“DUMPED ON PROM NIGHT”: Reports Coming in of Hillary’s Stunning Election Night Meltdown

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Hillary Clinton’s night on the 9th of November went from a celebration to an absolute meltdown once the election unexpectedly turned on her, leaving Trump as the victor. Some of the remnants of Hillary Clinton’s rampage in the private VIP area were discovered by the hotel custodial staff the day following the election.

Hillary Clinton’s post-election celebration plans included hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fireworks, live performances by various celebrities, such as Cher, who came believing that Hillary was going to win the election, a five-hundred-thousand-dollar special effect glass ceiling that she would break through in a dramatic display once she walked out on stage at her H.Q., among millions of dollars worth of other celebratory preparations, all paid for by the Clinton Foundation in full.

The most notable damage was located deep in the VIP room of the Clinton camp. A custom 150 inch ultra HD TV, a gift from the Saudi Arabian government, was found with a broken screen. The damage was caused by a $950,000 bottle of champagne that was believed to have been thrown at the screen by the former presidential candidate some time during the election.

Early in the morning, the custodial staff were greeted by flipped-over tables as the floors were covered with expensive food, drinks, and appetizers. Broken champagne flutes and gilded silverware were also seen scattered around the would-be party room.

The most telling sign of a massive meltdown was the cake. The pastry that had once proudly displayed the presidential seal, was violently flung against the walls in chunks. A broken topper from the cake in the shape of the white house was discovered lodged firmly into the drywall near the dessert table. (Read more from “”DUMPED ON PROM NIGHT”: Reports Coming in of Hillary’s Stunning Election Night Meltdown” HERE)

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7 Things Sessions Can Do Immediately to Restore the Law of Justice

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Talk about change we can believe in! Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (C, 78%) as attorney general would be nothing short of a game changer for the rule of law, sovereignty, and our security.

There is no part of the federal government that is more vital to our system of government, yet more damaged by the Obama years, than the Department of Justice. Whether it’s immigration law, domestic crime, jailbreak, crushing the states with lawsuits, or religious liberty concerns, the Justice Department stands at the nexus of the most important issues of our time. If there was ever an agency that must be cleaned out from top to bottom, it’s the DOJ. And no man is better suited for that job than Senator Jeff Sessions. He will promote equal justice under the statutes passed by Congress. Moreover, he can serve as a watchdog to ensure that other areas of the federal government are following the letter of the laws passed by Congress.

While some systemic reforms will have to come from Congress, there are some immediate steps that Sessions can take on day one to implement triage on the rule of law.

1. Clamp down on voter fraud

There is nothing more critical to the rule of law and our democracy than having free and fair elections. Federal judges, acting on lawsuits promoted by Obama’s DOJ, have been misinterpreting statutes in order to prevent states from cleaning their rolls of dead, fraudulent, and non-citizen voters. We are seeing those consequences play out now in the North Carolina governor’s election. While some of the statutes need updating from Congress, Sessions can act on day one to clean up the mess, according to J. Christian Adams, President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation:

Sessions can begin to enforce federal election laws the Obama administration deliberately stopped enforcing. Motor Voter requires voter rolls to be free of foreigners, the dead and ineligible voters. Obama’s Civil Rights Division lawyers stopped enforcing that law because they disagree with the law. Sessions already understands the problems in the Civil Rights Division so I am overjoyed by his nomination.

2. Terminate all of Obama’s lawsuits and appeals

On the first day of his tenure, Sessions should call in all unit heads and have them suspend every onerous lawsuit against states who enforce immigration law, election integrity, or implement laws pushing back against the transgender agenda, such as North Carolina’s HB2. He should also suspend the racially-charged lawsuits against local police departments. Sessions must reverse the growing trend of federal involvement in local law enforcement that does not relate to federal law.

3. Allow states to enforce immigration law and punish sanctuary cities

As AG, Sessions can interpret the immigration statutes as properly written to allow states to help enforce immigration law. At the same time, they could cut off law enforcement grants (Byrne JAG, COPS, and SCAAP funds) to localities that designate themselves as sanctuary cities and refuse to cooperate with the Secure Communities program, which helps ICE identify illegal aliens housed in local jails and state prisons.

4. Defang the U.S. Sentencing Commission

While some on the Right disagree over the scope and jurisdiction of some federal criminal statutes, it is clear that this determination must be left in the hands of Congress. Sentencing for federal crimes should be determined by federal judges, as dictated by guidance pursuant to congressional statutes. Yet, in recent years, the unelected U.S. Sentencing Commission, housed within the Department of Justice, has essentially operated autonomously to commute the sentences of 46,000 criminals. As attorney general in charge of the personnel within the department, Sessions can prevent the Sentencing Commission from executing its massive jailbreak agenda beyond its statutory mandate.

5. Replace immigration judges

Why do we have so much amnesty even though the congressional statutes call for illegal aliens to be deported? The immigration judges within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EIOR) have granted de facto amnesty by overturning deportations and letting criminal aliens roam free. The administrate judges within the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which serves as the appellate body of EOIR, have the ability to overturn a deportation order from a lower administrative judge and can review all enforcement actions taken by ICE and the border patrol. As Ian Smith of the Immigration Reform Law Institute warned, many of these administrative judges were former lawyers for illegal immigrants or organizations funded by George Soros. Given that they all work for the DOJ, Jeff Sessions can clean out the agency of Soros-affiliated immigration judges so that the foxes are not guarding the hen house and countermanding the intent of immigration statutes.

6. Immediately seek deportation for all illegal re-entrants

Deportations have become encumbered in a myriad of civil proceedings. There is definitely a long-term need to tighten up some enforcement statutes. But one low-hanging piece of fruit is for the DOJ to immediately seek expedited deportation for those who have re-entered illegally for a second time. Illegal re-entry is automatically a criminal prosecution, not a civil case. Moreover, many of the re-entrants are criminal aliens and should be immediately deported anyway.

7. Properly interpret the Constitution to protect states from liberal judges

There are three separate branches of the federal government. The judiciary does not have a monopoly on interpreting the Constitution. Even John Marshall’s controversial concept of judicial review only meant that the Supreme Court also has the right to interpret the Constitution for its own purposes in the cases and controversies that come before it as a co-equal branch of government. But the notion that the other two branches can’t push back on precedent and make a good faith attempt to interpret the Constitution for their own functions, is an ignorant misnomer among the political elites. As I noted in my piece on judicial reform, Congress has many tools it can use to fight back against the judiciary. But the executive branch also has the right to use its own interpretation when exercising its proper scope of power. That prerogative rests with the attorney general, under the orders of the president.

Therefore, in cases where lower courts force states to infringe upon religious liberty rights of private business owners or force schools to place boys in female dressing rooms, Sessions can make it clear that his version of the Constitution mandates no such right on the states. Although he can’t overturn a particular case, he can make it clear that the executive branch will not send out the marshalls to enforce a flagrantly unconstitutional order of the court. This is exactly why the Founders vested the judiciary with no enforcement mechanism — because they are not the sole and final arbiter of the Constitution. It is then up to Congress to either push back, affirm support, or ignore such a determination by the attorney general.

Whether one agrees with Jeff Sessions on policy or not is irrelevant to his appointment as attorney general. The job of a president, most profoundly manifest through his attorney general, is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” as stated in Art. II Sec. 3 of the Constitution. If liberals are upset about our statutes or our Constitution as adopted there are legitimate ways of changing them. As it stands now, they must be regarded as the supreme law of the land. Liberals will whine and moan about the politics of Jeff Sessions, but if they truly understood his commitment to the law, they’d seek to change the laws themselves — not the personnel faithfully executing them. (For more from the author of “7 Things Sessions Can Do Immediately to Restore the Law of Justice” please click HERE)

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Trump Considers Two Former Generals for Defense Secretary

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Two former generals are in contention for defense secretary in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration: James Mattis and Jack Keane, who served as an informal adviser to Hillary Clinton, according to a person involved in the transition.

Trump is seeking to build out his national security team, having offered the job of national security adviser to retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a key military surrogate throughout his campaign, according to the person.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani remains the leading contender for secretary of state but Trump is considering others, including South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the person said on Tuesday.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry is being considered for a range of positions, including agriculture secretary, energy secretary and secretary of veterans affairs, the person said.

Trump’s top strategists are trying to recruit leaders from across the Republican Party who represent a range of perspectives, including some who made negative remarks about Trump before he was elected. Trump’s deliberations will continue this weekend as he holds back-to-back meetings with potential candidates for posts in his administration at his home on his private golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, the person said. (Read more from “Trump Considers Two Former Generals for Defense Secretary” HERE)

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Who’s Who in Trump’s Cabinet and Leadership Possibilities

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As expected, many of the people being considered for top positions in the Trump administration are Republicans who supported him in the presidential campaign. The list excludes many of the big-name Republicans who shunned him, while it includes some of the smaller players — particularly Christian conservatives — who stuck with Trump. (For a description of the transition team helping Trump make the appointments, see the end of the article.)

Trump has already made some controversial choices, though they’re controversial to different groups. He selected Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, part of the transition team, as his White House chief of staff. He also chose Steve Bannon, former editor of Breitbart who became Trump’s campaign CEO, as his chief strategist and senior adviser.

As RNC chairman, Priebus is part of the Republican establishment many Trump supporters want kept away from influence. However, he avoided any behind the scenes maneuvers at the Republican National Convention in order to keep Trump from winning. Bannon has been accused of being “alt right” and particularly of being racist and anti-Semitic, but one prominent Jewish writer has laid out the case that he isn’t. Neither position requires Senate confirmation.

Secretary of State

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani is considered the top choice for this position. Another strong contender is former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The hawkish John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is also in the running. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a member of the Senate foreign relations committee which would vote first on the nominee, said he will do everything he can to block Bolton from getting the position, and also strongly opposed Guiliani.

Trump is also considering two Republican Clinton supporters: Richard Armitage, a former Republican State Department official and Henry Paulson, former Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has a lifetime score of 80 from the American Conservative Union, is one more possibility.

Secretary of Defense

Stephen Hadley, who served as a former national security adviser under both Bush administrations, is considered a leading contender for this position. Unlike several of his former defense colleagues from those administrations, he did not cross parties and endorse Hillary Clinton for president.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is also in the running for this and the National Security Advisor position. Famous for saying Hillary Clinton should be put in prison, Flynn would need a waiver from Congress to serve, since due to his military service he is ineligible to serve in such an office for five more years. Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and has an ACU lifetime rating of 78, is said to be considered for the position, as well as for CIA chief. He was removed from his position as national security senior adviser to the transition team.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is also considered a front-runner, though he’s also being considered for National Security Advisor. He has a 95 percent rating from the ACU, in contrast to Rogers’ 78. Rep. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who lost her re-election bid this year, is also on the short list. She has a lifetime rating from the ACU of 68. Former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, whose lifetime ACU rating is 96, is another possibility, as is Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. (R-Calif.), a Marine combat veteran with an ACU lifetime score of 92.

National Security Adviser

Both Sen. Sessions and retired Lt. Gen. Flynn are top contenders for this post.

Attorney General

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — one of 3 senators with a lifetime ACU rating of 100 — is reportedly being considered for Attorney General. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is a good friend of Trump’s and may be offered the position, as is Sen. Sessions. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is serving as an immigration adviser to Trump’s transition team, is another possibility. He has a strong conservative record, particularly on immigration, and once served as a Baptist missionary to Uganda.

White House Press Secretary

It is rumored that Kellyanne Conway is being considered for this position, since she performed so well representing the campaign. Another top contender is conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, who vocally supported Trump.

Homeland Security Secretary

Two conservative sheriffs are being looked at for this post, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who just lost re-election. Rep. Sessions is being considered for this position, due to his tough position on illegal immigration. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), whose lifetime ACU rating is 92, are also possibilities. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, who has an 89 rating from the ACU, is another contender.

Treasury Secretary

Steven Mnuchin of Goldman Sachs is considered the top choice, recommended by the transition team. He served as the campaign’s national finance chairman. The transition team is also reportedly considering investor Wilbur Ross Jr., Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. Hensarling, whose ACU lifetime score is 97, proposed a bill to overhaul the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Health and Human Services Secretary

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) is considered a top pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He has an excellent record in Congress, with a lifetime score of 96 from the ACU. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal are also under consideration. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is another possibility.

Former presidential contender Ben Carson, who had strongly supported Trump after he dropped out of the race, turned down an offer to serve in the administration as Secretary of Health and Human Services or other agency head, saying he did not have the background qualifications.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary

Pamela Patenaude’s name is being circulated for this position. She was an assistant HUD secretary under George W. Bush.

Army Secretary

Van D. Hipp, Jr., a former deputy assistant Army secretary for the elder Bush, is considered a strong contender for Army Secretary.

Education Secretary

Eva Moskowitz, known for championing charter schools, is under consideration, as well as former Washington D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who advocates school vouchers and charter schools. Betsy DeVos, a billionaire GOP donor who actively promotes school choice has also been named. She originally supported Common Core but changed her mind once it was federalized. William Evers, who worked at the younger Bush’s Education Department, is also in the running.

Labor Secretary

Victoria Lipnic, who worked at the Labor Department under George W. Bush, is being vetted for this position.

Secretary of the Interior

Two former governors are under consideration for Secretary of the Interior, Sarah Palin of Alaska and Jan Brewer of Arizona. Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma is as well. Cynthia Lummis, who is ending her term as Wyoming representative with a 94 lifetime rating from the ACU, is on the short list. Robert Grady, who served the elder Bush, is also being considered.

Environmental Protection Agency Secretary

Carol Comer, the commissioner of Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management and appointed by Pence, is under consideration for this position. She is an attorney who defended clients against EPA enforcement actions. Leslie Rutledge, the attorney general of Arkansas, is also being looked at. As AG, she took on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and rules on emissions.

Commerce Secretary

Trump’s first choice for Commerce Secretary is 78-year-old billionaire investor Wilbur Ross. Linda McMahon, a former World Wresting Entertainment executive and friend of the Trump family, is high on the list for this position.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Richard Grenell previously served as U.S. spokesman at the U.N. under President George W. Bush. He would be the first openly gay person to fill a Cabinet-level foreign policy post.

Other Positions

Several other names are being considered for less controversial foreign policy, defense and nuclear related positions. There will also be people appointed to head Energy and the Office of Management and Budget.

RNC Chair

While not technically a position in the administration, Trump has significant say over who becomes the next RNC chair. Michigan GOP chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, niece of Mitt Romney, is considered the front-runner.

The Transition Team

The transition team helping Trump make the appointments is headed by vice-president-elect Mike Pence. It includes what the Wall Street Journal calls “a mix of GOP traditionalists and outsiders … members of Trump’s family (all on the executive committee), Republican politicians, conservative thinkers and activists, and major Republican donors.” His campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who served as his campaign manager, is a senior adviser. It originally included several lobbyists, though there are now reports that Mike Pence has removed them.

Among the politicians, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has a lifetime score of 96 from the American Conservative Union, but the other members of Congress on the team have moderate records. The donors include Paypal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who spoke at the party’s convention; GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, a large donor to Ted Cruz’s primary campaign; and Dune Capital Management CEO Steven Mnuchin, who had been the campaign’s national finance chairman. Among the thinkers are many from the conservative Heritage Foundation, including its founder, Ed Feulner, and former Reagan attorney general Edwin Meese.

Many of the GOP “bicoastal elite” — including financial elites and social liberals — who might have dominated the transition either bowed out ahead of time or have been removed. One, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, was demoted from chairman to vice chairman.

Part of the transition team is an Agency Action Team assisting with the process of filling positions in the administration. Ken Blackwell is in charge of Domestic Issues. He is a leading Christian conservative, and Stream contributor, who has served in multiple elected positions in Ohio.

Others from the Heritage Foundation besides Feulner and Meese are Paul Winfree, who is overseeing issues related to the Office of Management and Budget. Kay Coles James, a Heritage trustee, is overseeing management and budget issues along with Meese, who served as president of the conservative Council for National Policy. William L. Walton, a Heritage trustee affiliated with CNP, has been tasked with overseeing Economic Issues. James Carafano, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, is heading up oversight of the State Department. (For more from the author of “Who’s Who in Trump’s Cabinet and Leadership Possibilities” please click HERE)

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Levin: ‘Why Isn’t This National News?!’

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Democratic Party leadership has announced their overwhelming support for Rep Keith Ellison, D-Minn. (F, 28%) to become the new DNC chair. The left-wing congressman has past ties to the Nation of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and holds very dangerous policy positions.

Yet, the mainstream media are pretending as if none of that is the least bit controversial.

“Why isn’t this national news?!” shouted Mark Levin Wednesday night on his radio program, before explaining who Ellison really is.

Listen to the full clip below:

“That’s the future of the Democrat Party,” Levin went on to say. “Backed by Schumer … who’s getting ready to sabotage [the Trump] administration even before they are sworn in.”

It’s becoming readily apparent that when the Democrats are backed into a corner they get radical — fast. (For more from the author of “Levin: ‘Why Isn’t This National News?!'” please click HERE)

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Dear Dejected Hillary Supporters, Stop Trying to Make the Electoral College About Slavery!

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Adding to the ever-growing list of scapegoats for Hillary Clinton’s presidential election loss to Donald Trump, mainstream and leftist voices have now turned their harangues and calumnies toward the Electoral College.

Now that the mewls of “Hillary won the popular vote” have been exhausted, her apologists are going after the institution of the Electoral College (and, by association, the Constitution), with more and more tying its historic heritage to slavery. These attacks on the function of the college are not only inaccurate, they ignore the complexity, nuance, and statesmanship necessary to even have a constitution in the first place.

In the days following Clinton’s loss, Vox was one of the first notable outlets to scapegoat the Electoral College, due to the fact that slavery existed during the birth of the U.S. Constitution. In an interview with Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale, they hammer the point that the college simply existed to protect the institution of slavery.

PBS Newshour cites another professor at a Canadian university, who says most would be “disgusted” at the true origins and relationship between the Electoral College and the institution of slavery. All the while, he cites a speech that James Madison gave at the Constitutional Convention in which Madison called the disparity of suffrage between states a “serious problem.” (It is also worth noting that an editor’s note indicates that the article’s author initially got the winner of the 1800 election wrong.)

Elsewhere, Slate — in typical fashion — simply asserts that the institution is an “instrument of white supremacy” akin to “mass incarceration.”

Finally, news broke Tuesday that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. (F, 4%) has introduced a bill to abolish the Electoral College, calling the process “an outdated, undemocratic system,” that unfairly robbed Hillary Clinton of the presidency.

This is a shocking response to the fact that the Electoral College does and did exactly what it was supposed to do. As CR’s Rob Eno recently explained, the electoral vote guards against the tyranny of the dense population centers over the rest of the country (as it did Nov. 8). When numbers from Boxer’s home state of California alone are removed from the total tallies, Trump not only wins the Electoral College, but a sizeable chunk of the popular vote as well. Put simply, we live in a federal republic, not Mob-rule-istan.

In a recent column at The Wall Street Journal, Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn explains flawlessly:

The Constitution is paradoxical most of all about power, which it grants and withholds, bestows and limits, aggregates and divides, liberates and restrains. Elections are staggered, so as to distribute them across time. The founding document also divides power across space; the people grant a share of their natural authority to the federal government, but another share to the states where they live.

…

We forget that it is a historical rarity to have an executive strong enough to do the job but still responsible to the people he governs. The laws in the U.S. have worked that miracle for longer than anywhere else. Remember that the Electoral College helps establish the ground upon which the American people must talk with each other, while ensuring that they are not ruled as colonies from a bunch of blue capitals, nor from a bunch of red ones.

But this is only half the problem with progressives’ recent detractions from the document. The rest lies with trying to slander the Electoral College because of an historical relationship with slavery.

Probably the best explanation of this complexity came from a professor who told me that the founders and the framers were incapable of freeing the slaves at that time because they were barely capable of freeing themselves.

Yes, thanks to the complex nature of slavery and the early republic and the impossibility of creating a document that would be unanimously ratified in Virginia, South Carolina, New York Massachusetts, and Maine, (for a better understanding of these, I recommend a viewing of the movie “1776”; it takes just under 2.5 hours and there’s singing. Easy day.) it is impossible to say that it is not connected. But to slander the college on this connection alone is fallacious and reductionist, ignoring the manifold concerns that were addressed in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

Simply because the college coexisted in a document with slavery does not mean that it was specifically designed to preserve and protect the institution. What about the concerns of smaller, non-slaveholding states like Connecticut and others — which also feared that large town centers would eventually overshadow their representation in the Union? What of the urban/rural divides that decided the election this cycle?

In other words, if you’re going to slander and throw out the Electoral College simply because of its proximity to those compromises, you may as well dismantle our entire federal order and bulldoze every monument to every person present at the Constitutional Convention. History, especially in these contexts, is far more complex than you want it be.

Slavery was indeed our country’s original sin — one in atonement for which we fought a long and bloody Civil War that nearly destroyed our Union. Its relationship to our founding documents is as shameful as it is complex. But rather than throwing babies out with the bathwater, it would do us well as a people to recognize these complexities rather than reducing them to the fallacy of the day.

In other words, those upset by 2016’s results would do better to just admit that they want to change the game that their candidate lost, rather than reaching for justifications to slander the rulebook. (For more from the author of “Dear Dejected Hillary Supporters, Stop Trying to Make the Electoral College About Slavery!” please click HERE)

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Protecting President Trump Won’t Be Easy. A Former Secret Service Agent Explains Why

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The most difficult task I ever grappled with was learning how to effectively secure the life of the president of the United States as a Secret Service agent in the Presidential Protective Division.

Mastering presidential security is a herculean task which requires seasoned, presidential lead advance agents to master logistics, security, diplomacy, and constantly evolving technology. It takes a typical Secret Service agent approximately seven to ten years of investigative field work before they are even eligible for consideration for appointment to the Presidential Protective Division, and very few agents are selected. In many children’s sport leagues, and on many of our college campuses, everyone gets a trophy for participating. But, not in the Secret Service, where only the best of the best are selected to protect the president. A Secret Service agent friend of mine once described the journey from an agent’s hiring to the Presidential Protective Division as “the world’s longest job interview,” and he was correct.

With the inauguration right around the corner, President-elect Trump’s Secret Service detail will have to grapple with the following obstacles:

1. The inauguration

I was one of the advance agents from the Presidential Protective Division tasked with designing and implementing the security planning for Barack Obama’s January, 2009 inauguration. I was also assigned to the 2005 inauguration of George W. Bush in a support capacity. Sadly, both the 2001 and 2005 Bush inaugurals were marred by protests, egg throwing, arrests, and a number of attempts to disrupt the inaugural motorcade route. And, although these protestors clearly had the right to protest, they did not have the right to throw objects and disrupt the security plan. It’s not a partisan talking-point but a harsh reality that many on the far-left have embraced the politics of destruction and violence as a strategic political weapon. The Barack Obama 2009 inauguration saw almost none of this type of activity with only isolated misconduct incidents and infamous logistics failures such as the “Purple Tunnel of Doom” disaster. I derive absolutely no pleasure in telling you that the far-left presents more challenges to the security planners at a Republican event than the Right does at a Democrat event but, history doesn’t tell tall tales.

Protesting is, thankfully, a constitutionally protected activity, but it does suck up security assets like a manpower vacuum because the threat of any protest turning violent requires that the protests be monitored and, as recent history has unquestionably shown us, many Trump protestors are only a hair trigger away from turning violent at a rally. The Secret Service is going to have to deal with this reality and build their security plan around what will assuredlybe significant protest activity on Inauguration Day.

2. Social media threats

President-elect Trump wasn’t the first political candidate to use social media as a force multiplier, but he was the first to do so by adding a personal touch to such an enormous and attentive social media audience. The media made Donald Trump’s tweets the focus of legions of news stories and drew a corresponding amount of attention to Trump’s account, amplifying his audience and, paradoxically, enabling him to use those social media platforms to get his message out and bypass traditional media gatekeepers. I don’t know what President-elect Trump’s future plans are with regard to social media but I would be surprised if he abandoned his signature communication vehicle.

If he continues to tweet, albeit with the understanding that the tweets now carry the weight of presidential communications, they will likely elicit some furious feedback from his political enemies. Unfortunately, many of the responses to his social media posts will be threats. All of these threats will have to be “run out” (investigated) as we used to say in the Secret Service. This is going to cause an unprecedented drain on the Secret Service’s very limited protective intelligence assets (the agents who investigate threats to Secret Service protectees). Although I am now, and will always be, a vocal supporter of limited government, there is simply no way to squeeze twenty pounds of presidential threat investigations into a five pound investigative bag. The agents needed to investigate this potential tidal wave of threats will have to be taken away from criminal investigative assignments. It may be a good time to have a bigger conversation about scrapping some of the Secret Service’s current tasks and re-prioritizing protection, major events, and protective intelligence.

3. Technology and weapons

The Secret Service culture is heavily resistant to change, especially regarding new technology. Another former agent friend of mine summed it up with the quip “the Secret Service: Yesterday’s technology-tomorrow.” The Secret Service is still using decades-old manpower hour management programs and it still requires its agents to waste hours of precious time each month on unnecessary paperwork and bureaucratic hoop-jumping. Applying an outsider’s business perspective, in the model of a President-elect Trump, to this process could clean this mess up quickly and free up Secret Service agents to do their jobs, not making multiple photocopies of a time and attendance report.

Secondly, the Secret Service MUST update its weapons capabilities to reflect the evolving threat of a small arms tactical assault from a terror group. Rank-and-file agents have been complaining about the Secret Service’s insufficient weapons capabilities for years, and the transition to 5.56 from the 9mm sub-machinegun took way too long. Every Secret Service agent assigned to a protective mission — from those temporarily assigned as post-standers, to the agents permanently assigned to the president — should be equipped with the necessary weapons and training to be able to defend themselves and the president from this evolving terror threat. And while the Secret Service’s main mission is to evacuate the president, not to engage in wild-west-type gun fights, they must have the ability to stave off a prolonged tactical assault by a small group of well-armed and suicidal terrorists who will only be stopped by applying an equal amount of force.

Donald Trump ran a different kind of campaign, with a different kind of political strategy. This is going to require a different kind of approach to keeping him safe. God bless those involved in the effort. (For more from the author of “Protecting President Trump Won’t Be Easy. A Former Secret Service Agent Explains Why” please click HERE)

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What Happened on Hillary’s Plane Right Before She Lost Election Revealed, It Speaks Volumes…

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Hillary Clinton on Saturday cast blame for her surprise election loss on the announcement by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, days before the election that he had revived the inquiry into her use of a private email server.

In her most extensive remarks since she conceded the race to Donald J. Trump early Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton told donors on a 30-minute conference call that Mr. Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress about the inquiry 11 days before Election Day had thrust the controversy back into the news and had prevented her from ending the campaign with an optimistic closing argument.

“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”

Mrs. Clinton said a second letter from Mr. Comey, clearing her once again, which came two days before Election Day, had been even more damaging. In that letter, Mr. Comey said an examination of a new trove of emails, which had been found on the computer of Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of one of her top aides, had not caused him to change his earlier conclusion that Mrs. Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information.

Her campaign said the seemingly positive outcome had only hurt it with voters who did not trust Mrs. Clinton and were receptive to Mr. Trump’s claims of a “rigged system.” In particular, white suburban women who had been on the fence were reminded of the email imbroglio and broke decidedly in Mr. Trump’s favor, aides said.

…

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was so confident in her victory that her aides popped open Champagne on the campaign plane early Tuesday. But that conviction, aides would later learn, was based largely on erroneous data showing that young, black and Latino voters and suburban women who had been turned off by Mr. Trump’s comments but viewed Mrs. Clinton unfavorably would turn out for her in higher numbers than they ultimately did. (For more from the author of “Hillary Clinton Blames F.B.I. Director for Election Loss” please click HERE)

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This One State Proves Why the Electoral College Exists

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The 2016 presidential election is a textbook example of why the Founders, in their infinite wisdom, chose the Electoral College method of electing the president. Their elegant compromise ensures that states with small population still have a say in who is elected president. The results from Election Day 2016 highlight this exquisitely. If you remove anyone of a handful of large population states from the popular vote count, Trump won the rest of the country convincingly.

Six days after the election, the race has been called in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Donald Trump has a 290 to 228 Electoral College vote lead. Trump is leading by approximately 12,000 votes in Michigan, and trails by a smaller margin in New Hampshire. If those two states finished where the vote is now, Trump will have 306 Electoral College votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232.

However, Trump is trailing slightly in the popular vote at the same time. Here is where the national popular vote count stands six days after the election.

Clinton: 61,039,676

Trump: 60,371,193

That is a 668,483 vote difference, or less than 0.6 percent of all the votes cast for president.

The Electoral College was created as a check on large population states. If there was a true popular vote, a handful of states, or even just one, could perpetually pick the president. Today, that state would most probably be California. Here is where the California popular vote stands six days after the election.

Clinton: 5,589,936

Trump: 3,021,095

That is a difference of 2,568,841 votes. This means that Donald Trump won the rest of the country by about 1.9 million votes. If you look at similar numbers in 2012, Mitt Romney would have lost the popular vote in the 49 states other than California plus the District of Columbia.

In 2016, the Electoral College is acting exactly as designed. In our federalist system of government, the people in vast swaths of this land did not have their voice drowned out by the interests of one state.

It is just that simple. (For more from the author of “This One State Proves Why the Electoral College Exists” please click HERE)

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Michael Moore Says Trump Supporters ‘Not Racist’

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Liberal political activist Michael Moore defended white Trump supporters Friday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, saying, “they’re not racist.”

“They twice voted for a man whose middle name is Hussein,” Moore said referring to Trump supporters. “That’s the America you live in.”

Moore’s comments were in response to Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton, after Glaude asserted that “at the heart of this country is some deep racial animus that animates the very communities that we’re trying to lift up.”

Moore continued:

Even though this country is only 12 percent black, the vast majority of this country, especially its young people — if you remember, it was really the only white demographic he won in ‘08 was 18 to 35-year-olds — they poured out in record numbers, they made that happen. But if you put people through another eight years where there’s no middle class jobs, they’re struggling to get by, the basic things like you said — the price of a box of cereal doubles. These are the things that are important to people because they are trying to get by, they’re living from paycheck to paycheck.

Though Moore has defended Trump supporters, and predicted that the Republican candidate would win, he has made it clear that he is not a fan. Yesterday he called Donald Trump an “illegitimate president” while touring Trump Tower in New York City, saying “the majority of people voted for Hillary Clinton.” He was referring to the fact that Trump won a majority of the Electoral College, which is what determines presidential elections, rather than the popular vote.

Moore also joined in on a social media trend comparing November 9, the day after the election, to September 11. The filmmaker tweeted “Fahrenheit 11/9,” a reference to his 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11. (For more from the author of “Michael Moore Says Trump Supporters ‘Not Racist'” please click HERE)

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