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Younger Judicial Nominees Give Trump Chance for Legacy in Courts

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President Donald Trump will begin to leave his mark on the lower courts of the federal judiciary with 10 nominees named Monday, many of them judges still in their 40s.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m. Monday, the White House formally announced Trump’s nomination of five judges to federal appellate courts and another five judges to lower federal courts.

“They all appear to be bright, young, capable conservatives who promise to be outstanding judges; some are already judges,” John Malcolm, a legal scholar who oversees the Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal earlier in the day.

Two of the appeals court nominees—Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, 48, nominated to the 6th Circuit, and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras, 44, nominated to the 8th Circuit—were on the list of 21 contenders for the U.S. Supreme Court that the Trump campaign released months ago.

The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society developed the list at Trump’s request.

Trump also nominated Amy Coney Barrett, 45, a law professor at Notre Dame and former law clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for the 7th Circuit, and Louisville lawyer John K. Bush, 53, for the 6th Circuit.

Rounding out the appeals court nominees is Alabama’s former solicitor general, Kevin Newsom, 44, who clerked for Justice David Souter, nominated for a seat on the 11th Circuit.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters during the Monday afternoon briefing:

These 10 individuals the president has chosen were chosen for their deep knowledge of the law and their commitment to upholding constitutional principles. Two of the nominees today came from the list of potential Supreme Court nominees that the president released during the campaign. … The president followed the principles that were used to guide that list to select the additional eight individuals.

Spicer said more judicial and other nominations are on the way.

“I think you will continue to see a very robust amount of announcements on not just the judicial front, but on several fronts,” he said.

Most Supreme Court justices previously served as appeals court judges. Also, the high court can take only a limited number of cases. So, circuit court nominees are highly important.

Trump previously nominated U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar to serve on the 6th Circuit. He is awaiting Senate confirmation.

With more than 120 vacancies, the nominations can’t come too soon, said J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney who now is president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group.

“I’m in federal courts all the time. There are too many vacancies,” Adams told The Daily Signal. “So, we can’t have too many nominees.”

A Democratic majority in the Senate eliminated that chamber’s filibuster for nominees to the district and circuit courts in 2013.

“With a Republican Senate, now is the best time to nominate solid judges,” Adams said. “There is no reason to wait.”

Trump seems to have his eyes on the future with these nominees, said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice and a constitutional lawyer with FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group.

“It’s clear that the administration is looking at young nominees,” Levey told The Daily Signal. “Being an appeals court judge, if not on the short list, it puts you on the long list for the Supreme Court. … This administration seems to be making a bigger factor of age than previous administrations.”

Trump also nominated Damien Schiff, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group, to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

The White House said the president made two district court nominations and intends to make two more:

Scott Palk, with the University of Oklahoma College of Law, to the Western District of Oklahoma.

Idaho state Judge David Nye to the U.S. District Court for Idaho.

Dabney Friedrich, a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and a former associate White House counsel under President George W. Bush, to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (pending).

U.S. Magistrate Judge Terry Moorer to the Middle District of Alabama (pending).

The nominees build on Trump’s success in getting another appeals court judge, Neil Gorsuch, confirmed to the Supreme Court just weeks ago, said Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, who posted brief biographies of each of Monday’s nominees on National Review’s website.

“The nominees have stellar qualifications and a record of courageous commitment to the rule of law that will make them excellent additions to the federal bench,” Severino said. “When it comes to fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint strong, principled judges, Trump is knocking it out of the park.” (For more from the author of “Younger Judicial Nominees Give Trump Chance for Legacy in Courts” please click HERE)

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New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas

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Coming into office, President Donald Trump declared defeating and destroying ISIS to be his foreign policy top priority.

In contrast with the Obama administration, he had no hesitation defining precisely the root of the threat: Islamist terrorism — not vaguely phrased “violent extremism,” “workplace violence” or “manmade contingencies.”

This definition of the threat also needs to come with a far more concise strategy to combat it. The shorthand for the Obama strategy was “CVE,” or “Countering Violent Extremism.”

Like the evasive title, this program failed. The United States continues to face terror attacks from radicalized individuals, such as last year’s Orlando nightclub massacre.

In a recent article for The National Interest, “Top 10 Ways to Make the War on the ‘War of Ideas,’” The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano writes that “the new team in Washington needs to right-size the effort, making it complimentary with effective counterterrorism measures and U.S. strategy overseas.”

Carafano’s 10 points are:

Helping Americans understand the changing nature of the war. This could potentially occur through the creation of a 9/11-style commission to define the threat for this new era.

Do not allow efforts to be captured by ulterior motives. This happens when the perpetrators of violence are excused as victims, and therefore not to blame.

Focus on Islamist threats. The Islamist threat is a very specific and anti-democratic threat that cannot be countered with a generic counterterrorism approach.

Limit domestic programs and keep them modest in character. Overly broad programs to counter radicalization have failed in the past. For instance, one FBI anti-terror program in 2012 identified the real terror threat as right-wing terrorism, not Islamism.

Focus domestic programs on counterterrorism. Identify and hone in on individuals that pose potential threats, and prevent those individuals from successfully striking. Most domestic terrorists have been on law enforcement’s radar screen prior to attacking.

Make domestic programs bottom-up. Equip local communities and law enforcement to confront terrorism, instead of hoping that the federal government can handle the terror threat all by itself.

Emphasize support to the field in overseas programs. Again, local officials and political leaders will be far better equipped than central authorities to deal with radicalization on the ground in trouble spots.

End handouts that don’t deliver. No more government-funded conferences and meetings for ineffective NGOs, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

Avoid obsessing over social media. Social media is not itself the root cause of terror attacks. Social media is a contributing factor in radicalization that is most effective where there is already a local network to carry out attacks.

Drop the label. The Obama administration’s “Countering Violent Extremism” label is too vague. Islamist extremism represents a well-defined threat that we need to fight in the name of all that human decency and liberal democracy stand for.

An 11th point that should be added is the importance of information and communication in defeating the enemy.

For that, the United States government has powerful tools — in particular, the civilian entities of U.S. International Broadcasting under the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

These broadcasters are legitimate and important tools of U.S. foreign policy, and have been ever since they were created in World War II.

The U.S. government has devoted millions of dollars over the last 15 years toward expanding these broadcast services to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with varying degrees of success.

Networks that came from these efforts include the Middle East Broadcasting Network (which consists of Radio Sawa and Al Hurra Television), Voice of America’s Persian News Network, Radio Free Afghanistan and Radio Farda (for Iran) produced by Radio Liberty in Munich.

The Trump team must now create a comprehensive broadcasting strategy to reach and inform audiences who are trapped behind enemy lines, often by autocratic Islamist regimes. This should become part of a clear, focused and revitalized counterterrorism strategy. (For more from the author of “New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas” please click HERE)

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Trump Pushes School Choice, Making Good on Campaign Promise

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday asked Congress to work with him on extending school choice programs nationwide to benefit millions of students, including low-income African-American and Hispanic children.

While Trump gave no specifics on what legislation he is proposing, the statement was the clearest indication yet that he intends to follow through on his campaign promise to fund a $20 billion school choice program . . .

Speaking at a White House event attended by about two dozen children, including some participating in a federally funded voucher program in the nation’s capital, Trump said, “Every child has the right to fulfill their potential, and, if we do our jobs, then we will never have to tell young, striving Americans to defer their dreams for another day or for another decade.” (Read more from “Trump Pushes School Choice, Making Good on Campaign Promise” HERE)

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Mark Green Withdraws His Nomination for Army Secretary

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President Donald Trump’s choice for Army secretary announced Friday that he is withdrawing his name from consideration.

“It is with deep regret today I am withdrawing my nomination to be the Secretary of the Army,” Mark Green said in a statement . . .

Green explained his decision to pull out from a military leadership position in the wake of this controversy.

“To meet these challenges, there should be no distractions. And unfortunately due to false and misleading attacks against me, this nomination has become a distraction,” he said in his statement. (Read more from “Mark Green Withdraws His Nomination for Army Secretary” HERE)

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Trump’s First International Trip Shows Middle East a Priority

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President Donald Trump could be indicating his highest international priority in traveling to the Middle East ahead of European summits later this month, experts say, while also honoring three of the world’s major religions.

Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia, then to Israel, and finally to Italy to visit the Vatican in Rome. This will be his first international trip as president.

The president announced the travel to centers of three major religions–Islam, Judaism, and Christianity–during a National Day of Prayer event Thursday in the Rose Garden of the White House.

The trip comes ahead news came ahead of already-scheduled travel to Brussels for the NATO summit May 25 and a Group of Seven, or G7, gathering May 27 in Sicily.

Trump’s travel plans are a good sign to American allies following President Barack Obama’s two terms, said Mike Makovsky, a former Pentagon official who is now the president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

“President Trump has had this image of a great disruptor, but this shows he is a great restorer of our ties with our traditional allies,” Makovsky told The Daily Signal. “This is an important message after eight years of Obama. It reverberates globally by reassuring our traditional allies, who realize this is a good signal.”

Even with other problems abroad such as North Korea, the Trump administration is focusing much attention on the Middle East with challenges including the Islamic State terrorist army, the civil war in Syria, an emboldened Iran, and unstable countries such as Iraq and Libya.

“The Middle East is a big problem and he wants to do something to address it,” said Richard Benedetto, an adjunct professor in American University’s government department, adding:

It’s significant that Saudi Arabia is the first stop. They have been our second-closest ally [after Israel] in the Middle East and our closest Arab ally. Each president–Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama–has worked closely with the Saudis.

While in Saudi Arabia, Trump is scheduled to meet with leaders of the five other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic alliance of Arab nations. They are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

“He recognizes the importance of bringing all of our partners together, and certainly looking for ways that we can combat some of the greatest threats to all of the world,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the president at a press briefing Thursday. “And that’s going to take some buy-in and some of the people in the Middle East taking a larger stake in that process, and I think that’s a big part of what we’re going to see on that trip.”

America needs the participation of four key countries for a coalition to help stabilize the Middle East and combat the Islamic State—Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—said James Carafano, vice president for national security and foreign policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Trump already has visited with the leaders of Egypt, Israel, and Jordan at the White House. He is going to Saudi Arabia. He will handle the Middle East differently than his immediate predecessors, Obama and Bush, Carafano said.

“This trip will have a specific operational component, it’s not just for balance or checking off boxes,” Carafano told The Daily Signal, adding:

He wants to re-engage with the Middle East, not as Bush did in a muscular way, and obviously not in a lead-from-behind Obama way. Unlike Europe, with the Middle East, everything is bilateral. Relationships are important.

Trump met earlier in the past week with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and frequently has talked about the Middle East peace process. However, showing commitment to a peace deal is as much strategy as it is a goal, Carafano said, explaining that it’s an important way to get Arab allies on board for other U.S. national security priorities.

The third destination, a visit with Pope Francis at the Vatican, might be a harmonious way to check a box after going to the holy cities of Islam and Judaism, Carafano said.

Still, considering the rhetorical clash the pope and Trump had during the 2016 campaign over immigration, Benedetto said, their meeting will have symbolic importance.

“Americans have always seen the pope as a world spiritual leader,” Benedetto said. “Trump’s executive order seemed to be a way of showing he cares for people of faith, and this meeting could show that moral leadership is important to him.”

Trump signed an executive order on religious freedom Thursday that directed the Internal Revenue Service not to target political speech by leaders of churches and other houses of worship. It also eased Obamacare-related regulatory burdens on religious organizations.

Bridging the gap could be worthwhile, said Craig Shirley, a presidential historian whose most recent book is “Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years, 1976 to 1980.”

President Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Pope John Paul II was “world altering” in ending the Cold War, Shirley said.

“I don’t know if we could see that here without a strategic alignment against Islamic terrorism, as there was against Soviet communism,” Shirley told The Daily Signal. “Being from Poland, Pope John Paul II saw Soviet communism first hand. Pope Francis hasn’t directly experienced Islamic terrorism.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s First International Trip Shows Middle East a Priority” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Political Epitaph

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Based on its current trajectory, history might capture the total significance of Donald Trump’s Presidency in a single three-word phrase, “He wasn’t Hillary.”

Perhaps that is all we should have expected given his inflated rhetoric and the Avogadro’s Number of campaign promises that gave his candidacy an air of P.T. Barnum:

“Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, ‘I am a showman by profession… and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.’”

Although we had all hoped Trump would follow through, I think deep down we knew that he wouldn’t. Yet, he wasn’t Hillary and perhaps that is enough.

President Trump is now rapidly discarding campaign promises in a manner not unlike a thief shedding the loot after a failed burglary.

Swamped by the self-interest and self-preservation of a corrupt federal government, Trump may have already succumbed to its laissez-faire attitude toward the performance of duty, where the appearance, rather than the substance of fulfilling voter sentiment is a satisfactory outcome.

During the campaign, Trump said “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”

In true Washington D.C. fashion, that 30-foot Mexican-financed concrete wall has now been politically transformed into a taxpayer-financed barrier resembling the chicken wire my father used in a futile attempt to protect his strawberry plants from the bunny rabbits.

If Americans are confused as to what is the “Trump Doctrine,” it appears to be determined by ratings, where national policy comes in the form of Tweets, easily changed or deleted according to what is favorably “trending.”

Ratings as a measurement of success emanates from the same false premise as inherited wealth is a measure of accomplishment. In any environment where money and social status comprise the currency of “competence,” vapidity can be easily mistaken for intellectual rigor.

As football coach Barry Switzer noted: “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

There are reasons for what we are seeing.

President Trump needs affirmation like others need oxygen. He was sustained during the campaign by enthusiastic rallies and primary victories based entirely on his promises.

Now an inhabitant of the Beltway bubble, Trump has apparently adopted the traditional Republican Party recipe for obtaining affirmation, which is to ignore the voters and offer political capitulation to the Democrats in exchange for a few kind words in op-ed columns or an appearance on one of the Sunday morning talk shows.

If the Democrats, media and the lobbyist-controlled Republicans are collecting administration scalps, then Trump is handing them the knife, dismissing loyalists who are unpleasant reminders of campaign promises and aligning himself with those who are eager to make his tenure as chief executive inconsequential.

President Trump still has an opportunity to be more than just not being Hillary, but only by recognizing that he was elected, not for who he is or isn’t, but for what he said he would do, and then delivering.

Under present circumstances, pleasing the political establishment and representing the people are mutually exclusive endeavors.

Trump must choose between going with the flow or rising above it and to remember, as President, history will determine his final rating. (Reprinted in full with permission of the author. Article originally appeared HERE.)

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Poll: Hispanic Support for President Trump Jumps to 45 Percent

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A stunning new poll shows that Hispanic support for President Donald Trump has grown to 45 percent since his election.

“The biggest surprise in this new poll is Trump’s approval among Hispanic voters, which is at 45 percent approval/51 percent disapproval,” Zogby said. “In February the numbers were less among Hispanics at 39 percent approval/53 percent disapproval.”

In November, Trump won roughly 29 percent of the Latino vote.

It is not clear why Trump’s support has risen among Latinos. But a series of polls stretching back to 2014 show that many Hispanics strongly support more border security to protect their communities from crime and low-wage labor. For example, a poll of Latinos taken in June 2014 showed “77 percent [support] for an e-verify system for employers [and] 78 percent for stronger border security.” The 2014 poll of 800 registered Latinos was funded by FWD.us, an advocacy group supported by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

This surge in Hispanic support is accompanied by a decline in Trump’s general approval, going from 48 percent approval down to 43 percent in the current survey. (Read more from “Poll: Hispanic Support for President Trump Jumps to 45 Percent” HERE)

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Trump: ‘No One Should Be Censoring Sermons or Targeting Pastors’

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President Donald Trump asked two nuns with the Little Sisters of the Poor to join him in front of a Rose Garden audience Thursday before he signed an executive order easing enforcement of Obamacare regulations forcing religious organizations to pay for employee health plans covering contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.

Trump’s order also takes aim at a 1954 law prohibiting pastors and other religious leaders from supporting specific candidates from the pulpit.

However, the order is scaled back considerably from a draft, leaked in February, that also addressed religious organizations’ freedom in hiring staff, prompting mixed reviews from conservatives.

“We know all too well the attacks against the Little Sisters of the Poor, incredible nuns who care for the sick, the elderly, and the forgotten,” Trump said, before asking representatives of the Catholic order to identify themselves and inviting them to the podium.

The nuns’ lawsuit against the Obama administration over the so-called contraceptive mandate went to the the Supreme Court, which didn’t make a final determination.

“Congratulations, you sort of just won a lawsuit,” Trump said jokingly to the two nuns. “That’s a good way of doing that. I want you to know that your long ordeal will soon be over.”

The president’s executive order states that the administration’s policy is to protect religious liberty. It directs the Internal Revenue Service to use maximum discretion to alleviate the law governing churches and partisan politics, known as the Johnson Amendment. And it offers regulatory relief for religious objectors to Obamacare rules.

“With this executive order, we are ending the attacks on your religious liberty and we are proudly reaffirming America’s leadership role as a nation that protects religious freedom for everyone,” Trump said.

Trump held the event, attended by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim clergy from across the country, on the National Day of Prayer.

Trump focused his remarks on rolling back 1954’s Johnson Amendment, named for Sen. Lyndon Johnson, the Texas Democrat who would become president nine years later. The law threatens churches, religious institutions, and other nonprofits with revocation by the IRS of their tax-exempt status if they talk partisan politics.

James Dobson, an iconic Christian broadcaster who founded the traditional values group Focus on the Family, was among faith leaders attending the Rose Garden event.

“How could I not be satisfied? I mean, we have been struggling with that Johnson Amendment since I’ve been in radio, which is 40 years,” Dobson told The Daily Siganal.

He also said the Obama administration sued his current organization, Family Talk, over Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate.

“When that mandate came down, I wrote the president [Obama] saying I cannot comply. ‘You must come get me, because we’ll close our doors,’” Dobson said. “We’ve been in a lawsuit ever since, and it went to the 10th Circuit and was headed for the Supreme Court. That goes away today. Yes, I’m happy about it.”

However, Greg Baylor, senior counsel with the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the order leaves Trump’s campaign promises “unfulfilled” and is “disappointingly vague.” In a formal statement, Baylor said:

A pledge to ‘provide regulatory relief’ is disappointingly vague, especially given the long existence of an obvious means of solving the problem: crafting an exemption that protects all those who sincerely object on religious and moral grounds so that they can continue to serve their communities and the most vulnerable among them. We encourage the administration to pursue that course of action and to do so promptly so that it can resolve the dozens of cases still pending against it.

During his Rose Garden remarks, Trump invoked the civil rights icon and pastor Martin Luther King Jr. and the history of the African-American church, as well as the larger Judeo-Christian tradition, as reason to honor the role of religion in America’s politics.

“This financial threat against the faith community is over,” Trump said. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors. … America has a rich tradition of social change beginning in our pews and pulpits.”

Trump also heralded the Founding Fathers’ vision as evidence of the intended role of religion in public life:

Freedom is not a gift from government. Freedom is a gift from God. It was Thomas Jefferson who said the God who gave us life gave us liberty. Our Founding Fathers believed religious liberty was so important that they enshrined it in the very First Amendment in our great and beloved Constitution.

Yet for too long, the federal government has used the power of the state as a weapon against people of faith, bullying and even punishing Americans for following their religious beliefs.

The draft of the executive order that leaked earlier this year, however, also protected the right of religious organizations to align staffing decisions with their missions. And it would have prevented the federal government from discriminating against its employees or contractors for practicing their religious beliefs.

Trump “caved” on these and other provisions in the draft order, said Ryan T. Anderson, a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation whose studies include religious liberty. In a commentary for The Daily Signal, Anderson wrote of the president:

Back in February, he caved to the protests of liberal special interest groups as he declined to issue an executive order on religious liberty that had been leaked to hostile press. And earlier today, he issued an executive order on ‘free speech and religious liberty’ that does not address the major threats to religious liberty in the United States today.

Today’s executive order is woefully inadequate. Trump campaigned promising Americans that he would protect their religious liberty rights and correct the violations that took place during the previous administration.

Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, was among those attending the Rose Garden event. Nance told The Daily Signal she was happy with the outcome.

“We were very pleased with what we’ve seen so far. It’s a great first step,” Nance said. “There are still things left to do. We were pleased to be here today. What a beautiful day. This is a great day for religious liberty.” (For more from the author of “Trump: ‘No One Should Be Censoring Sermons or Targeting Pastors'” please click HERE)

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Fact Check: Trump’s 100-Day Low Approval Ratings

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While President Trump has had a strong first 100 days in office, critics point to his low approval ratings. An AOL headline blares, “Trump has lowest approval rating in history after 100 days in office.” Trump denounces his approval polls as fake news, citing bias.

According to the left-leaning political and elections site FiveThirtyEight, Trump’s approval ratings averaged 42 percent at the end of his first 100 days in office. His disapproval ratings averaged 52 percent.

Mind you, these polls wrongly predicted Hillary Clinton would win the election. FiveThirtyEight’s averaging of polls gave Trump only a 1-in-3 chance of winning. He beat his polling averages by 2 to 3 points in swing states. He beat them by even more in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

So how can we trust the polls now that say the president’s so unpopular?

Most Polling Companies Lean to the Left

Let’s look at the most accurate polling company today, one that is not biased to the left. Rasmussen consistently shows Trump with the highest approval ratings. In fact, in one snapshot of polls from February, Rasmussen showed Trump 6 points higher than the next closest poll, 55 percent to 49 percent.

The former is the same approval rating former President Bill Clinton had after 100 days in office. Yet no one is talking about this. Instead, they cite Gallup far more often.

Larger Sampling of Democrats Polled

Since most of the polling companies lean to the left, it is not surprising to find they often include more Democrats than Republicans in samplings.

Last June, a Reuters presidential poll surveyed 52 percent Democrats and 35 percent Republicans. The rest were Independents or other. Reuters polled almost 33 percent more Democrats than Republicans. Naturally, the poll results showed Clinton far ahead, 47 percent to 33 percent.

Clever Wording

Reuters/IPSOS was caught last July changing a poll’s wording to favor Clinton. After Trump pulled ahead of her in a July poll, Reuters/IPSOS eliminated the word “Neither” from the Neither/Other choice. That change gave Clinton a 7-point bounce.

Just a Snapshot

While Trump’s approval rating may have dipped in late April, that is just one snapshot in time. It was much higher in prior months. Rasmussen conducted several polls since Trump entered office. Several showed over 50 percent approval.

Likely Voters v. Registered Voters v. Adults

Trump generally had the lowest approval ratings in polls of adults. In polls that interviewed registered voters or likely voters, he tended to have the highest approval ratings. Since likely voters decide elections, why would a polling company choose to interview adults? Some suspect this is done on purpose to skew the results against the GOP.

In fact, if polling companies wanted to be really accurate, they would survey “likely likely voters.” These are voters who have not just voted in one election in recent years, but several in a row. That demographic tends to favor the GOP even more.

Devil’s Advocate: What if the Low Approval Ratings are Valid?

If there is some truth to Trump’s low approval ratings, it may be due to — ironically — his high level of success. He’s cracked down on illegal immigration, the travel ban, intervening in Syria and repealing Obamacare — all fairly controversial positions.

The low ratings could also be due to the spread of social media. It has made it easy to broadcast biased mainstream media articles everywhere. People who normally wouldn’t read The New York Times can’t help but see its articles in their Facebook news feed.

But it Doesn’t Matter Anyway

FiveThirtyEight admits that approval ratings “do a relatively poor job of forecasting the election results.” Based on previous presidents’ experiences, it is too early to predict how Trump’s presidency will go.

Trump’s approval ratings at the beginning of his first 100 days in office started out almost the same as former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Reagan went on to become a very popular president. Both won reelection. FiveThirtyEight points out, “Trump is not very popular, but he’s also no more unpopular than Barack Obama was for much of his presidency.”

Democrats can gloat all they want about Trump’s low approval ratings, but not only are they probably meaningless, they could fool the party into thinking it’ll easily beat Trump in 2020. They could find themselves repeating last year’s surprise loss. (For more from the author of “Fact Check: Trump’s 100-Day Low Approval Ratings” please click HERE)

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Trump Expected to Unveil Massive New Protections for Religious Freedom Thursday

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A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration . . .

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but when asked Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was in the works, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “I’m not getting ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue. There is a lot of executive orders, a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.”

Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

[Legal experts described the] breadth of the draft order . . . as “sweeping” and “staggering” . . . (Read more from “Trump Expected to Unveil Massive New Protections for Religious Freedom Thursday” HERE)

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