The biggest news story of the week is not that President Trump is attacking conservatives for wanting to uphold his campaign promise and protect him from owning a more insolvent version of Obamacare. The biggest story is that he is not attacking the establishment and Senate appropriators for preemptively negotiating away his leverage by promising Chuck Schumer there won’t be funding for the border wall in the April budget.

President capitulating on border funding

One of the few good things that has come from this nascent administration is its discretionary budget proposal for FY 2017 and FY 2018. The budget bill for the remainder of the fiscal year, which comes due on April 28, presents the president with his only opportunity to force through critical policy changes and his spending priorities. The president has asked for immediate supplemental funds for the border wall and for rebuilding the military in exchange for $18 billion in cuts to the non-defense bureaucracies. Yet, as we noted earlier this week, Senate Republicans already forged a deal to fund Planned Parenthood, refugee resettlement, and the extra spending for the bureaucracies…but not for the border wall!

Why isn’t the president demanding an immediate course correction? The border wall is the most foundational promise of Trump’s campaign, yet he has nothing to say when liberal Republicans negotiate away his leverage. The more the border wall funding is delayed, the less likely it will ever get done. What gives?

Refusing to fight for moratorium

Meanwhile, the maniacal courts continue to assault national sovereignty. On Wednesday, the radical judge in Hawaii upgraded his temporary restraining order on the immigration moratorium to a preliminary injunction. Unfortunately, this administration refuses to plow ahead with the moratorium and its lawyers are capitulating to the courts, even though courts have no jurisdiction over this issue and there was no legitimate case or controversy to rule on. A district judge cannot place a nationwide injunction on the lack of issuance of visas to hypothetical prospective immigrants or travelers.

There is a term for this obsequious behavior from the White House, widely popularized by some pro-Trump social media outlets, and it begins with a C.

Welcome to sanctuary nation

We haven’t heard the last from the courts, either. The Seattle mayor is also suing the administration for cutting off funding to lawless sanctuary cities. Mayor Ed Murray filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (the court where James Robart sits) claiming that the federal government cannot cut off funding despite the jurisdiction’s violation of federal law and national sovereignty. I’ve already explained that their anti-coercion federalism argument is absurd, but there is no doubt the courts will place a nationwide injunction on this order and declare America a sanctuary nation. The courts are insane and have already issued similar rulings.

Which is why it’s so important to include in the funding bill a provision denying Justice Department grants to lawless jurisdictions. Why is the president not making the case, and why is he groveling before the courts when the courts are engaging in civil disobedience?

Make refugee resettlement great again

Worse, as the Huffington Post reported, the State Department has reset the refugee caps to near-Obama levels and is bringing in 900 refuges per week. This is completely gratuitous, even for one who wants to abide by the lawless court decision.

Obsessing with Palestinian “peace” and allowing terrorist travel

Meanwhile, the State Department is issuing a visa to Palestinian terrorist Jibril Rajoub to participate in peace talks! Aside from the fact that this action reveals the administration is just as obsessed with the two-state solution as the Obama administration, the issuance of such a visa violates federal law (INA Sec. 212(a)(2)(B)), which bars entry to anyone associated with terrorists or who has espoused support for terrorism.

What happened to putting Americans first?

Moreover, why is he not demanding that the House and Senate vote on all his immigration promises – from halting the Central American surge to the Davis-Oliver interior enforcement bill? Why isn’t he demanding that they pay for the wall by cutting off remittances to Mexico and refundable tax credits for illegal aliens, including the “DACA” amnesty he continues to facilitate?

Sure, constitutionally speaking, Congress sets the agenda, but politically, the president sets the agenda when his party controls Congress. And if Trump has the time and moxie to go after conservatives on health care, why is he not subjecting the establishment to his Twitter treatment as it relates to the budget, immigration, and his most foundational promises?

Yet instead of harnessing the outrage from the Rockville rape to protect our sovereignty, DHS Secretary John Kelly won’t stop talking about “Dreamers” as if they are covered by a legitimate statute. He promised Democrats on Wednesday that he would not deport any “Dreamer” without a criminal record. Not only is it against the law to categorically exempt them from deportation, but the Rockville rape demonstrated that there are indeed violent ones who have never previously offended.

It is precisely the promise of “Dream” amnesty that has led to the disastrous border surge from Central America. Furthermore, forget about deportations, why is DHS handing out affirmative benefits to new applicants every week? This is patently unconstitutional, as well as a violation of our sovereignty and a drain on taxpayers. Not to mention a violation of another campaign promise.

Then again, it’s always easy to make conservatives the bogeyman. The media will certainly let that one go. Attacking the swamp? Not so much. (For more from the author of “While Trump Attacks Conservatives, His Immigration Agenda Burns” please click HERE)

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In a break from his predecessor, President Donald Trump is giving more power to the military in carrying out the campaign against the Islamic State, and counterterrorism more broadly.

Military and national security experts say Trump seems to be largely following President Barack Obama’s strategy to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and other terrorist groups—relying on American special operations to assist local forces who do the bulk of the fighting in countries like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

But critics of Obama’s approach to fighting ISIS say he and his political aides were too involved with operational and tactical issues, and that Trump’s decision to delegate decisions to the military could allow for faster defeat of the terrorist group.

“I have seen a dramatic shift in a very positive way—away from the political micromanaging of the Obama years to freeing up generals and troops to destroy ISIL and help our partners,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“The strategy shift to allow more authority to commanders in the battlefield is welcome news to me and bad news for ISIL,” Graham said.

‘Can’t Delegate Risk’

While military leaders, and local forces doing the fighting against ISIS, welcome the opportunity to be more responsive to changes on the battlefield, some experts say Trump is assuming more risk by being hands-off.

Trump has been criticized for what looked to be a quick approval process for the military to conduct a January raid against terrorists from al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen that resulted in the death of an American commando and several civilians.

Airwars, a nonprofit group that monitors civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, reports that in the month of March the number of reported civilian fatalities has increased to more than 1,000, from 465 in December, the last full month of the Obama administration.

Most recently, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, on Tuesday said that an American airstrike “probably had a role” in leading to the collapse of a building in Mosul that killed potentially hundreds of civilians.

“The Iraqis during the Obama years were constantly complaining we were not being aggressive enough in airstrikes, and I was one who argued the administration was a little too micromanaging,” said Andrew Exum, who was the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy in the Obama administration, in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“The Mosul strike shows that as soon as you take more aggressive action and civilians are killed, it’s not like our Iraqi partners shoulder the blame—the blame falls on the U.S.,” Exum added. “You can delegate authority, but you can’t delegate risk. The risk associated with these types of strikes doesn’t stay at the tactical and operational role. It rapidly comes up to the strategic, political level.”

Pentagon officials have stressed this week that the rules of engagement that govern the military’s decisions around risk to civilians have not changed in the Trump administration.

Townsend did acknowledge the military has moved to speed up the process of providing airstrikes to help Iraqi troops and American special operations advisers in Mosul, with the goal to “decentralize” decision-making. Commanders in the field are able to request airstrikes without waiting for approval from more senior officers.

“This is part of a trend where it appears President Trump will empower Cabinet secretaries more than Obama did,” said Thomas Spoehr, the director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense. “If you are in the Pentagon and you are more actively involved in making decisions, it causes you to be reflective because you own that decision. They know you can create more terrorists than you can kill if you cause a bunch of civilian casualties.”

‘There to Help’

Defenders of this approach note that reports of greater civilian casualties come at a time of more intense military operations in Mosul and by forces fighting ISIS in Syria.

Iraqi forces, with the help of the U.S. coalition, have mostly secured the east side of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, but the fight for the west side of the city has entered a different phase, and it’s happening in tight, urban quarters where ISIS fighters purposely locate themselves near civilians.

“You can expect more risk of civilian casualties as the fight develops into confined spaces,” said Graham, who noted he has made 42 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan as a senator. “Mosul is house to house, street to street, and airpower in an urban environment is always tough to deploy. ISIS is an enemy that consciously puts civilians in harm’s way. The people of Mosul know we are there to help.”

Exum said in the Obama administration, the approval process for “dynamic airstrikes”—or those that are made and decided upon as action calls for, and not deliberately pre-planned—“never touched Washington, D.C.”

“The micromanaging criticism really wasn’t about airstrikes,” Exum said. “It was about movement of men, weapons, and material around the battlefield. The Obama administration gave wide, wide latitude to the commander [Gen. Joseph Votel] of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in terms of collateral damage.”

Experts emphasize that Obama also earned pushback for controversial use of airpower, most notably when the U.S. in 2015 struck a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing staff members and patients.

“In the the Obama years, there were a lot of airstrikes done, a lot of them controversial and close calls,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national defense and foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“Part of what you saw later on in the administration was the White House trying to throw sand in the gears in a way that did not really change the strategy, but reduced the odds of a mistake. Some of us felt this was almost the Obama team trying to be a little too precious. You are trying to persuade yourself there’s this big constraint on our action but in the end you are still pulling the trigger.”

Escalating Military Efforts

Though Trump is not straying too far from Obama’s counterterrorism strategy, experts say they see other signs of the new administration more heavily relying on military power.

Earlier this month, the U.S. sent an additional 400 troops to Syria to assist in the looming fight to take back Raqqa, ISIS’ self-declared capital—a near-doubling of the number of American troops already there.

The amount of U.S. advisers in Iraq supporting the Mosul offensive has also risen in recent months.

The strategy in both these missions hasn’t changed from the Obama administration, where local forces do most of the fighting, and the Americans assist with advising and logistical support.

“The Trump administration seems to be not as hung up on troop numbers, which I think can be healthy as long as there is good transparency between the president and his military leadership,” Exum said.

In addition, the Trump administration has loosened the rules for American special operations raids and airstrikes in Yemen, targeting the al-Qaeda affiliate there. The New York Times reported the U.S. has launched more airstrikes in Yemen this month than during all of last year.

The Times said Thursday that the U.S. has removed similar constraints in Somalia, declaring parts of the country an “area of active hostilities” to intensify fighting against the al-Shabab, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda.

The Washington Post reported this week the Trump administration is weighing a proposal by Defense Secretary James Mattis to escalate U.S. involvement in an ongoing war in Yemen between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and a coalition of Persian Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia.

The Post said Mattis is advocating “limited” U.S. military support to an offensive by the United Arab Emirates to retake a Red Sea port from the Houthis, in a move to more aggressively confront Iran.

“This would be a complete change in attitude and a reversal in policy, and it’s about time someone stood up to the Iranians,” Graham said.

Preparing for ‘Day After’

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for national security at the Center for American Progress, said Obama’s limited support to the Saudi coalition did little to stem a two-year-old war that has resulted in significant civilian casualties.

But he recommends more broadly that the Trump administration needs to support its increasing military efforts with a “day after” strategy to help resolve underlying political and sectarian disputes that drive violence in places like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Katulis wonders how much Trump will value diplomacy given his budget request that increases military spending and cuts State Department funding.

“The U.S. under successive administrations has not used its leverage to achieve their goals in places like Yemen,” Katulis told The Daily Signal in an interview. “The Trump administration would be making a big mistake of simply escalating some military operations in the absence of linking it to a long-term plan to stabilize the country. We could unwittingly be enmeshed in a campaign that contributes to Yemen’s collapse and humanitarian disaster.”

Graham agrees that Trump must accompany military actions with a diplomatic and political plan.

“You never win a war by bombing and leaving,” he said.

As an example of the approach Graham says the U.S. should take to counterterrorism, the South Carolina senator is calling for the Trump administration—if the American-backed coalition is successful in dislodging ISIS—to leave behind a residual force in Iraq to help the country rebuild.

“The U.S. should be part of an international effort to help the Iraqis hold and reconstruct their territory,” Graham said. “I think President Trump is open-minded to the idea.” (For more from the author of “In Shift From Obama, Trump Leans on Military in Fight Against Terrorism” please click HERE)

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President Donald Trump told the nation’s largest police union his administration will “always have your back,” a departure from what many police organizations say they felt about the previous administration.

The Fraternal Order of Police visited the White House Tuesday. Many police organizations criticized the Obama administration for being quick to criticize the officers after a police shooting before knowing all the facts.

Trump met with nine police union officials from across the country, and was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, where he asserted “there is nobody braver” than law enforcement, and thanked them for their endorsement in last year’s election.

“I made a crucial pledge,” Trump told the police officials. “We will always support the incredible men and women of law enforcement. I will always have your back 100 percent.”

Such words from a president mean a lot, noted Scott Erickson, president of Americans in Support of Law Enforcement.

Erickson wasn’t part of the meeting, but asserted this first formal meeting with Trump and the Fraternal Order of Police marks a change in tone.

“Public perception of police is slowly improving for two reasons,” Erickson, who was a police officer in San Jose, California, for 18 years, told The Daily Signal. “People got burnt out on the negativity, hearing the worst about cops. Two years ago, it hit a new low. Last year, approval for cops spiked. But what top government officials were saying filtered down to public discourse about cops. That is changing.”

During his presidency, Barack Obama verbally criticized several police departments, asserting in July 2009 that the Cambridge Police Department “acted stupidly,” when an officer stopped a Harvard professor outside his home. In December 2012, after winning re-election, Obama said some local police departments “are not trying to root out bias.”

In July 2016, after shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, Obama said while in Warsaw, Poland, “These are not isolated incidents, they are symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system.”

That same month, during a memorial service for five slain police officers in Dallas, Obama talked about racial disparities in law enforcement, saying, “When all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we can’t just simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid.”

These were the types of comments that framed the description of police officers, Erickson said. That seems to have changed with a new president, according to Erickson.

“Police no longer feel they are going to have an administration casting a skeptical eye on them before all of the facts are in,” Erickson said.

On Feb. 9, Trump signed three executive orders to back law enforcement. The first stated the federal government is on the side of federal, state, tribal, and local law enforcement. The second established a task force for reducing crime, and the third created a separate task force to determine the best way to take on transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels.

During his meeting with police Tuesday, Trump said that police must be empowered to keep the public safe.

“Sadly, our police are often prevented from doing their jobs,” Trump said. “In too many of our communities, violent crime is on the rise. These are painful realities that many in Washington don’t want to talk about. We have seen it all over.”

Trump noted, “I always ask, ‘What’s going on in Chicago?’”

Dean Angelo, president of Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, was among those who met with the president. After the meeting, the Chicago Tribune reported Angelo said, “I just mentioned that the police officers want to work, and that [they] need people to support police officers to go back to work so they can work toward stemming the violence in our city.”

Trump referenced during the meeting that Sessions on Monday talked about withholding Justice Department grants from cities that don’t cooperate with federal law enforcement on immigration, commonly known as sanctuary cities.

Fraternal Order of Police National President Chuck Canterbury said the organization backed the president on cracking down on sanctuary cities.

“We believe in enforcing the laws of the country of the United States,” Canterbury told reporters after the meeting, according to the Tribune. “We believe that sanctuary city status is not a good thing for America. We support the president on his sanctuary city initiative.” (For more from the author of “Trump Signals Change in Tone for Police From Obama” please click HERE)

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