Donald Trump Is Appointing (Gasp!) Conservatives to Serve in His Administration

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The perplexity, outrage, and shock of the left over the election of Donald Trump has been hilarious for those of us watching the liberal commentariat and its (sometimes unwitting) journalistic allies.

In recent days, the geyser of leftist anger has been given new life by the President-elect’s appointment of conservatives to prominent positions in his nascent administration. One headline after another seems to herald amazement that a man who promised conservative governance would appoint conservatives to leadership posts as he assembles his Cabinet. Incredible, right?

Mainstream Media Horrified at Trump’s Appointment of a Pro-Life Health Secretary

Tom Price is a physician who has served in Congress for more than a decade. A solid advocate for the unborn and opponent of the predatory abortion industry, Price is esteemed by his colleagues for his good judgment and sharp mind. Currently serving as chairman of the House Budget Committee, his “Empowering Patients First Act” is a comprehensive alternative to the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

Yet Price’s appointment to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services has been greeted with crass vitriol by liberals accustomed to using HHS as their political tool of choice to advance abortion on demand, whether surgical or contraceptive, in every facet of the American health care system. Here are some samples of Rep. Price’s reception by the Left:

“With Extremist Tom Price at Helm, the ‘War on Women Has Reached HHS’” – Reddit.com

“Tom Price, A Radical Choice for Health Secretary” – New York Times editorial board

“Women’s Health Care Threatened by Trump HHS Choice, Tom Price” – Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC

“Trump Pledged to Protect Medicare. His Choice for Health Secretary Has Other Ideas” – Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump promised to be a strongly pro-life President. He has appointed a man to lead the Department of Health and Human Services who is strongly pro-life; in fact, Price, has a 100 percent lifetime legislative score from the National Right to Life organization.

Donald Trump wants to block-grant Medicare to the states. “The state governments know their people best and can manage the administration of Medicaid far better without federal overhead,” explains his campaign website. “States will have the incentives to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources.”

This idea is fiscally sound and commensurate with the principles of federalism. And it is neither new or radical. Tom Price has long supported block-granting Medicare. Yet now he is “outside the mainstream” (says Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer) and a “radical.”

Getting Personal

The attacks against some of Mr. Trump’s appointments are also personal. Senate Judiciary chairman and 20-year Senate veteran Jeff Sessions has been tapped by the President-elect to head the Justice Department. Sessions, a man who for decades has served the people of his home state without a whisper of personal scandal or political defamation, is now being accused of hidden racism because of off-hand comments he made 35 years ago.

I do not defend any racial bigotry on the part of Senator Sessions or anyone else, for that matter. However, to say that the “Specter of Race Shadows Jeff Sessions” (New York Times headline) is ludicrous. His record speaks to his belief that “all men are created equal.” “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People … has, without question, done more probably than any other organization to promote racial progress in the South,” he said in his 1986 Senate hearing concerning President Reagan’s nomination of him to be a federal judge and, during the same hearing, strongly condemned the Ku Klux Klan.

Should a remarkably well-qualified, dignified, and decent man be denied a post in which his leadership and probity could do so much good because of remarks he made in 1981? And could it not be that the real concern of determined liberals is not those long-ago comments but the fact that Sessions is a principled conservative who will bring strength, resolve, and courage to the task of de-politicizing a Justice Department that for eight years has been a forum of the extreme progressive agenda?

Here’s what Senator Quinton Ross, the African-American leader of the Democratic minority in the Alabama State Senate, said about Sen. Sessions after the latter was nominated to be Attorney General of the United States: “We’ve spoken about everything from Civil Rights to race relations and we agree that as Christian men our hearts and minds are focused on doing right by all people. We both acknowledge that there are no perfect men, but we continue to work daily to do the right thing for all people.”

Trump Was Elected by the People to Appoint Conservatives

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. He has a constitutional duty to appoint people who will help him enact the agenda he was elected to implement. The Left should not be endlessly breathless over the conservatism of his appointees, nor so vicious in their hatred that they would destroy honorable people at whatever the cost.

They will continue their campaigns of disparagement and personal destruction, of course. But one thing is sure: If the media continue to parrot the excessive attacks of the left and if enraged liberal commentators continue to spew bile at the prospect of conservatives in charge of the executive branch, they will lose even more of the credibility they saw dissipate on the night of November 8, when their smug predictions and confident projections came to naught.

Even they should not be so out-of-touch as to recognize that. (For more from the author of “Donald Trump Is Appointing (Gasp!) Conservatives to Serve in His Administration” please click HERE)

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State of Georgia Finds Evidence That Feds Tried to Hack Official Election Computers

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The state of Georgia on Thursday accused the U.S. Homeland Security Department of apparently trying to hack its election systems.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp said a computer traced back to the federal agency in Washington tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the state office’s firewall one week after the presidential election. The letter speculated that what it described as “a large unblocked scan event” might have been a security test.

It sought details, including whether the agency did in fact conduct the unauthorized scan, who authorized it and whether other states might have been similarly probed. Kemp cited the federal law against knowingly accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, which is a felony. (Read more from “State of Georgia Finds Evidence That Feds Tried to Hack Official Election Computers” HERE)

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WHAT’S IN HILLARY’S FUTURE? Latest Moves Indicate She Won’t Fade Away Quietly After Election Loss

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Hillary Clinton’s election defeat had many pundits declaring the Clinton era finally over. But a series of meetings with key Democratic donors and leaders – combined with still-fawning press coverage and even a quirky social media project driven by a longtime aide – are raising questions about what’s next.

A return to the speaking circuit? Advocacy work? Assuming the role of elder stateswoman? Or even, a 2020 presidential run?

“I think if she wants to run again, and my guess is she probably does, because they always do, then yes I think she’s doing a good job laying the groundwork,” Brad Bannon, Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research, told FoxNews.com.

A third presidential run — after two grueling campaigns that both ended in defeat to a rival political sensation who captured the imagination of voters — could be a stretch for the former secretary of state, senator and first lady.

But after a brief period of reclusion, Clinton is slowly but surely appearing more in public, and in ways that indicate a political and public future of some sort. (Read more from “WHAT’S IN HILLARY’S FUTURE? Latest Moves Indicate She Won’t Fade Away Quietly After Election Loss” HERE)

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Pruitt Will Be Game Changer at EPA … If Congress Protects Him From Courts

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Trump’s selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the EPA is by far his best non-security domestic policy pick. Choosing the man who led the battles against the EPA’s lawless regulations to head that very agency is every bit as sweet as choosing Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (C, 78%) to clean out the Department of Justice. There is no doubt that Pruitt will bring game-changing reforms to the culture of the EPA, and refuse to enforce any regulations that reach beyond the scope of their statutory authority.

There’s just one problem. Any loyal reader of Conservative Review can already guess it. If left unchecked by Congress, environmental legal defense groups, in conjunction with the lower courts, will essentially require Pruitt to enforce many of the regulations Obama implemented with lawless discretion.

Broken and hypocritical rules for standing in court

For much of Obama’s presidency, conservatives were on offense in the courts as sued Obama for legislating from the executive branch in an attempt to crush power plants and manufacturing. Scott Pruitt was a leader in pushing back against Obama’s overreach. Now the Left will turn the tables on him and we will be exclusively on defense in the courts.

Well, don’t liberals have the same right to sue Pruitt’s EPA policies as Pruitt did during the Obama administration?

This is where the rules of standing have been bastardized over the years, and have essentially turned the federal judiciary into an imperial super legislature.

Nobody can argue that power plants and manufacturers shouldn’t get standing in a court to sue when the executive branch promulgates regulations without statutory authority. If there is ever a legitimate “case or controversy” with established injury-in-fact to the aggrieved party, it is those industries who face wholesale collapse resulting from EPA regulations. In fact, interpreting the laws passed by Congress on behalf of aggrieved parties in the face of lawless administrative fiat — rather than vetoing legislation and redefining the Constitution — is quintessentially the business of the courts.

Contrast this with the environmental legal defense groups that launch class action suits simply because they stand in opposition to the ideology of those in power. Even though there is no established personalized injury, they seek to enact cap-and-trade style policies without passing a bill in Congress. When Democrats are in power, these groups work together with the agency. When conservatives are in power, however, these same groups get the courts to do their bidding against the will of the agency. They should never have standing in court to simply oppose policies they disagree with when agencies are following the letter of the law. Yet, in the ‘70s, the Supreme Court began overturning settled law regarding the rules of standing and essentially granted any third party ideological group standing to sue against the lack of overzealous environment regulations.

Unless Congress reins in the rules of standing, the bottomless pit of moneyed organizations on the Left will sue Pruitt for not enforcing the endless Obama-era edicts. They will largely succeed for a number of reasons. As we’ve noted many times, the lower courts are a dumpster fire and it will take years to clean them out, if ever. In particular, the critical D.C. Circuit is a disaster — with an 11-1 liberal majority on the district level (among non-senior judges) and at least a 7-4 liberal majority at the appellate level. We will find that a court system so committed to the “Chevron doctrine” — which proscribes broad deference to agencies that regulate beyond the scope of congressional authority — will suddenly become heavy-handed enforcers of laws that never passed Congress against the wishes of the agency.

Even if we win a few defensive victories in the courts, there is no limit to the number of avenues that the Left can use to attack a conservative EPA on every facet of environmental regulation policy. The victories are usually narrowly tailored to each circumstance, giving the Left more bites at the apple.

Further complicating things for Pruitt is Massachusetts v. EPA. Another lawless 5-4 decision from Anthony Kennedy in which he ruled states can get standing to force the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide — even though no such law passed Congress — the grievance is speculative and political, and the ability to redress it is even more notional. This ruling occurred at the end of the Bush Administration and will come back to haunt us as blue states file endless lawsuits. This is very different from what Pruitt did when he was protecting states from economic collapse stemming from regulations that never passed Congress. Again, the key element is what the text of the law actually says and the nature of the grievance for standing.

Over the years, the courts have always blocked out conservatives from obtaining standing in court to sue when agencies are not following the letter of the law. At the same time, they grant left-wing groups standing to sue in matters such as a monument of the Ten Commandments, where there is no tangible injury whatsoever. This is why courts have consistently prevented law enforcement, states, and taxpayers from suing the administration for not enforcing unambiguous congressional immigration laws, even as their communities and jurisdictions are flooded with crime and the fiscal drain of importing criminal aliens. Those grievances are always deemed “speculative,” while the global warming groups get standing without question.

Consequently, the courts will be the last stand for the Left when it comes to pushing for cap-and-trade and amnesty. They already have the votes in the lower courts to push their agenda.

As always, Congress is king

To that end, Congress must rein in the ability of the legal profession to enact judicial regulations in place of Obama’s administrate regulations. As we’ve noted many times, with few exceptions, the courts only have jurisdiction over the subject-matter granted to them by Congress. The power of the courts to engage in judicial review over agency regulatory policy comes from Sections 701-706 of the Administrative Procedure Act. Congress must revise 5 U.S.C. § 702 to raise the threshold for injury-in-fact, causation, and redressability as it relates to third party groups suing for non-economic or phony economic grievances.

In addition, Congress can pass a bill making it clear that the EPA has no authority under existing law to regulate carbon dioxide or promulgate any of Obama’s rules, such as the mercury, Boiler MACT, and Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) rules. Congress should also place a provision in the April budget bill prohibiting any funding for the EPA to enact those regulations.

With the courts out of the way, Pruitt can be let loose to systemically reform the entire agency. Much like with Jeff Sessions, the confirmation of Scott Pruitt is all hands on deck for conservatives. (For more from the author of “Pruitt Will Be Game Changer at EPA … If Congress Protects Him From Courts” please click HERE)

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HEY: The Electoral College Worked!

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Interesting observation from Al Bundy:

And let’s not even get started on the rampant, systemic vote fraud and the fact that untold millions of illegal aliens and dead citizens are stealing the American franchise. My guess? An accurate ecount of legitimate voters would reveal a Trump landslide. (For more from the author of “HEY: The Electoral College Worked!” please click HERE)

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Senate Democrats Retreat, Allowing Spending Bill to Avert Government Shutdown

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Senate Democrats, digging in their heels Friday over health benefits for coal miners, threatened to shut down the government over the weekend for lack of a short-term spending agreement by a midnight deadline.

But Friday evening Democrats gave in, Politico reported, saying they would fight on in the New Year but not be held responsible for shutting down the government.

“We’re not going to shut down the government. We’re going to keep it open,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the incoming minority leader, said.

The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday, 326-96, to pass the stopgap spending bill to keep the government running through April 28, when Donald Trump will have been in the White House for more than three months.

In the Senate, however, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., led a fight to secure a one-year extension of health benefits for miners, rather than the four months provided by the short-term measure lawmakers call a continuing resolution.

“We need to bring attention to the people who have done the work. They’re forgotten heroes,” Manchin said at one point.

Manchin and other Democrats said they would vote against the short-term spending bill, Politico reported, but it was expected to clear the Senate late Friday night.

Manchin, reportedly under consideration for secretary of energy or another post in the Trump administration, postponed a scheduled Friday meeting with the president-elect until Monday.

The new fiscal year began Oct. 1, but both chambers in late September approved a resolution funding the government through Dec. 9 at the current $1.07 trillion level. That deal was set to expire at midnight as Friday became Saturday.

Generally, the short-term spending measure continues current funding while providing additional money for specific defense, disaster relief, and health care initiatives.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team last month called for Congress to pass the stopgap spending measure until lawmakers could take up a longer-term bill in the weeks after Trump is sworn in as president Jan. 20.

Conservatives such as Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., argue that the continuing resolution practice should not be a standard mode of operation.

“Though this outcome was preferable to a larger, long-term spending bill, it is my sincere hope that our final vote of 2016 is not indicative of how we will operate in 2017,” Walker said in a prepared statement Thursday after the House vote.

Walker was one of 33 Republicans to vote no before the House adjourned and lawmakers went home for the Christmas holidays.

“This bill is a far cry from how our government should be funded and what priorities should be appropriated,” he said.

Conservatives especially focused on several key areas of policy, among them:

Anti-Terror Operations

The continuing resolution allocates $10.1 billion for what the Obama administration calls “overseas contingency operations,” a supplemental fund that provides money to the Pentagon and State Department related to fighting terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere abroad.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the continuing resolution does not adequately support the needs of the military.

Those who supported a short-term spending bill are “harming the military and will do great damage to the military and our ability to defend the nation,” McCain told reporters last month.

21st Century Cures Act

The continuing resolution includes $872 million for the 21st Century Cures Act, designed to expedite the drug-approval procedures of the Food and Drug Administration.

It eventually would earmark “billions to the National Institutes of Health, in part to combat cancer and invest in precision medicine,” Politico reported.

Disaster Relief

The spending bill provides $4.1 billion in relief for disaster areas, including funding for repairs to U.S. Highway 34 in Colorado after a flood in 2013. It includes $170 million for Flint, Michigan, where a public health crisis continues following lead contamination of the city’s drinking water.

Mattis Waiver

The bill includes a waiver of existing law requiring that any member of the military must be retired for seven years before becoming secretary of defense.

This waiver is designed to allow Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, to be nominated and confirmed even though he has been retired for only three years.

Export-Import Bank

Notably, the continuing resolution did not contain a provision designed to prop up the Export-Import Bank, a significant victory for conservatives who want to pull the plug on the government bank that provides loans and loan guarantees for foreign buyers of U.S. goods.

Currently, only two of Ex-Im’s five board seats are filled and, because of the vacancies, the bank’s supporters wanted Congress to change the bank’s quorum rules. This would allow Ex-Im to again approve loans of more than $10 million.

Some lawmakers, including Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said the move would be “completely inappropriate,” as one board member could be responsible for allocating millions of dollars in loans.

The use of a continuing resolution to keep the government running remains distasteful to many conservative lawmakers because they say it ignores problems that deserve immediate attention and action.

“A continuing resolution is nothing different than taking last year’s appropriations bills, just changing the date on it and moving it over to this year, so it doesn’t address the areas of overspending, it doesn’t surgically go in and be able to change things like an appropriations bill does,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Thursday in an interview with C-SPAN.

Lankford said he believes the short-term spending bill is a vehicle for neglecting to solve inevitable problems.

“A continuing resolution, or a CR as it is often called here in D.C., just takes out [the spending level for] last year, [and] moves it over to this year, regardless of the things that have been discovered that were problems in the last year or regardless of new priorities that we may have for the coming year,” he said.

The office of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the House Budget Committee and Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, noted that Congress has failed to pass a budget in six of the past 10 years.

Aides to Price, who did not vote on the stopgap spending bill, tweeted out a chart reminding Americans that in 18 of the past 20 years, Congress relied on a yearlong continuing resolution or omnibus spending bill to fund the government rather than the regular appropriations process:

(For more from the author of “Senate Democrats Retreat, Allowing Spending Bill to Avert Government Shutdown” please click HERE)

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Ohio Takes Major Step to Protect Individual Rights, Due Process

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For Ohioans who put civil forfeiture reform on their holiday wish lists this year, Christmas came early.

Yesterday, the Ohio Legislature voted overwhelmingly to approve H.B. 347, a sweeping reform bill that will dramatically scale back the practice of seizing and forfeiting property absent a criminal conviction.

Civil forfeiture is the legal tool that enables law enforcement officers to seize property they suspect of having been involved in the commission of, or having been attained through, a crime.

But despite an alleged criminal act being the basis for a civil forfeiture, Ohio law does not require a property owner to be convicted of a crime before the state can confiscate his cash, car, or home.

Current Law in the Buckeye State

Rather, prosecutors need only prove by a preponderance of the evidence (i.e. that it is more likely true than not) that the property is forfeitable. A property owner must prove that he is innocent of any wrongdoing to win back his property. It’s a complete reversal of the presumption of innocence standard Americans are accustomed to in the criminal law.

Worse still, Ohio law allows between 90 and 100 percent of forfeiture revenues to flow directly back to the law enforcement agencies that executed the seizures, filling their coffers with money that can be spent with little political accountability. Between 2010 and 2012, Ohio’s police, sheriffs, and prosecutors generated at least $25.7 million through property seizures under state law.

Since 2012, Ohio law enforcement organizations have not been required to document their forfeiture activities. So, in the Buckeye State, law enforcement organizations can seize property, keep and spend the proceeds without oversight, and do not even have to advise lawmakers or the public of how much money they are making and spending.

Perhaps it is no surprise that police, sheriffs, and prosecutors’ groups have fought hard to prevent the measure from passing in the Senate.

The executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association insisted that the Buckeye State’s forfeiture laws are “top-notch” and “chock-full of due process protections.”

Citizens Want Change

Everyday Ohioans see things differently. One recent poll showed that 81 percent of Buckeyes think that forfeiture policies need “major reforms.”

Evidently, the vast majority of the state’s citizens find a system that incentivizes property seizures—often based on little or no evidence of wrongdoing—and stacks the deck against innocent property owners to be anything but “chock-full of due process protections.”

One Ohio woman, Antoinette Lattimore, found this out the hard way. In 2013, she had $19,660 seized at the Dayton International Airport after a Dayton police officer searched her belongings and found she was traveling with the large sum of cash.

The officer found no drugs, but seized the full amount as illegal drug money. In reality, she was traveling to Tucson to purchase art pieces.

Lattimore hired an attorney, but eventually was worn down by the tortuous forfeiture system and accepted a “settlement”: The government kept nearly $9,000 of Lattimore’s money, despite never proving a link between the money and a crime. After attorney’s fees, Lattimore got to keep only $8,000.

The Legislature’s Reforms

H.B. 347 contains many reforms that will help to rebalance a skewed system and prevent abusive and baseless forfeitures like Lattimore’s.

If enacted, forfeitures of property valued at less than $25,000 will require a criminal conviction, and prosecutors will have to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence—a higher standard than the status quo—that the property’s owner “knew or had reasonable cause to believe” that the property facilitated or resulted from a criminal act.

They will also have to demonstrate that forfeiture of the facilitating property is proportionate to the underlying criminal offense.

Seized property valued at more than $25,000 can still be forfeited without a criminal conviction. Several states have adopted similar measures to preserve civil forfeiture as a tool to go after worst-of-the-worst offenders like drug kingpins, criminal organizations, and money launderers. That was the original, narrow, and noble goal of civil forfeiture when it was ramped up in the 1980s, but over time it has drifted from this limited purpose.

The bill also allows civil forfeitures without convictions in certain reasonable scenarios: if the accused dies, flees the jurisdiction or cannot be located, or if property is unclaimed.

The bill affords property owners the right to request a prompt post-seizure hearing, giving them the chance to quickly secure the return of wrongfully seized cash or property. It also mandates a pre-seizure hearing if state or local officials are targeting real property, an added layer of protection for instances where law enforcement targets someone’s home.

The bill also reins in Ohio’s use of the “equitable sharing” loophole, whereby state and local agencies partner with federal authorities to forfeit property using federal civil forfeiture laws. State agencies are then in line to receive up to 80 percent of the resulting proceeds.

Between 2000 and 2013, Ohio agencies netted $139 million in Department of Justice equitable sharing payments. None of this vast sum was subject to political oversight by state and local lawmakers.

H.B 347 prohibits the direct or indirect transfer or referral of any property worth less than $100,000 to federal law enforcement authorities, unless the transfer is for “federal criminal forfeiture proceedings.”

More Work Remains

While the bill preserves a monetary incentive for law enforcement under state law (90 percent of forfeiture proceeds will be returned to law enforcement agencies, with the remainder going to support community addiction service providers), it does place curbs on how these funds can be spent, including prioritizing victim restitution and removing a provision that allowed funds to be spent on “other law enforcement purposes.”

That nebulous catch-all category has allowed agencies in other states to use seized funds to cover everything from margarita machines to NBA tickets to “conferences” in Hawaii.

H.B. 347 does, however, include a worrisome provision that would allow the use of forfeiture funds to “pay the costs, including overtime costs, associated with all law enforcement task forces.”

Salaries of law enforcement officers should never be directly tied to the seizure of property. Linking job security and financial well-being to the forcible seizure of property is an invitation for abuse.

A Worthwhile Step

Despite its shortcomings, innocent Ohioans will enjoy far greater protections against unjust property seizures with H.B. 347’s reforms than under current law. A bipartisan coalition of legislators, think tanks, and citizens deserves applause for getting civil forfeiture reform to the finish line.

In doing so, Ohio has proven once again that the objections of an entrenched law enforcement lobby can be overcome, that forfeiture reform can be achieved, and that public safety need not be compromised to protect the property rights of innocent Americans.

Ohio has just set the stage for forfeiture reform battles—and victories—throughout the country in 2017. (For more from the author of “Ohio Takes Major Step to Protect Individual Rights, Due Process” please click HERE)

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EPA Pick Scott Pruitt Shows Trump Is Serious About Shredding Obama’s Climate Change Regs

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President-elect Donald Trump is delivering on his campaign promise to reign in environmental regulations and bring coal miners back to work by selecting Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Pruitt’s nomination goes hand and hand with Trump’s energy policy that seeks to unleash domestic energy production by reducing regulations and expanding natural resource development.

The Oklahoma AG is a vocal critic of the EPA’s regulatory overreach and disagrees with the claim that global warming science is settled. Instead, he believes the relationship between man’s activities and global warming needs vigorous debate.

The selection of Pruitt should allay any fears that Trump was softening his stance on reversing President Obama’s climate change regulations by recently meeting with former Vice President Al Gore.

Key to Trump’s pledge to bring back coal mining jobs, Pruitt is a critic of EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) rule which serves as the foundation of Obama’s climate change agenda.

The CPP seeks to cut carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and it also serves as the regulation that would deliver the U.S emissions targets promised as part of the United Nations Climate Change Paris Agreement.

Pruitt strongly opposed the EPA’s plan to regulate carbon dioxide. He was one of the leaders of a state attorneys general coalition legal fight against the CPP that led to the Supreme Court decision to block the regulation.

The immediate fate of the CPP now rests at a lower court. Regardless of the pending decision, odds are the legality of the rule will be argued again before the Supreme Court.

As head of the EPA, Pruitt — if confirmed by the Senate — would be in a great position to undo or significantly alter the CPP. (For more from the author of “EPA Pick Scott Pruitt Shows Trump Is Serious About Shredding Obama’s Climate Change Regs” please click HERE)

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Trump Taps Open Borders Zealot to Head Department of Labor

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Amidst all of the political science theories analyzing the secret sauce for Trump’s victory, there is one factor we can say for certainly did not play a role in his victory. Nobody voted for him because they wanted him to be more like Bush on immigration. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Yet, that is exactly the sentiment expressed by Trump’s choice to head the Department of Labor, Andrew Puzder.

Puzder, the big restaurant mogul, is one of the most outspoken advocates for open borders in the business community and embodies everything the grassroots rejected in the elite mindset about immigration. Throughout his career, Puzder has parroted every straw-man, non-sequitur, and downright offensive talking point on immigration that we have heard from the elites all over Washington for years.

Here is a quick sample of Puzder’s ignorant open border talking points, each built upon a multitude of false premises:

Make the Gang of Eight great again

In 2013, Puzder praised the Gang of Eight bill, which was probably the worst piece of legislation introduced this decade after Obamacare. “A bill like the one before Congress could really be a benefit to the U.S. economy and it would be nice to participate in an economy that was constantly growing,” said Puzder at an open borders event in Washington.

Rather than learning the lessons of the rejected amnesty bill, Puzder wrote a patronizing column in the Wall Street Journal two years later, calling on Republicans to “end the drama” on immigration. Yes, as if we are the ones divorced from our history and tradition on immigration, not the Democrats. As the 2016 presidential primary began to heat up, Puzder advised that “every candidate should support a path to legal status — short of citizenship — for illegal immigrants willing to accept responsibility for their actions and take the consequences.”

Of course, it’s all about what to do for foreign nationals, not about putting American security, sovereignty, and fiscal interests first.

Make Bloomberg billionaires great again

That same year, Puzder signed a letter for a Bloomberg billionaire front group pushing Republicans to pass another amnesty bill. He joined a group of business moguls pushing the other candidates to follow in Jeb Bush’s footsteps: “People vote with their hearts… Our values indicate we should be the party of immigration reform,” Puzder said. “[Many undocumented immigrants] live in fear of being deported, losing what they’ve built and being separated from their families.”

Puzder also promoted endless low-skilled and high-skilled visas in the same op-ed: “The American Enterprise Institute found in 2011 that “temporary foreign workers — both skilled and less skilled — boost U.S. employment,” and that immigrants with advanced degrees working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields “boost employment for U.S. citizens.”

Then, in July of this year, after it was clear Trump would not follow in Jeb’s footsteps, Puzder wrote an op-ed together with Stephen Moore, in part, beseeching Trump to change his mind on immigration. They offered the classic false choice argument: “We believe that deporting 11 million people is unworkable, and we hope in the end Mr. Trump comes to this same conclusion. Deportation should be pursued only when an illegal immigrant has committed a felony or become a “public charge.”

Yes, in other words, send the message that anyone who comes here will never be deported. And history has shown that anyone who subscribes to this view will never deport those who are criminals and certainly not those who constitute a public charge either.

What happened to putting Americans first?

Every word of Puzder’s long record of advocacy for open borders stands in contrast to Trump’s intellectually clear immigration speech he delivered in Arizona in late August:

When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following, amnesty, open borders, lower wages. Immigration reform should mean something else entirely. It should mean improvements to our laws and policies to make life better for American citizens.…

The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants… Anyone who tells you that the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time in Washington… There is only one core issue in the immigration debate, and that issue is the well-being of the American people.

I’m hearing some conservatives dismiss these concerns by noting that Puzder is rock-solid on labor regulations and is the right fit for the job of labor secretary. After all, he is not being chosen to head the Justice Department or Homeland Security. The problem with this assessment is that Puzder has been such a high-profile supporter of all of the people and issues driving the open borders lobby. Historically, the labor secretary has wielded an enormous influence on immigration policy because they oversee all of the guest worker programs.

But it’s not just about guest worker visas. Anyone who has followed the immigration issue understands that the entire cabal of open borders lobbyists — which is essentially everyone in power in business, law, politics, lobbying, academia, etc. (“masters of the universe,” as Sen. Sessions, R-Ala. (C, 78%) calls them) — has formed an ideological logrolling gravy train. Every facet of the immigration expansionist community will vouch for each sphere of open borders policy, even if it doesn’t directly affect them. In other words, the agriculture lobby doesn’t care about H1-b visas, but they will support them because they view any restriction as an eventual threat to their turf. Likewise, Silicon Valley doesn’t need a flood of refugees from Somalia, but will fight any efforts to shut down the program.

With this understanding in mind, picture how the entire gravy train will have one of their own in a strategic position relevant to immigration (although not the most important position). Puzder will serve as a countervailing force against any effort to clamp down on refugees, mass migration from the Third World, and the endless scams with visa programs that place big business instead of the people as a whole in charge of our sovereignty and future destiny.

Make no mistake, we don’t need more countervailing forces on immigration. The inertia and political gravity on this issue is one-directional in Washington. Aside from Jeff Sessions, especially after passing over Kris Kobach as DHS secretary, there will be no strong force keeping Trump in line to begin with. He has already gone off message on the issue and has always been wobbly on visas. We certainly don’t need Michael Bloomberg in charge of the Labor Department. Conservatives in the Senate should get some answers from Puzder with regards to immigration before they vote to confirm him.

Immigration (along with Obamacare, of course) is the hill to die on in the Trump presidency. It’s no secret that a lot of free market conservatism will be sidelined during this administration and that conservatives will have to swallow a number of bitter pills. Many conservative Trump supporters have suggested all along that such concessions would be worth it as the price for finally getting immigration right. In that case, we better make sure of it, not simply hope for change. Otherwise, conservatives will be left with an empty bag of promises. (For more from the author of “Trump Taps Open Borders Zealot to Head Department of Labor” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Stopping America’s Drug Epidemic

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This 2016 presidential race was a hard-fought campaign. President-elect Donald J. Trump campaigned on a bold and conservative platform of making our cities safe again. After decades of neglect, urban communities across America are in desperate need of repair.

With so many partisan political issues, there remain a select few issues that unite us rather than divide us. America is facing a tragic epidemic of drug-overdose deaths, and both Republicans and Democrats agree that it is time for action.

More than 21 million Americans above the age of 12 have been diagnosed with a substance abuse problem. In 2014, we saw watched 47,000 Americans die from drug overdoses, mostly due to abuse of heroin and other opiates. Ohio had the second-highest number of overdose-related deaths in the nation, with 79 people dying from opioid overdoses every day.

These tragic statistics do not include the many examples of people who hurt others while under the influence of drugs, the spread of diseases from shared needles, or the endless violence that is inherent to the criminal drug trade.

In rural, suburban and urban neighborhoods across Ohio, too many people suffering from chronic pain become addicted to prescribed drugs and turn to black market alternatives like heroin when obtaining new prescriptions becomes too difficult or costly. Heroin is cheap and available, despite the more than $500 the U.S. spends every second on the war on drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has confirmed that Mexico is the primary supplier of heroin in the United States. These cartel traffickers are taking advantage of the Obama Administration’s failure to secure our Southern border.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, outrageous federal loopholes currently allow manufacturers from China to shipping fentanyl, a deadly opioid which is stronger and cheaper than heroin, into our communities. Dealing with the opioid epidemic requires a diverse array of treatment strategies and options that must involve our criminal justice, law enforcement and public health systems. A multifaceted approach is required to address this issue, and it is imperative that we are making the right investments at every turn.

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, sponsored by Ohio Senator Rob Portman recently passed with a bi-partisan vote of 92-2. The goal of this law is to shift focus away from fighting the drug war through mass incarceration, and built up America’s treatment capacity. It included, among other things, greater funding for law enforcement and treatment, and increased the patient cap on doctors prescribing buprenorphine, a bridge treatment which reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings that too often drive addicts back to drug dealers.

Suboxone is Helpful, But Far From Ideal

In Ohio, a drug known as Suboxone is the state’s preferred buprenorphine treatment paid for by Medicaid. But it is far from an ideal medication. Suboxone comes in film strip form and is available in limited dosages, meaning physicians often have to prescribe higher doses than a patient actual needs. As a result, we are seeing patients to sell their excess strips on the black market for more than twice their value. Suboxone strips are also commonly smuggled into prisons and resold to inmates, compounding drug addiction problems in our prisons.

In Columbus, Suboxone smuggling into the Franklin County Jail became such a problem that the facility had to ban all outside deliveries of underwear and socks, which were easily used to conceal film strips. And in Southwest Ohio, officials at the Warren and Lebanon Correctional Institutions report that they are seeing an influx in Suboxone smuggling and abuse in those facilities. Law enforcement in Ohio is already overwhelmed trying to fight the drug epidemic in our communities, and now a purported solution to the opiate epidemic is exacerbating the problem.

Notably, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and 35 other attorneys general have sued the makers of Suboxone. The bipartisan suit argues that an aggressive pricing scheme and monopolistic practices have delayed alternatives to keep prices artificially high. Not only have their actions been a burden on taxpayers, they have prevented other drug manufacturers from offering patients and Medicaid programs more efficient options with tailored dosage levels and larger barriers to diversion into prisons and black markets.

To be clear, ensuring access to MATs is important. When used properly, these treatments save lives. But in Ohio, almost all of Medicaid’s spending on these treatments is paying for Suboxone, when there are other effective options available. Limited taxpayer resources shouldn’t be paying for medications that are ultimately costing the state in other ways.

By adopting a multi-faceted approach to addressing the opioid epidemic — expanding access to treatments, stopping well-intentioned Medicaid policies that are making the drug epidemic worse, and stopping the trafficking of illegal drugs at the border and in our communities — Ohio and America can use these evidence-based policy changes to keep more people alive and stop the opioid crisis. (For more from the author of “Stopping America’s Drug Epidemic” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.