelected bureaucrats, who seem agonizingly unable to “strike the right balance” between helpful and harmful rules.

Executive agency overreach is, at heart, a constitutional issue, and one that the REINS Act remedies in a way that reformers in both parties should be able to support. If made law, this legislation would require agencies to submit their major regulations for congressional approval before they could go into effect, and both chambers would be required to accept or reject the rule within 70 legislative days.

The president’s signature would also be required for any of Congress’ joint resolutions on a major rule to take effect. Agency regulations with economic impacts of under $100 million would remain unaffected by the REINS Act.

The bill is not retroactive, so Republicans haven’t devised it as a way to blot out the actions of a previous administration and the agencies it oversaw. It’s also not unwieldy from a legislative perspective, adding only 50-100 votes to the congressional calendar each year.

What we’ve done is to craft a way to move forward with legislative business and restore accountability to the legislative process while better protecting our economy from suffocating regulations that Americans never voted to enact.

The current president has said balance in federal regulations is necessary, and President-elect Donald Trump has said the REINS Act will help guarantee that balance, promising that he would sign this “major step toward getting our government under control” were the bill to reach his desk.

The REINS Act brings transparency, accountability, and constitutional balance to the branches of government regardless of which party controls those branches, and it returns power to the electorate by making sure that their votes have a voice in major federal rulemaking. (For more from the author of “REINS Act Will Check Executive Overreach, Restore Constitutional Balance” please click HERE)

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Meet the Only Republican to Vote Against Re-Electing Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House

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On the first day of the 115th Congress, Paul Ryan was re-elected as speaker of the House. The vote would have been unanimous, except for the vote of one conservative dissenter.

In an effort to “drain the swamp,” Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky cast the lone Republican vote against Speaker Ryan, and voted for Florida Rep. Daniel Webster.

Massie had better company two years ago. In January 2015, 25 conservatives dissented from the Republican caucus and voted against re-electing John Boehner as speaker. Twelve of those dissenters voted for Rep. Webster. Webster’s previous experience as speaker of the House in Florida — where he was known for restoring regular order and honest practices — was a big selling point to the defecting conservatives.

But with a new Republican administration coming in and with conservatives in Congress still hoping to work with Speaker Ryan, there was much less dissent leading up to Tuesday’s vote, versus two years ago.

While Massie wasn’t joined by his fellow conservatives, he was suspected as a possible dissenter:

No one can say Rep. Thomas Massie isn’t afraid to go against the grain (For more from the author of “Meet the Only Republican to Vote Against Re-Electing Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House” please click HERE)

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Rand Paul Has a Novel Idea: Let’s Kill Obamacare and Try Freedom

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Congress is going to vote on Obamacare. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (40%) has promised that an Obamacare repeal resolution will be the first item on the Senate’s agenda, but there is some disagreement among Republicans as to what the replacement for President Obama’s failed health care reform law should be.

Sen. McConnell’s fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%) suggests “freedom.”

In an op-ed written for Rare, Sen. Paul suggested it would be “wise” for the GOP to immediately vote on a replacement health insurance reform law, guided by four principles.

1. The freedom to choose inexpensive insurance free of government dictates.

2. The freedom to save unlimited amounts in a health savings account.

3. The freedom to buy insurance across state lines.

4. The freedom for all individuals to join together in voluntary associations to gain the leverage of being part of a large insurance pool.

Rand Paul’s guidelines come as other Republicans in Congress have begun to back away from full ACA repeal, to some form of partial repeal and a replacement plan that keeps parts of Obamacare.

“It’s a partial repeal first of all, it’s not a total repeal,” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga. (C, 75%) told reporters in late November. “Let’s get that out of the way. It’s a partial repeal, and I think there are pieces of it in there that have to stay in place for awhile and that is what we are going to be working on.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas (F, 42%) floated a “three-year transition” period to delay the effective repeal of Obamacare while lawmakers develop a replacement plan. One of those plans in development, authored by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. (F, 47%) and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas (F, 57%), “does not purport to repeal the [Affordable Care Act],” in the words of Health Affairs contributing editor Timothy Jost.

Sen. Paul warns that anything less than a full repeal will end in disaster:

My fear is that if you leave part of Obamacare in place (the dictate that insurance companies must sell insurance to individuals with pre-existing conditions) then you will see an acceleration of adverse selection and ultimately mass bankruptcy of the healthcare insurance industry.

Don’t misunderstand me. We should repeal Obamacare, but partial repeal will only accelerate the current chaos and may eventually lead to calls for a taxpayer bailout of insurance companies.

And he is joined by other conservatives in Congress.

Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah (A, 100%) and Rep. Mark Walker R-N.C. (C, 75%) wrote, in a joint op-ed, that President-elect Trump’s administration and the new Congress must not “fumble” full repeal. “We can’t afford to just squeak by with the bare minimum, while preserving many of Obamacare’s most burdensome and intrusive provisions,” they wrote.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (A, 94%) has unequivocally stated Obamacare “should be repealed and replaced, and all of that should be done in the 115th Congress,” and “not left to a future Congress to deal with.”

And, of course, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) has made his position on Obamacare abundantly clear:

“Principled opponents of Obamacare rejected it because we reject the use of state force to mandate that we buy a commercial good from a private seller. Pragmatic opponents want to keep the feel good aspects of Obamacare while cleaving the individual mandate that forces people to buy insurance,” Paul writes.

Will the principled conservatives in Congress be enough to dissuade GOP leadership’s partial-repeal agenda? Sen. Paul’s conclusion is pessimistic.

“Partial repeal of Obamacare will likely win the day,” he predicts. “But when the insurance companies come to Washington crying for a bailout don’t say that no one warned of this preventable disaster.” (For more from the author of “Rand Paul Has a Novel Idea: Let’s Kill Obamacare and Try Freedom” please click HERE)

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Democrats Take Aim at Trump Nominees, Unlike Republicans’ Speedy OK of Obama Cabinet

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Senate Democrats are mounting an aggressive effort to reject or delay President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for major Cabinet positions, in a reversal of the deference Republicans showed in speedily confirming President Barack Obama’s nominees eight years ago.

In January 2009, the Senate confirmed 10 of Obama’s Cabinet choices within his first week as president, nine of them by voice vote, in which senators’ yes and no votes aren’t recorded.

Now, though, the Senate’s top Democrat has put the chamber’s top Republican on notice that at least eight of Trump’s picks are in Democrats’ crosshairs, beginning with one of their own colleagues—Trump’s choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Others targeted are Trump’s picks for secretary of state, treasury, education, labor, and health and human services.

“Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist,” new Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday in a statement to The Washington Post.

“If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken.”

In addition to Sessions, The Washington Post reported, those targeted by Democrats include Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO who is Trump’s choice for secretary of state, and Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.

Other Trump choices on the hit list, Democratic aides told the newspaper:

— Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for secretary of health and human services.
— Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-N.C., for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
— Philanthropist and education activist Betsy DeVos for education secretary.
— Restaurant chain executive Andy Puzder for labor secretary.
— Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for environmental protection administrator.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., answered the Democrats on Tuesday by releasing statistics and quotations he said illustrate how much deference Republicans gave to Obama’s nominees in 2009—and how much Schumer and other Democrats have said they respected such deference.

Why Democrats Have Few Options

Democrats don’t have the numbers to outright defeat Trump nominees, thanks to a procedural change they made when they last controlled the Senate.

Republicans need a simple majority of 51 votes to move to confirm the president’s Cabinet appointments, rather than the supermajority of 60 previously required, and they have 52 seats. In addition, incoming Vice President Mike Pence will have the power to break any tie votes.

Democrats’ requirement of only a simple majority to avoid a filibuster and put a confirmation to a floor vote, or advance other business, is known on Capitol Hill as “the nuclear option.”

“They have tied their own hands on this,” Heritage Foundation procedural expert Rachel Bovard said of the Democrats, “and because of ‘going nuclear,’ essentially they have put every … nominee at a 51-vote threshold and there’s 52 Republicans.”

Referring to Republican leadership and the Trump transition team, Bovard added in a phone interview with The Daily Signal:

So, if they can get every Republican on board for each nominee, which I think that they’ll be able to do, there’s not much that Senate Democrats can do against that. It’s completely their own fault.

Sixty votes still are required to end debate and proceed to a vote to confirm a nominee for the Supreme Court, though a simple majority is required to confirm.

Democrats controlled the Senate in 2009, and would for two years, but Republicans put up little or no resistance to the choices of a new Democrat president, Obama, for top executive branch offices.

Now that Republicans control the Senate, however, Democrats appear to be showing little such deference to a new Republican president’s picks to run major government departments.

‘A Longstanding Tradition’

Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, previously was policy director for the Senate Steering Committee and an aide to several Republican senators and House members.

She told The Daily Signal that Obama’s Cabinet nominees enjoyed an easy confirmation process because of the well-established tradition of senatorial respect for a president’s major appointees, who run executive branch departments as the president expects.

Bovard said of the traditional attitude of senators:

They may not agree with everything that the nominee says or does or pledges, but it has been a longstanding tradition particularly in the Senate just to say, ‘Look, the president has the right to pick his own people.’ That is sort of the underlying trend.

Obama’s immediate predecessors as president, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, also enjoyed relatively speedy Cabinet confirmations.

The Senate confirmed 11 of Bush’s Cabinet appointees in the first week of his first term; it confirmed 17 of Clinton’s nominees in the first week of his first term, according to Senate records.

Interestingly, the Senate used the voice vote more in confirming Obama’s initial Cabinet choices than it did in conforming Bush or Clinton nominees.

The Senate confirmed eight of Bush’s initial Cabinet picks by voice vote, and three of Clinton’s initial choices.

McConnell’s release of confirmation statistics for Obama includes a quote from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

“I think we owe deference to a president for choices to executive positions, and I think that that is a very important thing to grapple with,” Kaine said at a 2013 hearing held by the Armed Services Committee.

In November, the release from McConnell’s office reminded, Schumer suggested he would work with Republicans to get things done in Congress and avoid needless delays.

“We have a moral obligation, even beyond the economy and politics, to avoid gridlock and get the country to work again,” Schumer told Bloomberg. “We have to get things done.”

Senate Democrats can do little to derail Trump’s nominees, Bovard said, but they can use various procedural maneuvers to delay the process. Among them: failing to show up to a committee meeting so that a quorum is not present, and, on the Senate floor, prolonging debate for up to 30 additional hours.

‘Confident in the Nominees’

Conservatives in Congress appear eager to work with the department heads and other executive branch officials Trump has assembled, Bovard said.

“I think for the most part conservatives feel confident in the nominees that have been put forward. I think they are trying to give Trump’s Cabinet a chance,” she said. “They have not come out swinging in any direction except forward.”

This positive attitude is largely due to the stalwart conservative convictions of Trump’s picks, Bovard said, citing three:

Betsy DeVos is really well-known to conservatives for her work on school choice, Jeff Sessions has been a titan of the conservative movement for decades, even Ben Carson [Trump’s pick for secretary of housing and urban development] has been a longtime proponent of reforming HUD. So these people aren’t unknown to conservatives.

Questioning his honesty, the Democratic National Committee demanded on New Year’s Eve that Sessions recuse himself from the Senate vote to confirm him as attorney general. A hearing for Sessions before the Judiciary Committee is scheduled for Jan. 10, which is 10 days before Trump is sworn in as president.

The Democratic National Committee accused the Alabama senator of withholding information in filling out the screening questionnaire issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement, Adam Hodge, DNC communications director, said:

Jeff Sessions has fiercely argued in the past that omitting information isn’t just wrong, that it may also be illegal. So what does he do once he’s nominated to be the attorney general? He omits information from his dark past, particularly when he was deemed too racist to be a federal judge.

Based on his own reasoning, and in keeping with Senate tradition, Sessions must recuse himself from voting on his own nomination.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions in the confirmation process, says such attacks are unfounded.

“Sen. Sessions’ four-decade career in public service includes bipartisan victories on criminal justice issues with folks like Sens. [Edward] Kennedy and [Dick] Durbin,” Flores said, citing two Democrats in a written statement provided Tuesday to The Daily Signal. She added of Sessions:

He has bipartisan endorsements that include law enforcement, victim rights organizations, and African-American leaders because they understand he will refocus the Department of Justice on upholding the rule of law and ensuring public safety. The time for playing politics should have ended on Election Day.

A Question of ‘Previous Political Activity’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, earlier said Sessions’ questionnaire was incomplete and asked Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone the Jan. 10 hearing to allow for more time to review the materials he submitted.

Grassley, in response, said Sessions has been upfront about his past, including old accusations, and that he submitted more material to supplement his answers. The committee chairman added that hearings would not be postponed.

Among her concerns, Feinstein said, is that Sessions, an early supporter of Trump for president, was not clear enough in explaining his involvement in “any political campaign.”

Grassley replied in a letter to Feinstein: “The question regarding previous political activity is of course designed to ascertain whether and how a nominee has been politically active. There can be no surprise that a sitting United States senator is politically active.”

Feinstein said another concern is that Sessions has not submitted the text of some speeches.

“Regarding the claim that several speeches were not included, of course you also know that we and our colleagues are frequently called upon to speak at a variety of constituent and other events,” Grassley replied. “Senator Sessions explained that he made his best effort to identify and locate copies of such remarks where available.”

The committee chairman added that Sessions produced all items requested in the questionnaire.

Grassley noted that past Cabinet nominees have not been able to provide transcripts for every speech they ever gave. And, he said, Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder, “supplemented his questionnaire materials several times.”

“In December 2008 alone, Attorney General Holder supplemented his questionnaire responses with more than 200 items of information,” Grassley said. (For more from the author of “Democrats Take Aim at Trump Nominees, Unlike Republicans’ Speedy OK of Obama Cabinet” please click HERE)

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When Energy Efficiency Rules Hurt the Public and the Environment

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Over the last several years, an extreme and ideologically-driven environmental agenda has hijacked our national energy policy.

Whether its goal is to keep fossil fuels in the ground or to electrify America based on a naïve belief that all electricity will be renewable within 30 years, or some combination, this bias is what we now have come to expect from the Department of Energy and its Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program.

The example I know well is its effort to increase the minimum energy efficiency for natural gas furnaces. The Department of Energy has ignored due process and subverted sound science to satisfy an ideological result that is not justified by the facts.

The American Public Gas Association was compelled by the Department of Energy’s bias to fund research to demonstrate the incredibly negative impact the proposed natural gas furnace regulation would have on American homeowners.

Approximately 56 million homes across the country are heated with natural gas furnaces because of their energy efficiency and cost benefits. As proposed, the department’s rule would incentivize homeowners to switch to less efficient home heating options, such as electric resistance, which would more than double their home heating cost and yield greater carbon dioxide emissions.

The American Public Gas Association’s technical analysis exposed even greater flaws within the Department of Energy’s rulemaking process and the economic model it depends upon to justify the purported benefits of new regulation.

Procedurally, the association has been forced to take the Department of Energy to court and file multiple complaints with its inspector general because of the arrogance of its bureaucrats.

When the department attempted to set a new efficiency standard via a direct final rule in 2011, it clearly failed to touch all the bases and make appropriate findings of consumer impacts. So the American Public Gas Association appealed and the rule was withdrawn three years later.

We believe the Department of Justice urged the Department of Energy to withdraw the rule because government attorneys did not want this particular matter to be the case of first impression on the final rule process when the government so clearly failed to address public comments opposing the rule.

In 2014, the Department of Energy published a proposed furnace rule (supplemented this year) that went far beyond the initial proposal. During these proceedings, the department twice issued extensions of deadlines after the deadline had passed.

In both cases, the American Public Gas Association had filed timely comments supported by extensive technical analysis in opposition to the rule when major proponents of the rule were yet to file. The association has filed a formal complaint with the Department of Energy’s inspector general and requested an investigation of this perversion of fair play.

On the substance, the American Public Gas Association’s work with the Gas Technology Institute has revealed how the Department of Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have used nonpublic data, flawed consumer economic modeling, and unfounded economic justifications.

Over the years, its life cycle cost analysis has become absurdly complex and thus ripe for manipulation. We have seen the use of unjustifiable assumptions to obtain particular results to hide the true consumer costs of the proposed regulation.

Most importantly, the Department of Energy is ignoring the fact that natural gas is the most energy efficient and environmentally sound manner for the vast majority of Americans to heat their homes.

Technological advances are making natural gas residential furnaces more efficient, and the public is snapping them up when they save money. This is proof that the market is working.

Higher Efficiency Condensing Furnace Trends

Between 2006 and 2011, high efficiency condensing furnaces saw a slight artificial bump in sales due to government tax credits. But even with those tax credits, the market trends were not altered much. The use of such furnaces has been steadily rising since 1980, and it continues to rise after the artificial bump.

The upshot is clear. Consumers who benefit from a more expensive technology will purchase that technology—and in this case, it is a higher efficiency condensing natural gas furnace. People should drive markets, not the federal government.

The American Public Gas Association has been one of the leading opponents of the Department of Energy’s proposed furnace rule. This group represents municipally- and community-owned natural gas systems across the country.

These systems are owned and accountable to the citizens within their communities. Who is better equipped to make decisions that impact the lives of Americans, unelected Washington bureaucrats or the homeowners themselves?

The Department of Energy admitted its current proposal would negatively impact 20 percent of American homes. In addition, the overwhelming majority of people who would be hurt are low-income families.

Set aside the fact that the department freely acknowledges and accepts that its proposal would harm 1 in 5 families—its open willingness to do so is incredibly disturbing.

The American Public Gas Association is not opposed to energy efficiency. However, the Department of Energy’s proposed furnace rule will ultimately undermine efficiency goals while significantly increasing costs for American consumers. (For more from the author of “When Energy Efficiency Rules Hurt the Public and the Environment” please click HERE)

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The Most Baffling and Shameful Clinton Endorsement You’ll Read All Year

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In one of the most absurd media endorsement of recent years, the Guardian’s Nigerian edition has named 2016 Democratic presidential nominee as the “Person of the Year” for 2016. Have they really forgotten about her role in the rise of Boko Haram during her time at the U.S. State Department?

The paper’s write-up is just as dubious as the honor. Starting with the failed “Love trumps hate” slogan, the explanation quickly devolves into a praise-only, slathering, tongue bath devoid of any meaningful evaluation of the candidate’s numerous faults and failures. It references her “uncommon dignity” while making no reference to the fact that she referred to a sizable chunk of the American electorate as “a basket or deplorables” or had a complete meltdown in the middle of a public video conference address, which were just two examples of the uninspiring, poorly run campaign that lost the election to Donald Trump.

Conspicuously absent from — and most perplexing about — the POY title is that while it glances across Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, it says nothing about what her apparent cronyism in office did to Nigeria and the entire Lake Chad region. (There were similar instances throughout the rest of the continent, too, but I’m trying to stay focused here.)

As pointed out elsewhere on the site, as what has become the deadliest terror group on earth — Boko Haram — rose to prominence in the African nation’s northern region, Clinton and her subordinates did little more than twiddle their thumbs while the Clinton political machine made bank in foreign donations.

A two-part, investigative report from World Magazine published in July delves into the political wrangling that surrounded the years-long delay of Boko Haram’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, even after the administration obtained intelligence indicating Boko Haram’s ties to al Qaeda. Meanwhile, Clinton Foundation donors and others in the then-cabinet secretary’s political circle financially benefitted by making off with hefty political donations:

The Clintons’ long association with top suspect tycoons — and their refusal to answer questions about those associations—takes on greater significance considering the dramatic rise of Boko Haram violence while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Did some Clinton donors stand to gain from the State Department not taking action against the Islamic terrorist group?

Perhaps the most prominent Nigerian with ties to the Clintons is Houston-based Kase Lawal. The founder of CAMAC Energy, an oil exploration and energy consortium, Lawal had a long history with Bill Clinton before becoming a “bundler” for Hillary’s 2008 presidential bid […]

Today the Houston oil exec — who retired in May as CEO but continues as chairman of the board of CAMAC, now called Erin Energy — tops the list of wealthiest Nigerians living in North America. His firm reports about $2.5 billion in annual revenue, making it one of the top private companies in the United States.

The delays even prompted a congressional probe into Clinton’s Nigeria ties in September.

After Clinton’s resignation from the foundation, many of the hostages may have come home, but Boko Haram is still operating in the jungles of the Lake Chad region. Terror attacks in the country have slowed since the bloody summer of 2015, but now the nation is staring down a jihadism-precipitated famine that threatens the lives of tens of thousands of children. In recent news, one of its leaders proclaimed in New Year’s Eve that “the battle is just beginning.”

The delays even prompted a congressional probe into Clinton’s Nigeria ties in September.

After Clinton’s resignation from the foundation, many of the hostages may have come home, but Boko Haram is still operating in the jungles of the Lake Chad region. Terror attacks in the country have slowed since the bloody summer of 2015, but now the nation is staring down a jihadism-precipitated famine that threatens the lives of tens of thousands of children. In recent news, one of its leaders proclaimed in New Year’s Eve that “the battle is just beginning.”

“[Clinton] ran a campaign of ideas for the future,” the Guardian piece reads. “But her opponent was and is a misogynist, a demagogue whose own ideas, to the extent that he had any, were warped, racist and downright insulting of our collective humanity.”

What about the humanity of those who have been blown to bits, kidnapped, displaced and starved by the terror organization she enabled? Not a drop of digital ‘ink’ to be found.

For any news outlet based out of Nigeria — even if it is an affiliate of a European daily (though it might explain the detachment from reality) — to laud Clinton so one-sidedly while ignoring her role in Nigeria’s dismal and oft-ignored situation is at best baffling, and at worst downright shameful. (For more from the author of “The Most Baffling and Shameful Clinton Endorsement You’ll Read All Year” please click HERE)

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Missouri Gun Owners Won Constitutional Carry. It’s Time to Take This Show NATIONAL

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Constitutional carry is officially legal in the state of Missouri, as a new law permitting legal gun owners to carry concealed firearms has gone into effect with the start of the new year.

The bill that was enacted into law, Senate Bill 656, allows individuals to carry hidden weapons anywhere they can carry weapons openly. Missouri joins 10 other states that allow concealed carry.

The bill’s sponsor, former Missouri Representative Eric Burlison, said that an American’s Second Amendment right to carry a firearm applies both in and outside of your pocket. “The same right you have to carry on the outside of your jacket or pocket, we want to extend that right to be able to carry on the inside of your jacket or pocket,” said Burlison, according to KY3.

Additionally, the new law creates a “stand your ground” right, which allows people to remain in any place they have a legal right to be in and defend themselves with their firearm if there is danger present. It also extends the “castle doctrine”— the right of a homeowner to use deadly force if confronted with a threat in their home — to invited guests, such as a babysitter.

The bill became law after a contentious legislative battle in 2016, in which state senate Republicans used an arcane parliamentary procedure to overturn Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s veto. The state’s Republican majority has previously used the tactic, known as “calling the previous question,” to overcome Democratic filibusters and force votes on bills.

If only congressional Republicans had that same resolve in advancing their agenda under President Obama. However, there is a great opportunity to defend the Second Amendment under the administration of President-elect Trump.

“The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans,” reads President-elect Trump’s official policy position on the right to bear arms. “The Constitution doesn’t create that right — it ensures that the government can’t take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendment’s purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. This is about self-defense, plain and simple.”

The president-elect’s strong vocal support for the Second Amendment can be translated into national policy with the passage of national concealed carry reciprocity. Such a law would permit a Missouri resident who can legally carry a firearm in his state to carry his weapon legally in any state in the country.

Trump is in favor of such legislation, declaring: “A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.”

With Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, will national concealed carry reciprocity become law?

Time will tell. And conservatives will exert pressure on Republicans in Congress to advance a conservative agenda. (For more from the author of “Missouri Gun Owners Won Constitutional Carry. It’s Time to Take This Show NATIONAL” please click HERE)

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The Numbers Don’t Lie: Trump Needs to Do Better by 2020

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The year 2017 and the inauguration of a new president are upon us. And though the historic, stunning election of November 8, 2016 is behind us, it looks like the final data on what happened that day are very close to being at last finalized.

I’ve watched that data carefully on pretty much a daily basis since November 8, courtesy of the running tabulation collected by Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, who has been the superb go-to source for people tracking this data. In the first two weeks after the election, Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead over Donald Trump expanded somewhere in the range of 100,000-plus votes per day, which was shocking to behold. We have truly never seen anything like it.

Thus, while most pundits have moved beyond post-election analysis, I think it’s crucial to pause to revisit the numbers now that we have nearly finalized hard data. We can draw some fairly definitive conclusions.

So, looking at this from the winner’s perspective — that is, Donald Trump’s — let’s call this the good, the bad, and the ugly.

First, the good

Trump’s amazing win was an Electoral College triumph — the only victory that counts in winning a presidential election. It is striking just how narrowly Trump defeated Hillary in the crucial swing states that secured his win.

If the total percentage of victory in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were flipped by a mere one percent — or in some cases 0.2 percent — Hillary Clinton would have won them all, and thereby taken the overall election handily. Of course, they weren’t reversed. Trump flipped those states in ways that recent Republicans presidential nominees were unable to do. I wrote a piece on the eve of the 2012 election predicting that Mitt Romney would win Pennsylvania. Close, but no cigar. Trump, however, pulled it off — and it was a great accomplishment.

More good news from Trump on the swing states: As I looked closer at the 13 swing states, I see that Hillary did not reach 50 percent or more in a single swing state. That’s pretty significant. Trump did so in two of them, Iowa and Ohio, where he crushed her in both by margins of, respectively 9.4 percent and 8.1 percent. He got 51 percent in each, which was a major feat. Other swing states, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were very tiny margins for him but major victories nonetheless. He also blew the Clinton campaign out in Indiana, a state that Barack Obama won in 2008.

And still more good news from Trump on the state data: It’s interesting how low Hillary’s percentages were in some states. She got under 40 percent in 18 states. She actually got less than 30 percent in six states (Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming). Trump earned less than 40 percent in 10 states and the District of Columbia. He didn’t get less than 30 percent in any states but almost did so in California, the most-populous state, where he was annihilated by Hillary, securing a mere 31.6 percent of the vote. And forget all that bunkum from Trump pom-pom boys about how their guy could compete in New York. He got his butt handed to him in New York with a mere 36.5 percent of the vote there.

Moreover, don’t make the mistake of over-inflating Trump’s seemingly sizable Electoral College vote over Hillary. The final tally was 306 to 232, which was good, but far from great. As Nate Silver pointed out in an enlightening historical analysis of Electoral College victories, Trump’s Electoral College margin was nice but well below average. Out of 54 presidential elections, his Electoral College margin ranks 44th.

Now, for the bad and the ugly for Donald Trump

The sheer depth of Trump’s popular-vote loss to Hillary is literally unprecedented in how bad it is. It is a terrible defeat for a winning president, and Trump enthusiasts should not delude themselves otherwise. They ignore or dismiss it at their and his future political peril.

Looking again at the latest cumulative popular-vote tabulation, Hillary’s lead over Trump as I write is 2.865 million. Her popular-vote lead still might hit three million, but will probably come in just under that. Still, those who (going forward) write about it or casually remark on it will probably tend to round it up to three million.

How dreadful is this for Donald Trump? The previous record popular-vote loss for a winning president was George W. Bush losing by only 543,000 votes to Gore in 2000. Trump’s loss dwarfs that by over five-fold.

Even more alarming, Trump’s percentage loss is 46.1 percent vs. 48.2 percent for Hillary. It has continued to fall and still may slip under 46.0 percent.

The 46.1 percent figure gives Trump a lower percentage than not only Hillary, but also Obama in 2012 (51.1 percent) and 2008 (52.9 percent), Romney in 2012 (47.2 percent), Bush in 2004 (51.0 percent) and 2000 (47.9 percent), Kerry in 2004 (48.5 percent), and Gore in 2000 (48.4 percent).

For a while, I thought that Trump might get lower than who was 45.7 percent, but that probably will not happen. Of course, here as well, historians and pundits and others will round down Trump to 46 percent, just as they tend to round up McCain to 46 percent. It will then look like basically the same vote percentage for both.

(By the way, Michael Dukakis in 1988 got 45.6 percent of the vote, which likewise is usually rounded up to 46 percent by historians. And amazingly, with that Trump-like popular-vote percentage, Dukakis was obliterated in the Electoral College, 426 to 111.)

Some Trump enthusiasts will likely dismiss all of this shocking data by arguing that if we simply removed California, New York, and Illinois from Hillary’s vote totals, Trump would have won the popular vote. That’s just downright absurd. The same could have been said for Romney, for Bush in 2000, and maybe even for McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 32 percent) (I would need to do the math). It wouldn’t be fair to do that to Hillary’s vote total any more than it would be to remove Texas and the South from Trump’s vote total.

Trump also countered that he would have campaigned in places like California had the presidency depended not on the Electoral College but on the popular vote. Sure. But so would have Hillary. In fact, Hillary thus would have campaigned in Texas and the South as well.

This is an asinine argument. If a student of mine made this argument on an exam, I’d give him an “F.”

Look, Trump admirers, your guy got crushed in the popular vote in historically unprecedented fashion for a winning president. So be it. Accept that and move on. You’re far better off conceding your liabilities, so you can work to improve them next time around. Making false assumptions and excuses will be your political downfall. You were extremely fortunate you didn’t get burned by them in November 2016.

So, for Trump supporters who have been emailing me gloating about how brilliantly right they were, in defiance of the literal 90 percent-plus of polls that had him losing to Hillary (i.e., getting less votes), cut the nonsense. The polls were actually right. You were wrong. Be humble and be thankful, because you and your guy are extremely fortunate, even as (yes) his Electoral College triumph was a great achievement.

And here’s where your gloating can come back to bite you: If Trump gets 46.1 percent of the vote in 2020, he’ll be the first one-term president in a while, after three consecutive two-term presidents, and four of the last five.

Keep this recent but crucial historical fact in mind: Barack Obama in 2012 actually got fewer votes than he did in 2008. He got fewer popular votes, fewer Electoral College votes, fewer states, fewer counties, and a lower overall percentage vote. He still won, yes, but his margin of victory over McCain in 2008 had been very significant. He had room for error his second time around. Donald Trump does not.

Don’t gloat. Trump almost achieved the impossible: becoming the only Republican who could’ve lost to Hillary Clinton.

But let’s wrap up on a positive note, circling back to the good from November 2016: Donald Trump deserves tremendous kudos for squeaking out Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida, and for sizable margins in places like North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and all-around for a solid Electoral College win. Those are the numbers that really count. And that is why we will watch Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton taking the oath of office in about three weeks. (For more from the author of “The Numbers Don’t Lie: Trump Needs to Do Better by 2020” please click HERE)

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Think Amazon Echo, Other Home Smart Devices Won’t Disclose Private Conversations? Police Armed With Search Warrants Have Different Plans

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Amazon’s Echo and Echo Dot are in millions of homes now, with holiday sales more than quadrupling from 2015. Always listening for its wake word, the breakthrough smart speakers boast seven microphones waiting to take and record your commands.

Now, Arkansas police are hoping an Echo found at a murder scene in Bentonville can aid their investigation.

First reported by The Information, investigators filed search warrants to Amazon (see below), requesting any recordings between November 21 and November 22, 2015, from James A. Bates, who was charged with murder after a man was strangled in a hot tub.

While investigating, police noticed the Echo in the kitchen and pointed out that the music playing in the home could have been voice activated through the device. While the Echo records only after hearing the wake word, police are hoping that ambient noise or background chatter could have accidentally triggered the device, leading to some more clues.

Amazon stores all the voice recordings on its servers, in the hopes of using the data to improve its voice assistant services. While you can delete your personal voice data, there’s still no way to prevent any recordings from being saved on a server. (Read more from “Think Amazon Echo, Other Home Smart Devices Won’t Disclose Private Conversations? Police Armed With Search Warrants Have Different Plans” HERE)

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Conservative Groups Warn of Obama’s ‘Midnight Litigation’ Against US Business

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Conservative and pro-business groups warn that the Obama administration may pursue legal action to enforce some of its thousands of new “job-crushing” regulations before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office.

Regulations promulgated in “the waning days” of President Barack Obama’s lame-duck administration could constrain the new Trump administration, the coalition of groups warned Vice President-elect Mike Pence in a letter dated Dec. 28.

“Because of this concern, Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act, which provides Congress procedural tools to disapprove expeditiously these last-ditch midnight regulations,” the letter says.

The Congressional Review Act could address regulations put in place by the Obama administration since June 3. However, the law can’t prevent so-called “midnight litigation” launched by the executive branch to enforce those regulations.

The Obama administration issued 3,852 new federal regulations during 2016, according to a new analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, first reported Friday by the Washington Examiner.

The letter from conservative activists and business leaders says:

It has come to our attention that a number of departments and independent agencies are working furiously behind closed doors to bring significant, legally tenuous litigation against American business interests before Jan. 20, 2017. Doing so will saddle the Trump administration with having to litigate cases based on job-crushing liberal legal theories.

Inauguration Day, when Trump is sworn in as president, is Jan. 20.

Signers of the letter include Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Ken Blackwell, chairman of Constitution Congress; and Clyde Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The signatories represent 29 organizations, including Frontiers of Freedom, the Heartland Institute, and Liberty Counsel.

The letter warns Pence, a former congressman and governor of Indiana who is well-liked by conservatives, that the new administration should review any litigation to enforce the recent regulations.

“Should the Obama administration bring nonroutine, last minute, legally unorthodox midnight litigation, your administration should not hesitate to withdraw immediately from that litigation,” the letter to Pence states.

Such last-minute litigation could hurt job growth, the letter says.

John R. Smith, the chairman of BIZPAC, the Business Political Action Committee of Palm Beach County, wrote in an op-ed for BizPac Review:

The lame-duck Obama administration has launched a mad scramble to throw up as many hurdles, and to plant as many last-minute landmines as possible against the new American president. In his final days of office, Barack Obama has initiated a major flurry of new executive orders, directives, and regulations, thousands of them, that he is piling into the federal books.

Frontiers of Freedom, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to promoting traditional American values, circulated the letter.

“Everything should be suspect,” George Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom, told The Daily Caller News Foundation, referring to the Obama administration’s final gush of regulations. (For more from the author of “Conservative Groups Warn of Obama’s ‘Midnight Litigation’ Against US Business” please click HERE)

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