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Trump’s Labor Secretary Nominee Approved Horrendous Epstein Pedophile Deal That Protected All Unnamed Co-Conspirators

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President Donald Trump’s new nominee for secretary of labor, Alexander Acosta, could face a grilling in the Senate over claims that — while he was the top federal prosecutor in Miami — he cut a sweetheart plea deal in 2008 with a billionaire investor accused of having sex with dozens of underage girls.

As the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, Acosta agreed not to file any federal charges against the wealthy financier, Jeffrey Epstein, if he pled guilty to state charges involving soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Epstein ultimately received an 18-month sentence in county jail and served about 13 months — treatment that provoked outrage from alleged victims in the case.

Soon after the deal was cut in 2008, two women filed suit claiming that the decision to forgo federal prosecution violated a federal law — the Crime Victims Rights Act — because they and other teenagers Epstein paid for sex were never adequately consulted about the plea deal or given an opportunity to object to it.

Acosta is not a party in the suit, which names only the federal government as a defendant. In 2015, lawyers for the women demanded Acosta submit to a deposition in the case. The motion was withdrawn last year as settlement talks in the case went forward, but the case remains pending. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Labor Secretary Nominee Approved Horrendous Epstein Pedophile Deal That Protected All Unnamed Co-Conspirators” please click HERE)

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The Trump Administration Must Tame the Federal Bureaucracy

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In business, whether oil or wheat, Coke or Pepsi, sportswear or auto parts, all firms are known for a relative handful of things. In contrast, the federal government has so many “products” that there’s not a soul in the country who has a grasp on all of them.

Too Much to Keep Track Of

There are 15 Cabinet departments. One of them, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HHS, has 11 “operating divisions.” Doesn’t sound too overwhelming, does it? Eleven is manageable, right?

Let’s pick one of these divisions that most of us value: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Within the CDC are the following: Eleven national “Centers” (for example, the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases), “Offices” for Infectious Diseases, Noncommunicable Diseases, Injury and Environmental Health, Public Health Preparedness and Response, and Public Health Scientific Services, and one for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support. This last is distinct from the HHS Indian Health Service, which itself has seven offices aside from the office of the director.

Then, of course, there is another prestigious and valuable division of HHS, the National Institutes of Health, composed of 27 distinct institutes and centers that perform research on all manner of diseases, health conditions, and potential treatments.

HHS has a proposed 2017 budget of $1.145 trillion. Were the Department a country, it would be one of the largest, in terms of net worth, in the world.

There is also the maddening fact that there are multiple federal agencies, bureaus, etc. doing exactly the same thing. In a series of reports beginning in 2011, the General Accountability Office has found hundreds of “areas where federal programs or activities are fragmented, overlapping, or duplicative.” While Congress and the Executive Branch have taken productive action in many of the departments reviewed by the GAO, much more remains to be done.

Yet the GAO analyses, important as they are, do not go far enough.

Why does the U.S. Department of Agriculture have a “Rural Housing Service” distinct from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development?

Why is there a Bureau of Economic Analysis in the Department of Commerce, a Division of Research and Statistics within the Federal Reserve System, and an Office of Economic Policy in the Treasury Department? All likely do fine research and analysis, but do they coordinate or integrate their work with one another?

Since all 50 states have departments of education, what’s the point of a U.S. Department of Education? Are states that incompetent or uncaring about their children that they need some unique, otherwise unavailable wisdom that only Washington can provide? Are they so inept that the state education secretaries cannot develop whatever coordination they might need outside the finger-wagging authority of the federal government?

When Loyalty Becomes Territoriality

My purpose is not to disparage the serious work being done in the complex of “corporations” consolidated under the banner of Uncle Sam. Rather, it is to point to an undeniable reality: organizations of this size and expense cannot possibly be monitored and held accountable by either Congress or the public.

The great majority of those working in the federal bureaucracy are diligent and serious professionals. Like any firm, private or public, for-profit or not-for-profit, government has its share of slackers and paycheck-cashers who take advantage of the dedicated efforts of their colleagues.

However, the vast scale of the federal government prohibits public understanding. Of course, not everyone needs to understand what the National Institute of Standards and Technology or the Small Business Administration’s Emerging Leaders Initiative do.

At the same time, federal programs of any size take on lives of their own. Self-preservation becomes their highest priority. Their common cry becomes, “We’ve been in existence for more than seven decades — how can you possibly think of streamlining us or consolidating our work with another office?!” Loyalty becomes territoriality. Employment becomes entitlement. Pride of authorship becomes defense of territory.

Still, this should not deter a focused, dedicated Chief Executive from moving ahead with his priorities. Ronald Reagan did this. He wanted to defeat Soviet communism, let the engine of the American economy run at top speed, restore America’s military and constrain and, where possible, shrink the size and expense of the federal government. He mostly succeeded in the first three of these and, as to the last two, at least convinced a majority of Americans that Uncle Sam needed a diet.

Divisive Leadership: Not Popular, But Necessary

We’re more divided now than we were in 1981, and even more in need of decisive leadership. Such leadership must be based as much on persuasion as on vision, clear and consistent explanation as well as prudent action.

Persuading and inspiring are more difficult when there are so many competing needs and wants from so many quarters. I once worked for a senior political leader who in his daily speeches hither and yon would talk about the importance of a given audience’s need and interests and assure them he was “passionate” about their issues. Their work, he would say regularly, was a priority for him.

I think he meant what he said when he said it. But if everything is a priority, nothing is. And in the United States today, so many people want so many different things. Now, and without cost, and without government’s intrusions.

These are among the challenges facing our new Chief Executive, a man whose professional life has been composed of potent, even dynamic business leadership. As he contemplates how to foster long-term, non-inflationary growth, thinking about how to streamline, improve, reduce the spending of and bring greater coherence to the federal government must be part of his overall plan. (For more from the author of “The Trump Administration Must Tame the Federal Bureaucracy” please click HERE)

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Decline of Unions Under Right-To-Work Laws Levels Playing Field for Trump

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Donald Trump prevailed where other Republican presidential candidates failed in Midwestern states in part because of new right-to-work laws that have diminished the power and influence of the teachers’ unions, according to labor policy analysts.

Final election results have Trump narrowly winning Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes by a margin of 47.9 to 46.9 percent over Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate. Trump had 1,409,467 votes to Clinton’s 1,382,210.

In Michigan, the margins were even closer with Trump winning that state’s 16 electoral votes with 47.6 percent against Clinton who had 47.3 percent of the vote. Trump had 2,279,805 votes to Clinton’s 2,268,193.

“Did the labor reforms enacted in Wisconsin and neighboring Michigan help Donald Trump win those states?” Matt Patterson, executive director of the Center for Worker Freedom, said in an email to The Daily Signal. “No question in my mind. Hard to fight when your bazooka’s been replaced by a squirt gun.”

Two teachers’ unions, the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Michigan Education Association, both experienced a significant drop in membership since those states passed right-to-work legislation. Such laws prohibit employers from entering into agreements that make union membership and payment of union dues a condition of employment.

Wisconsin became a right-to-work state in 2015, Michigan in 2013. Since then, government figures show, the teachers’ unions in both states have lost thousands of dues-paying members.

The drop has been particularly precipitous in Wisconsin, where in 2011 Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation that reformed the state’s collective bargaining process. In fact, the Wisconsin Education Association Council has lost about 60 percent of its members since Walker’s reforms were implemented, an analysis of public records by the Education Intelligence Agency shows.

Under Act 10, also known as the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, most of Wisconsin’s government workers, including public school teachers, are now required to contribute more for their pension and health care benefits.

Act 10 also limits collective bargaining to wage negotiations, requires annual union recertification, ends the automatic deduction of union dues, and allows for public sector employees to decide whether they want to join a union and pay dues.

Wisconsin’s right-to-work law gives private sector employees the same right to decline union membership and payment of dues.

Diminished Union Clout

The Wisconsin Education Association Council had about 100,000 members before Act 10 passed; the latest figures show the union with 36,074. The decline reflects what has happened nationwide, the MacIver Institute for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Wisconsin, reported.

The Wisconsin and Michigan unions are both affiliates of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union for workers in public schools.

The 3 million-strong NEA lost more than 300,000 members in affiliated state teachers’ unions from 2010 to 2015, according to the analysis by the Education Intelligence Agency cited by the MacIver Institute. That’s a membership decrease of 10 percent.

So what is the political fallout?

“There’s no doubt that with the decline in union membership here in Wisconsin, the political clout of the union bosses and their ability to automatically turn out members for Democrats has declined dramatically,” Brett Healy, president of the MacIver Institute, told The Daily Signal, adding:

When we look at the decline in union membership and compare it to the recent political fortunes of the Democratic Party, you can clearly see that when people are given the ability to choose whether or not they want to join a union we are seeing less people voting for Democrats.

After the Wisconsin Education Association Council’s loss of tens of thousands of paying members, it has become evident that the teachers’ union’s ability to influence the outcomes of elections and public policy decisions has waned in the past few years, Healy added.

“The Wisconsin Education Association [Council] was the single biggest political player in the capital, but after the passage of Act 10 and right-to-work, their membership, which is where they derive their political power, has declined,” he said. “A majority of teachers in Wisconsin have decided that their money is better spent in other ways rather than turning it over to union bosses.”

Trump’s Union Vote

Act 10 has been transformative not just politically, but financially.

A MacIver Institute analysis of the legislation’s budgetary impact found that it saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $5 billion. Most of these savings were generated by requiring government employees to contribute more for their retirement, according to the analysis.

“Gov. Walker and the Republican legislature not only saved Wisconsinites an incomprehensible amount of money but they also fundamentally changed government in Wisconsin forever,” Healy said a year ago.

Trump benefited politically from right-to-work changes in Michigan just as he did in Wisconsin.

But the billionaire developer’s personal appeal with blue-collar union workers gave him an advantage other Republican candidates have not had recently, Vinnie Vernuccio, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center, a free-market think tank in Michigan, said in an interview.

“The Michigan teachers’ unions, which have led the charge politically in the state, have been weakened in recent years and that certainly helped Trump,” Vernuccio said. “But don’t underestimate the union vote for Trump in key swing states. Exit polls show he did surprisingly well.”

Among union households (where at least one person is a union member), Trump’s margins improved significantly over those of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

When Michigan passed its right-to-work law in 2013, the Michigan Education Association had 113,147 members, the Mackinac Center reported. By 2016, the union had 90,609 members, a decline of about 20 percent.

‘Knocked Silly’

The Daily Signal sought comment from both the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Michigan Education Association on the right-to-work laws in their states and the impact on their membership rolls and political activism. Neither union responded.

“Unions have been knocked silly in Wisconsin, thanks to the one-two punch of Act 10 and right to work,” Patterson, of the Center for Worker Freedom, a Washington-based nonprofit affiliated with Americans for Tax Reform, told The Daily Signal:

Give people the chance to leave their union, it turns out, and lo and behold there’s a stampede for the door. And these fleeing workers take their money with them, money that unions can no longer use to buy politicians.

John Mozena, vice president of marketing and communications for the Mackinac Center, said in an email that he sees a growing separation between rank-and-file union members and union leaders that worked to Trump’s advantage:

In labor strongholds like Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, West Virginia and Missouri, union leaders have failed to turn out enough voters to create notable electoral consequences for politicians who introduced, supported, or voted for right to work or other worker freedom legislation.

That’s in part because union members have largely come to realize that these laws don’t actually hurt them or their unions. In fact, [the laws] give them as individuals more options than they had before.

Many union members also are voting against candidates that receive the lion’s share of their leaders’ support.

The contrast was most stark in the 2016 election, where almost all union leaders endorsed and used their members’ money to support Clinton. Yet in key states like Ohio, almost half of union members voted for Trump.

The only states to register significant increases in active membership in NEA-affiliated teachers’ unions over five years, according to the Education Intelligence Agency analysis, are Delaware (5 percent), Vermont (8 percent), Montana (16 percent), and North Dakota (19 percent).

Clinton won Delaware and Vermont, but Trump won Montana and North Dakota.

‘Unfortunate Situation’

After spending several months combing through the U.S. Department of Labor’s LM-2 financial disclosure forms, researchers with the Center for Union Facts found that unions directed about $530 million in membership dues to the Democratic Party and to left-leaning special interest groups from 2012 to 2015.

The Center for Union Facts is a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates transparency and accountability on the part of organized labor. Every labor organization that falls under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act must file an LM-2.

Recipients of union donations identified by the Center for Union Facts include Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Governors Association. These donations fall within labor’s political advocacy budgets, which are funded by dues and “disguised as worker advocacy related to collective bargaining—separate from direct campaign contributions,” the center said in a release.

“I do believe a very unfortunate situation has developed where the unions are more focused on politics than they are on collective bargaining or workplace issues,” Richard Berman, the center’s executive director, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Since surveys show that about 40 percent of union households vote Republican, this means the dues of a substantial number of union members are directed toward political causes they do not support, Berman said.

But he said he sees a strong potential for the growing right-to-work movement to level the political playing field in future election cycles, as it did in 2016.

In the meantime, Berman said, the new chairman of the National Labor Relations Board should use the board’s regulatory powers “to provide enough transparency in the area of labor finances” to inform union members of leadership’s activities. (For more from the author of “Decline of Unions Under Right-To-Work Laws Levels Playing Field for Trump” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

‘I Love Kids’: Did Trump Just Cave on Amnesty?

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Speaking to the media at Thursday’s press conference, President Donald Trump made some comments about Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy that completely contradict the hard-on-illegal-immigration message that helped win him the election.

When asked what would become of DACA (which grants amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors) under his administration, Trump said that this is a “very, very difficult subject” for him, adding that he wants to “deal with DACA with heart.”

“I love kids,” he said. “I have kids and grandkids. And I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do.”

Trump went on to clarify that he wasn’t “talking about new laws,” but the “existing” immigration laws established by Congress.

This will undoubtedly come as (very, very bad) news to Americans who voted for Trump with the hope that he would fight to end amnesty-granting programs like DACA.

Just last month, Trump vowed to “end” DACA as one of his first actions as president.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because Trump has made worrisome statements regarding illegal immigration in the past. Back in August, he suggested that non-violent illegal immigrants should have able to “pay back-taxes” in lieu of facing deportation. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because it is the same amnesty policy established in the notorious Gang of Eight bill. Further, Trump’s former campaign rival, Jeb Bush, was hotly criticized by conservatives for adopting the very position the president is now asserting.

The Trump administration has yet to officially comment on what will ultimately become of DACA. But if Thursday’s press conference was any indication, Pres. Trump is going to have some serious explaining to do. (For more from the author of “‘I Love Kids’: Did Trump Just Cave on Amnesty?” please click HERE)

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President Trump: Be a Leader and Fight (for Religious Freedom)

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When I learned that President Trump had apparently changed his mind on protecting religious business owners and schools from government harassment and legal persecution, I’ll admit that I was angry. As Maggie Gallagher explained, with a stroke of his pen, Trump could reverse executive orders and policies made by Barack Obama, who knew that there weren’t the votes in Congress to add “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

So Obama declared that the federal government would henceforth play make believe, and act as if religious objections to homosexuality, and rational insistence that there are just two human sexes, were covered in the original law. (Which was passed back when sodomy was still in crime in most of those legislators’ states, when what happens in “sex change” operations was still called “castration.”) I guess Obama had seen the Supreme Court cram contemporary mores between the lines of the Constitution often enough, that he wanted to get in on the act when it came to federal law. This legal hijacking law is so blatant, you almost have to admire Obama’s chutzpah. It’s as if he dressed up Rev. Martin Luther King in drag like Tyler Perry, and got away with it.

Rumors suggest that it was Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son in law Jared Kushner who convinced him to go back on his promise to conservative Christians. I wondered why orthodox Jews would favor distortions of the law that could harm their co-religionists — who also follow the Hebrew Bible on this point. Then I remembered all those Biden-sniffing Jesuits at Georgetown, and felt a sickly kind of peace. “Everyone is insane,” I reflected.

Was Ivanka worried about all the “fabulous”parties she would be disinvited from back in Manhattan, if her father stuck up for Christians? She needn’t worry. Those hostesses are already furious at her, afraid that her father will deport their illegal nannies. What the Trumps need to realize is that they will be treated as pariahs for simple, sane policies like enforcing our country’s borders and laws. They might as well go ahead and protect religious freedom too.

Let me try to break it down another way.

Dear Mr. President:

Evangelical Christians, the people whom you promised to look out for until you were talked you out of it, make up 20 percent of voters, and 50 percent of voters in Republican primaries. In November, 80 percent of them voted for you.

Coming from New York City, you might not realize this, but gays make up a whole 2 percent of the electorate. For all you did to win them over, with Peter Thiel’s speech at the Convention and your waving the rainbow flag, what percentage of that 2 percent do you think voted for you — or would vote for you in four years in the blue states where most of them live? Sure they have a lot of money. Do you think they were contributing it to you?

Now maybe you’re worried not about gay voters per se, but straight voters who watched Will & Grace for long enough that now they have pro-gay attitudes. There are a lot of people like that, especially women. How many of them do you think want to persecute Christian florists and bakers, close down wedding chapels and Catholic schools? Not many. You could sell that pro-religious freedom executive order as standing up for the little guy against tort-hungry lawyers using big government to persecute religious Americans — because that is, in fact, exactly what it is.

But these are heady arguments. So let me reach for the heartstrings. I will pull out the big guns here, and explain why you should sign the executive order protecting religious Americans using a Frank Sinatra song:

Trump, be a leader and fight,
Trump, be a leader and fight.
Trump if you’ve ever been a leader to begin with
Trump, be a leader and fight!

Trump let Christians see
What a straight shooter you can be.
I know how you treated your creditors in the 80s.
Trump shoot straight with me.

A leader never scams his voters.
It isn’t fair, it isn’t nice.
A leader doesn’t fawn on the snowflakes and snobs.
Or blow on his enemies’ dice.

Let’s keep the Party far-right,
And ruin Meryl Streep’s night.
Stick with the Deplorables who put you in the White House
Trump be a leader, and fight!

Sincerely,

The Christian Voters of America Who Nominated & Elected You

(For more from the author of “President Trump: Be a Leader and Fight (for Religious Freedom)” please click HERE)

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Trump Bashing the Media Channels America’s Disgust With Its Own Elites

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President Trump’s latest news conference was at once a lot of fun, and kind of frustrating. My initial reaction was telling. I couldn’t help thinking, “Gosh I wish Ted Cruz were the man behind that microphone. He would deliver devastating answers, dismantle the reporters’ logic, cite chapter and verse of their actual news stories illustrating their leftist bias, and finish the event with a thin, victorious smile — having proved in meticulous detail that he was the smartest and best-prepared man in the room.”

Instead, Trump spoke in sweeping terms, dismissing the press corps as biased. He taunted, mocked, and all but jeered at the cream of the Washington press corps. He spoke in the way that he seems to have picked up from dealing with construction workers over decades in the building trade — bluntly and emotionally, with large dollops of chest-thumping. In pop culture terms, Trump sounded like a Robert De Niro character, confronting a room full of Jude Laws and Kelsey Grammars.

Trump Understands Why We’re Frustrated

But wasn’t that a reason Trump won the nomination, and Ted Cruz didn’t? The conservative who played the game of our country’s Progressive elites by their own rules at their best schools and beat them every time on the facts, the logic, and history … didn’t win over the voters. The guy whose politics were all over the map, who was driven by a simple, gut love of the concrete reality of America, was able to turn all those blue states red. He connected with blue collar workers, frustrated family men and women, and worried patriots, because he naturally spoke their language.

Too many conservatives whose policies and ideals really would benefit the country and protect the common man speak just like our toxic elites — who view national borders as tedious nuisances to vacation travel and millions of their fellow Americans as “deplorable.” That’s the reason my mailman dad would angrily switch off National Public Radio in our apartment — even when a (rare) conservative was speaking, or an announcer was just giving straight news. “Turn off those liberal fairies,” he would say, annoyed by their accents and diction. Come to think of it, he was probably irritated by mine. Think of Martin Crane rolling his eyes when Frasier and Niles start nattering about French cheeses.

What’s Really Deplorable is the Economy

The disconnect between our preening, self-congratulatory elites and harried, struggling Americans is real and based on more than cultural resentment, as a recent fact-packed story in Commentary reveals. Go read for yourself conservative scholar Nicholas Eberstadt’s alarming analysis of the economic indicators too often ignored by economists. What he concludes is that Trump’s populism is driven not by ethnic resentment, cultural backlash, or ideology — but the concrete reality that our economic and political systems have been optimized to benefit a narrow class of highly educated people with a homogeneous, narrow set of “acceptable” cultural, political, and religious views.

For proof of that fact, remember what Trump strategist Steve Bannon said at the Vatican in 2014 about the immoral 2008 bailout of reckless bankers’ gambling on shady mortgage investments. When ordinary taxpaying workers go to Vegas and clean out their savings, or get hooked on Vicodin after an injury, there isn’t some massive federal program that will make them whole again. There’s no golden parachute. But there are, as Eberstadt points out, just enough forms of government support (i.e., disability benefits) to keep people barely surviving. And in our staggering jobs market, that’s a temptation to which far too many once hard-working Americans are succumbing.

Learning to Talk Trump

Rather than dryly repeat them, let me sum up Eberstadt’s conclusions in terms that my dad would have gotten, and offer the kind of response that he and millions of Trump voters likely would have.

Rich investors are doing better than ever, but ordinary people are struggling to live as well as their parents did.

Unemployment is down, but that is only true because that number doesn’t count the tens of millions who have given up looking for jobs. (But we keep on importing a million unskilled workers every year — so the snooty people whose jobs are safe can feel good about themselves, and have lots of ethnic restaurants to choose from.)

Economic growth has slowed, and its benefits have narrowed to those social classes best at lobbying for their interests or shaping our institutions to protect themselves. (Yeah, the rich get richer, and the snobs rig the system. What else is new?)

What’s valuable about Eberstadt’s essay is that it repeats in sober prose and alarming fact the grim truths that Donald Trump talks about in fiery Tweets and angry exchanges with cosseted reporters. There’s a very good reason that millions of people saw the need to “Make America Great Again,” and it had nothing to do with preserving “white cis-gendered heterosexual privilege.”

Whether Trump and his team can overcome the massive institutional resistance to his proposals, and craft policies that actually change things, only time will tell. We don’t know if he has the answers. But at least he could hear the questions. (For more from the author of “Trump Bashing the Media Channels America’s Disgust With Its Own Elites” please click HERE)

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The Donald Strikes Back: 8 Must-See Moments From the Most Trump Press Conference Ever

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In a wide-ranging, and at times contentious, press conference lasting over an hour, President Donald Trump gave an update on his administration’s progress and answered questions from the media.

The news conference was called to announce the president’s selection of Alexander Acosta to lead the Labor Department, after the previous nominee Andrew Puzder withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday. But the topics addressed ranged from accomplishments made by the administration in the first four weeks, to the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn, and the dishonesty of the media.

Here are some of the more memorable lines:

On the state of the Trump administration

On the state of the country

On keeping campaign promises

On a new immigration order

On the media’s honesty

On the media’s tone

On U.S.-Russia relations

On CNN’s “very fake news”

(For more from the author of “The Donald Strikes Back: 8 Must-See Moments From the Most Trump Press Conference Ever” please click HERE)

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Obama Abandoned Syria’s Christians. Now Trump Can Save Them.

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The Trump administration stated that it wants to eradicate ISIS and protect persecuted Christians in the Middle East. If it’s to have any real hope of accomplishing these crucial goals, the president and his team need to work with America’s allies who are already succeeding on the ground: the Federation of Northern Syria, which coordinates efforts of Kurdish, Arab, Syriac Christian and other resistance groups.

The Syriac-Assyrian Christian co-president of the Federation is appealing to the Trump administration to send support to the brave Christian fighters in Syria — whom President Obama refused to help. The Syriac-Assyrian Christian forces there are fighting bravely, but in desperate need of military and humanitarian aid, as can be seen in the new video below, which was provided as an exclusive to The Stream. Supporters of Syrian Christians hope Christians in the U.S., and this new Administration, will support them in ending ISIS and bringing freedom to the Middle East.

Fake News and Turkish Propaganda Target Syrian Christians

One big obstacle to this goal is “fake news” and propaganda, circulated by those who support (knowingly or not) the intolerant policies of Turkey’s autocratic, Islamist government — which will do almost anything to prevent the long-stateless Kurdish people from obtaining real autonomy. The Turks fear that any progress for Kurds in Iraq or Syria will stir up the millions of Kurds whom Turkey represses within its borders. Yet the Kurds have proved one of the few forces on the ground willing to protect Syriac Christians, Yazidis, and other oppressed minorities, as I learned from my experience in and with the area and have reported here at The Stream. In fact, the Kurds have formed a self-governing region (the Federation of Northern Syria) which grants Christians, women, and Yazidis real political participation—which they lack elsewhere in the region.

The Nation Swallows the Turkish Government Line

According to a highly misleading article in the leftist magazine The Nation, the Federation is little more than a fig leaf for the Kurdish militia, the YPG — which it alleges has been driving away the Arab population as well as dissident Kurds and others on a massive scale. According to the same article, the YPG is actually controlled by Iran and has a hidden agreement with both the Assad regime and ISIS. As evidence for this elaborate conspiracy theory, the article cites many anonymous sources. The reporter did some ‘fact finding’ of his own, but seems to have only traveled to Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan (KRG), which is controlled de facto by Turkey and its allies.

One interesting accusation he makes is that that the YPG allowed ISIS to take the whole region around Kobane, and only put up a token defense in the city center, in order to make sure that the fighting cleansed the area of Arabs. By this reporter’s account, the YPG is a masterful, diabolically cunning organization, which can predict and precisely control the outcomes of a shifting, chaotic battlefield — something that any military officer would know is quite impossible.

The use of evidence by the article in The Nation is interesting in its own right. It is widely known that it is not possible to do independent research among refugees in Turkey. Free journalism does not exist in Turkey anymore; just ask the hundreds of journalists languishing in prison for “thought crimes.” Turkey is furthermore a self-declared enemy of the YPG, and is the only country that has declared the YPG a terrorist organization. This means that anyone doing research in Turkey among refugees related to the YPG will be strictly monitored. Turkey’s secret police will send ‘witnesses’ to the reporter and manipulate his research. Finding ‘people who fled the YPG’ in Turkey is a strange thing in its own right, since Turkey blocked the border with the Federation and regularly kills those who try to cross.

Erasing the Syrian Christians Who Fight for Freedom

The Nation article contradicts the facts on the ground. The author suggests that the Kurdish YPG acts as the only fighting force in the Federation of Northern Syria (North-East Syria). This is simply untrue. I myself have been in Syria at the bases of both the Syriac-Assyrian forces and the Arab forces who cooperate with the YPG in the larger structure of the Syrian Democratic Forces. They are not in this for the show, as this video demonstrates very clearly:

The idea that the Arabs themselves would support Kurdification by driving Arabs out of the area is obvious nonsense. The multi-ethnic reality of the Syrian Democratic Forces is intentionally omitted from The Nation piece because it makes nonsense of the author’s premise. Would Arabs, Kurds and Syriac Christians drive away their own families and peoples? It would mean a constant war inside these areas, which is clearly not happening. The reverse is true: these peoples work together in governance and defense in a unique multi-ethnic alliance.

The key report on which the reporter relies, from the Syrian Network for Human Rights and Amnesty International, repeats the same false storyline: Kurds driving Arabs away. But independent journalists have debunked this charge, including its principal accusation — the so-called “Hajjia massacre.” This independent research also showed how unreliable are Syrian sources who work under the control of Turkish media minders. After probing questions, Amnesty International admitted that it spent far less time on research than stated and already retracted its ‘ethnic cleansing’ claim. Other independent research has demonstrated how such propaganda is manufactured and used by Turkey and its allies. Finally, if the Federation drives away Arabs, why would Arabs from Iraq flee to the Federation and be taken in there and cared for as refugees?

The One Piece of Syria Where Christians and Women are Free

My own experience of the last three years proved to me that the caricature of the Federation as a one-party, tribal state is simply untrue. I have been cooperating with a Syriac-Assyrian party there and met with the representatives of several other parties who are active in the area. The reality that I witnessed in the area is that Kurds, Arabs and Syriac-Assyrian Christians, men and women, cooperate in governing The Federation and defending it with its Syrian Democratic Forces.

Why are people leaving the Federation? The real reason for the vast majority of departures is mentioned in The Nation story itself: the crippling economic blockade imposed by Turkey and the KRG. I remember sitting down with a priest there whose only complaint was that people were leaving due to economic deprivation. The reason that Turkey and the KRG maintain this blockade is simple: they do not want multi-ethnic cooperation, democracy and especially freedom to come to the Middle East. The culture of domination and oppression serves them well and they do not want to see deep, bottom-up change that leads to freedom and real human rights. They do not favor freedom of religion, or women working freely as legal equals of men — two realities inside the Federation of Northern Syria, but in few other places in the Middle East.

This is why the accusations that the Federation of Northern Syria is actually driven by Iran, supports the Assad regime and cooperates with ISIS (all at the same time!) are so clearly ‘fake-facts.’ Ask yourself some skeptical questions:

Why would Iran support freedom of religion and freedom for women?

How can Iran support the YPG and fight against its sister-organization PJAK at the same time?

Why would ISIS cooperate with its most effective enemy?

If the Assad regime cooperates with the Federation, why did it bomb the Federation’s forces in Hassakeh until the Russians and U.S. pressured it to stop?

Why are pro-Assad agitators so angry at me when we disseminate information on the Federation of Northern Syria to interested Christians in Europe?

All these forces — Assad, ISIS, Iran, and Turkey — are united on just one point: opposing the growth of home-grown Western-style freedom in the Middle East. But it is only the emergence of such freedom that can save the region from its grim cycle of war, oppression and terrorism.

The Trump Administration Can Save Syria’s Christians

This is why the US needs to act now and act fast. With the Obama administration’s approval, Turkey has moved into Syria with forces who chant anti-American slogans, and boast of driving all Christians out of Syria. Now Turkey wants to attack the Federation with this army, just at the moment when the SDF is surrounding Raqqa, the capital of ISIS. Christian-hating Turkish forces want to destroy the Kurds and Syriac-Assyrian Christians in northern Syria under the pretext of attacking ISIS. On February 13, the Institute for the Study of War issued an urgent warning that Turkey threatens to halt U.S. anti-ISIS operations in Syria.

The Trump administration should see through Turkey’s screen of propaganda that its real allies in the region are the freedom-loving Kurds, Syriacs, Arabs and Yazidis who work and fight together as brothers — in a region too often splintered along tribal and religious lines. (For more from the author of “Obama Abandoned Syria’s Christians. Now Trump Can Save Them.” please click HERE)

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After Michael Flynn’s Departure, How Trump Can Stabilize National Security Council, Avoid Leaks

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President Donald Trump’s first weeks as commander in chief have been challenged by upheaval within his National Security Council, the White House group tasked with coordinating and implementing foreign policy and counterterrorism strategy.

The resignation of Michael Flynn as national security adviser—head of the National Security Council—comes at a time when acute foreign policy decisions await the new administration.

As Trump seeks to recover, former NSC officials say it’s important that the White House quickly establish a functional council that can spearhead the president’s agenda.

“We have never seen anything like this,” said Kenneth Pollack, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution who has served twice on the NSC staff.

“We certainly have seen national security advisers leave basically after the first year of an administration, but never after less than a month,” Pollack said in an interview with The Daily Signal, adding:

Flynn was the one guy on foreign affairs who has been joined at the hip with Trump from the beginning. Now he’s out. No one knows what comes next. To get the policy, you have to get the person in place. Until that happens, the rest of the world to a certain extent has to wait.

Flynn’s tenure lasted only 24 days before the retired Army lieutenant general resigned after admitting he had misled the vice president and other White House officials about the contents of a phone call with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

Pollack said new administrations sometimes experience early “stumbles” in trying to define and organize their National Security Council, an entity made up mostly of career civil servants representing different government agencies.

The NSC, originally created in 1947, has quadrupled in size over the past two decades, and doubled under President Barack Obama.

Obama replaced his first national security adviser, James Jones, after concluding the retired Marine general was a bad match to lead the NSC in the direction the president wanted to take it.

“The NSC is the president’s personal staff on foreign policy,” Pollack told The Daily Signal. “The national security adviser is supposed to be the president’s closest adviser on foreign policy. There needs to be an incredibly tight relationship with the president. The national security adviser need to know what the president wants, how to get things done for him, how to represent his views, and make sure everyone is doing what the president wants.”

“What we’ve consistently seen is the NSC stumbles around for the first months of every administration and eventually figures it out and moves forward,” Pollack added.

‘Destructive,’ but Normal

Flynn’s earliest days were marked with tension, and change.

He sought to reform the council—aiming to cut its size roughly in half from more than 400—and installing staff he knew from his military days and when he was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Members of both parties on Capitol Hill have expressed concerns that the NSC got too big under the Bush and Obama administrations, and became overly operational and involved with details meant to be reserved to Cabinet agencies.

In addition, the White House elevated Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief political strategist, to the NSC’s exclusive principals committee, meaning he could attend regular meetings normally consisting of members of the military and intelligence communities.

Some of these changes may have made holdover staff members uncomfortable.

A senior Trump administration official told The Daily Signal that many NSC staff members—career government civil servants—who did not want to work for Trump returned to their regular agencies.

The official said that about 80 percent of an administration’s NSC usually is staffed by career government civil servants — known in government lingo as “detailees.”

The rest are direct hires—political appointees—who usually depart the agency when the administration changes.

About 15 percent of the NSC staff remains unfilled, the official said, adding that he expects the next national security adviser to maintain Flynn’s goal of staffing the council with a head count somewhere in the 200s.

None of Flynn’s direct hires have left the NSC yet despite his departure, the official said, including K.T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser.

The official also disputed criticisms that Flynn was leaning on military hands to staff the NSC. He said only one of six deputies chosen by Flynn has a military background—David Cattler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official tapped to oversee regional affairs.

The official, who insisted on anonymity to speak freely, disputed accounts of turmoil:

On the one hand, yes, what happened with Flynn is destructive and it’s never happened before this early in an administration. On the other hand, the NSC is doing what it’s supposed to do, holding committee meetings, preparing for phone calls and meetings with foreign leaders. The NSC is very active, so it’s unfair to say it’s in turmoil, aside from the destructive nature of the leadership change so early.

Containing Leaks

Trump’s first month—and Flynn’s brief tenure—also has been marked by a proliferation of leaks that some Republicans consider to be actions carried out by disgruntled career government employees aiming to undermine a president they don’t like. Democrats see the leaks as acts of public service meant to reveal potentially inappropriate behavior.

Drafts of executive orders, including ones Trump hasn’t issued yet, have circulated around Washington. Transcriptions of Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders have been published in news reports.

And numerous stories about Trump campaign officials’ conversations and potential connections with Russian officials—including a Washington Post story documenting Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador—have been written based on leaks from intelligence and law enforcement sources.

The senior Trump administration official said the White House is unsure of the source of the leaks, and he stressed that it’s not unusual for government bureaucrats left over from the prior administration to publicly disclose displeasure with the new president’s policies and team.

He said the White House has “changed its internal procedures” to prevent leaks, although he would not detail what that means. He insisted the White House would not seek to investigate the sources of leaks, and vowed that Trump would not punish them.

But Trump, speaking Thursday with House Republicans, seemed to contradict that, according to pool reports, telling lawmakers: “We’re going to find the leakers and they’re going to pay a big price.”

He blamed “illegal classified leaking” for Flynn’s downfall.

Legal experts say it would be illegal for the president to target employees who are protected by civil service law, as opposed to political appointees.

And former national security officials say it’s not unusual for presidents to express anger with leakers.

Obama prosecuted more whistleblowers than all of his predecessors combined.

“Leaks are a big problem for every administration,” said David Shedd, a Heritage Foundation visiting fellow who held intelligence policy positions at the NSC under President George W. Bush. “There is a particularly strong anti-Trump sentiment in the bureaucracy, so I expect that there is a greater propensity to leak.”

“That said,” added Shedd, also a former deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama, “leaks generally are intended to generate support or undermine support for policy positions.”

James Jeffrey, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration, said the best way to subdue a culture of leaks is for the president to create a disciplined, coherent NSC process that allows for dissenters to express concerns internally, minimizing the incentives for leaks.

Jeffrey said Trump should select an “honest broker” to replace Flynn to lead the NSC, which he said is supposed to be a management center that gathers views from across multiple agencies and then implements the decided policy.

“When you have a functioning NSC where the process is good and all ideas are vetted, even if there’s disagreement on the policy decision, you won’t get leaking,” Jeffrey told The Daily Signal. “Leaking tends to be a cry for help within the bureaucracy.”

‘Imperative’ Mission

Whoever replaces Flynn will have to organize policy in key areas, including developing a response to North Korea’s recent missile launch, implementing a strategy to defeat ISIS, and deciding how to approach the U.S. relationship with Russia.

Flynn had perhaps the strongest views of Trump’s foreign policy team on Russia, viewing that country as a possible partner to fight Islamic terrorism, and experts say it’s especially important to know how the next national security adviser envisions U.S. relations with the longtime adversary.

“There is a case for trying to reorient relations with Russia irrespective of who is national security adviser,” Michael O’Hanlon, director of research for the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, said in an email to The Daily Signal, adding:

Plus, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump still favor some kind of rethinking. The question is, how do we do that in substantive terms. This is an example of where the NSC, and the national security adviser, can avoid getting bogged down in detail or micromanagement, encourage creative thinking and constructive, ideology-free debate on big issues of the day.

The task ahead for Trump is formidable — and important.

“Settling the turmoil that currently appears to exist in the NSC is imperative to ensuring national security policy gets on track,” Heritage’s Shedd said. (For more from the author of “After Michael Flynn’s Departure, How Trump Can Stabilize National Security Council, Avoid Leaks” please click HERE)

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Trump Blasts ‘Fake News’ and ‘Failing’ Media Outlets

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President Donald Trump went toe-to-toe with the media at the White House news conference Thursday, using terms such as “fake news” and “failing” to describe many of the recent stories about his administration.

“I turn on the TV, open the newspapers, and I see stories of chaos, chaos,” Trump said. “Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can’t get my Cabinet approved.”

He also said, “In other words, the media’s trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made and they’re not happy about it for whatever reason.”

During the press conference, CNN’s Jim Acosta asked, “Aren’t you concerned, sir, that you are undermining the people’s faith in the First Amendment, freedom of the press, the press in this country, when you call stories you don’t like ‘fake news?’”

Trump said, “I’m changing it from fake news, though. Very fake news.”

Trump continued:

It’s so important to the public to get an honest press. The press—the public doesn’t believe you people anymore. Now, maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.

Trump said, “I mean, you have a lower approval rate than Congress. I think that’s right.”

Trump singled out CNN more than any other news outlet, saying, “I mean, I watch CNN, it’s so much anger and hatred and just the hatred.”

Acosta later said, “Just for the record, we don’t hate you. I don’t hate you.”

Trump responded, “Ask [CNN President] Jeff Zucker how he got his job. OK?”

Major media figures, such as NBC’s Chuck Todd, expressed alarm at Trump’s comments.

However, Jeff Mason, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association who covers the president for Reuters, had a more reserved view.

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, who has in the past been a critic of Trump, said some aspects of the press conference amused him.

This marks the third press conference for Trump this week, after holding two prior press conferences with foreign leaders.

Regarding the story about Trump’s recent firing of national security adviser Michael Flynn and his communication with a Russian ambassador, Trump said: “The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake.”

Trump went on to denounce coverage about his campaign aides communicating with Russians.

“The failing New York Times wrote a big, long front-page story yesterday and it was very much discredited, as you know,” Trump said. “It was—it’s a joke, and the people mentioned in the story, I notice they were on television today saying they never even spoke to Russia. They weren’t even a part, really—I mean, they were such a minor part. They—I hadn’t spoken to them.”

He later talked about a Wall Street Journal story that said intelligence officials didn’t trust the president.

“And just while you’re at it, because you mentioned this, Wall Street Journal did a story today that was almost as disgraceful as the failing New York Times’ story yesterday.”

Trump said he’s actually having fun speaking to the press:

I’m actually having a very good time, OK? … I won with news conferences and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people. That’s for sure. But I’m having a good time. Tomorrow, they will say, ‘Donald Trump rants and raves at the press.’ I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you. You know, you’re dishonest people. But I’m not ranting and raving. I love this. I’m having a good time doing it.

(For more from the author of “Trump Blasts ‘Fake News’ and ‘Failing’ Media Outlets” please click HERE)

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