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13 of Trump’s Cabinet Nominees Await Senate Approval, Leaving Agencies Without a Leader

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President Donald Trump moved at a blistering pace to fulfill several campaign promises during his first week in the White House. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, however, 13 of his Cabinet nominees continue to wait for confirmation votes.

Obama had 11 of his 15 Cabinet secretaries in place after his first week. Trump has two.

Trump begins his second week with the same number of Cabinet secretaries as last week: two. That number should at least double by Tuesday after the Senate votes to confirm Rex Tillerson for secretary of state and Elaine Chao for secretary of transportation.

The slow pace of confirmations is delaying Trump’s ability to implement his agenda, several former administration officials told The Daily Signal.

It’s also a sharp contrast from President Barack Obama’s early days. Trump’s Democrat predecessor had 11 of his 15 Cabinet secretaries in place after his first week (including Robert Gates, who remained as defense secretary from the prior administration).

Five of the past six presidents—Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama—had nearly their entire Cabinet installed by their second week in the White House. President George H.W. Bush faced delays, but he had the advantage of retaining three of Reagan’s Cabinet secretaries.

This week’s planned confirmation votes on Tillerson and Chao, coupled with committee action on several other nominees, should generate some movement after the GOP-controlled Senate made little progress last week. (See list at bottom for this week’s schedule.)

Last week, Republicans left town for a three-day retreat in Philadelphia, but they did confirm two non-Cabinet officials: Mike Pompeo to lead the CIA and Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. On Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, the Senate approved James Mattis for defense secretary and John Kelly for homeland security secretary.

Democrats have vowed to mount a fight against at least eight of Trump’s nominees, including Tillerson. Due to a rules change that Democrats made in 2013 while they were in the majority, however, they lack the votes to ultimately defeat Trump’s nominees. It now takes a simple majority to confirm nominees, and Republicans control 52 seats compared to the Democrats’ 48. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer still can employ delaying tactics, though.

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Such delays could stall the Trump administration’s ability to implement policies or carry out executive orders, said Don Devine, director of the Office of Personnel Management under Reagan.

“This is a president who wants change, and he has got to get his nominees confirmed as soon as possible if he is going to get that change,” Devine told The Daily Signal.

Continuity of government is usually not a problem, but implementing the president’s agenda is, said Becky Norton Dunlop, the Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Dunlop served in the Reagan administration at the White House, Justice Department, and Interior Department.

“From the standpoint of taking control of the government, it’s important for the president to employ people to act,” Dunlop told The Daily Signal.

Most of Trump’s nominees ultimately will be confirmed, Dunlop said. She said this is just an effort by Schumer, D-N.Y., to curb their effectiveness. The minority leader knows that the longer it takes for Trump’s nominees to win Senate approval, the later they’ll start implementing the new president’s agenda.

“This is a way to damage these nominees that might have a more conservative agenda under President Trump and discourage them from moving forward aggressively,” Dunlop said.

For example, Tom Price, the Georgia congressman who Trump nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, will play a crucial role when it comes to dismantling Obamacare.

One of Trump’s first actions directed his administration to rework the health care law’s numerous regulations. But without a secretary in place, there’s no one leading the charge at the agency.

Price, like Tillerson, is on Schumer’s list of eight nominees who Democrats oppose. The others include Betsy DeVos for education secretary, Steve Mnuchin for treasury secretary, Andrew Puzder as labor secretary, and Jeff Sessions for attorney general. Schumer’s list also includes Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency and Mick Mulvaney for the Office of Management and Budget, although they aren’t part of the Cabinet.

The remaining unconfirmed Cabinet nominees include Ben Carson for housing and urban development secretary, Rick Perry for energy secretary, Sonny Perdue for agriculture secretary, Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary, David Shulkin for veterans affairs secretary, and Ryan Zinke for interior secretary.

Republicans were in the Senate minority in 2009 when many of Obama’s nominees won quick confirmation without obstruction or delay. In fact, nine of Obama’s nominees were approved by voice vote, meaning Republicans didn’t even request a roll-call tally.

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Despite having 57 Democrat senators on Jan. 20, 2009, Obama’s final Cabinet secretary wasn’t confirmed until April 28 of that year. Two of his picks for commerce secretary withdrew, as did former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whom Obama picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

The vacancy hampered the health agency when the swine flu outbreak occurred, recalled Tevi Troy, who served as a deputy secretary at HHS during the George W. Bush administration.

“It is a problem because these agencies are not able to be totally effective without a secretary at the top of the agency giving direction to assistant secretaries for the entire agency,” Troy told The Daily Signal.

During the interim period before a Cabinet secretary is confirmed, the acting agency head could be either a career employee or a political appointee designated by the previous administration. Either way, the White House designates someone to work with the acting secretary during the interim.

“The tradition has been that in the first day or the first week, a lot of nominees are confirmed,” Troy said. “My view is that if a nominee is both ethical and qualified, then the Senate should defer to the president’s choice for a Cabinet nominee.”

Schedule for Week of Jan. 30

Monday: Senate confirmation vote for Rex Tillerson, secretary of state; Senate Finance Committee vote on Steven Mnuchin’s nomination for treasury secretary

Tuesday: Senate confirmation vote for Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation; Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Jeff Sessions’ nomination for attorney general; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee vote on Ryan Zinke for interior secretary and Rick Perry for energy secretary

Wednesday: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee vote on Mick Mulvaney for director of the Office of Management and Budget (Mulvaney also needs approval from the Senate Budget Committee) (For more from the author of “13 of Trump’s Cabinet Nominees Await Senate Approval, Leaving Agencies Without a Leader” please click HERE)

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Don’t Forget: WE Are the Checks and Balances on Trump’s Executive Actions

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In his first few days in office, President Donald Trump has attacked the presidency with gusto, issuing a slew of executive actions on everything from a federal hiring freeze to the long promised border wall. Maybe he is eager to prove himself effective, maybe he wants to get started fulfilling campaign promises, or maybe this kind of energy will be typical of his administration even after the new starts to wear off. It’s impossible to say.

So far, the response from the Right has largely been to cheer for the new president. Many on the Right have applauded his zeal to get things done, especially things that conservatives have been asking for so long. After all, easing the burden of Obamacare is certainly important, and the hiring freeze is well within the rights of the executive branch as well as a much needed check on the size of government.

But before we engage in too public jubilation, I would advise conservatives and libertarians to be a bit more circumspect in their praise. The danger of hypocrisy, and of turning into the mirror image of our ideological opponents, is a real one.

Barack Obama was routinely criticized by the Right for his executive overreach and apparent contempt for Congress. His “I’ve got a pen and a phone” comment sent chills down the spine of anyone who valued limited government. He started wars without congressional approval, acted unilaterally on immigration enforcement, and frequently used regulations in place of laws to push forward his agenda. Conservatives howled and liberals sat smugly silent, pleased that “their guy” was doing whatever it took to get around that obstructionist “party of no” in the minority.

Now the situation is reversed. Democrats are in the minority, and are freaking out about Trump’s executive actions. Republicans, on the whole, have either been silent or celebratory, as Trump uses the power of the executive branch to move his agenda forward.

So what’s wrong with that? Politics is all about getting your agenda passed by any means necessary, and resisting that of your opponents, right? Maybe for some people, but there is at least a large share of conservatives and libertarians who operate under a principled belief that too much government power is dangerous, regardless of who happens to be in office. Giving the executive branch unchecked authority may work out well some of the time, but that can come back to bite you when the other side inevitably regains power, as Democrats are learning now.

The founders very specifically created a system with built in checks and balances, a separation of powers, a process by which no one branch of government — much less one person — could do too much damage before the others would rein him in. This is the process that led to America becoming the world’s greatest success story, creating previously unheard of wealth and freedom for its people. This process matters. It could even be argued that it matters more than results, because once the process collapses, there’s nothing to stand in the way of tyranny and oppression, as we see in other undemocratic countries the world over.

This process is what allowed Republicans to block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination, something almost all conservatives will agree was a good thing. Without it, we’d have Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court right now, with who knows what consequences for the laws of the country. But you can bet that when Trump names his own nominee, and Democrats try to resist, a lot of the same people who cheered Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 40%) for blocking Garland will change their tune, calling for the Senate to change its rules and approve the nominee with a simple majority. This is shortsighted thinking.

Not all of Trump’s actions so far have been overreach. Some are well within his purview, and I must admit that I’m pleased with some (though certainly not all) of the policies. For example, putting temporary freeze on hiring within the executive branch is constitutional, and appropriate to be addressed by the chief executive. However, demanding that the Keystone pipeline be built with only U.S. made steel is something that Congress should be responsible for, not the president. Once Trump gets into the habit of having everything he wants, with no resistance from Congress, the courts, or the people, there will be nothing to stop him from legislating from the White House.

You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe in limited government, or you don’t. That belief shouldn’t change with the inhabitant of the White House, or else it’s no true belief at all. (For more from the author of “Don’t Forget: WE Are the Checks and Balances on Trump’s Executive Actions” please click HERE)

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Trump Pledges ‘Lasting Support’ to US Relations With Britain

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President Donald Trump on Friday pledged America’s “lasting support” to the U.S.’ historic “special relationship” with Britain after he emerged from his first meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May, leader of an ally who seeks to nudge the populist president toward the political mainstream.

May, who said the meeting was the start to building their relationship, announced that Trump had accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit later this year with his wife, first lady Melania Trump.

Trump sought to charm May, noting during his first news conference as president that, “by the way, my mother was born in Scotland.” (Read more from “Trump Pledges ‘Lasting Support’ to US Relations With Britain” HERE)

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On March for Life Week, Trump and Congress Take Steps to Defend Life

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This was a big week for the pro-life community.

President Donald Trump and the House of Representatives started the week by taking action to defend life and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not entangled with abortion, both at home and abroad. Then on Friday, tens of thousands of Americans converged on Washington, D.C., for the 44th annual March for Life.

On Monday, Trump reinstated the life-affirming Mexico City policy, which ensures that American taxpayers do not fund international organizations that perform or promote abortions. Since 1984, this policy has been enforced by every Republican president and rescinded by every Democratic president.

Trump’s recently published presidential memorandum indicates that not only is he reinstating the Mexico City policy, he is strengthening it.

As explained by The Daily Signal, it is long-standing policy for the United States to prohibit funding for abortion in international programs.

Without the Mexico City policy, abortion giants like the International Planned Parenthood Federation are eligible to receive millions of taxpayer dollars designated for non-abortion-related activities—but, because money is fungible, this frees up other funds for performing or promoting abortion abroad.

The Mexico City policy closes this loophole by requiring recipients of U.S. aid dollars to certify that they will not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Previous iterations of the policy have applied to U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department funds. The Trump memo expands the policy by instructing the secretary of state and secretary of health and human services to extend the policy to funds “furnished by all departments or agencies.”

Likewise, previous iterations of the policy have applied to nongovernmental organizations that provide services abroad. The Trump memo indicates that the policy will also apply to other international organizations, such as the United Nations Population Fund.

The memo directs the secretary of state to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund organizations or programs that “support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

Trump is right to include this direction in the memo. During the Obama administration, the U.S. sent over $250 million in taxpayer dollars to the United Nations Population Fund, despite continued assertions that the fund has been involved in China’s coercive two-child policy.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act by a bipartisan vote of 238-183.

In a speech on the House floor, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., explained that the legislation makes the Hyde Amendment and other current abortion funding prohibitions permanent and government-wide; ensures that Obamacare (until it is repealed) conforms with the Hyde Amendment; and until a new plan year begins, ensures full disclosure, transparency, and the prominent display of the extent to which any health insurance plan on the exchange covers abortion to empower people to opt out.

Smith also noted that H.R. 7 passed the House in 2014 and 2015, under veto threat from President Barack Obama. The Trump administration, on the other hand, released a statement saying that if presented with H.R. 7, Trump would sign the bill into law.

The majority of the American people do not support the use of tax dollars to fund abortion in the U.S., and it is now time for the Senate to act and permanently codify this life-saving policy.

The tens of thousands of Americans who gathered for the March for Life on Friday came with a message of compassion, hope, and expectation. They are creating a culture of life in America, and they expect their government to reflect this by passing robust policies that respect the dignity of every human being. (For more from the author of “On March for Life Week, Trump and Congress Take Steps to Defend Life” please click HERE)

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Congressional Democrats Lose Their Minds over Trump’s ‘Wall of Hate’

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After President Donald Trump issued an executive order to build a wall on the Mexican border, the House Hispanic Caucus released a lengthy press release condemning Trump’s actions. And congressional Democrats joined suit on Twitter, raging against Trump’s “wall of hate.”

Hispanic Caucus members called Trump’s border wall “ignorant,” “lazy,” “antiquated,” a “waste of everyone’s time and money,” and proof that “Donald Trump is taking this country back to the dark ages.” Every caucus member who attached their name to the press release is a Democrat.

Hispanic Caucus members were joined in their condemnation of the border wall by other House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca. (F, 10%), who claimed that “we will not bow to Donald Trump’s radical xenophobia.”

They tweeted their disdain using the hashtag #WallofHate.

As Trump noted Wednesday, “a nation without borders is not a nation,” and the purpose of a border wall is for “the United States of America…[to] get back its borders.”

Pres. Trump also said the wall is about safety and saving lives. “As I have said repeatedly to the country, we are going to get the bad ones out. The criminals, and the drug dealers, and gangs and gang members and cartel leaders — the day is over when they can stay in our country and wreak havoc.”

For Democrats to claim that a border wall is a “waste of money” is laughable, considering they don’t bat an eye at the towering national debt and our bankrupt entitlement system. It is also ridiculous for Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to complain about Trump’s border project and policy change for sanctuary cities, by saying “we will fight for the right of any community to choose humane and effective law enforcement strategies that work to protect and serve, not deport and intimidate.”

Just two years ago, in Rep. Pelosi’s congressional district in San Francisco, Kate Steinle was shot to death by an illegal alien who had been deported five times but was still was able to roam free in the sanctuary city. What about protecting American citizens like Steinle?

Democrats are near apoplectic about the president’s border wall and immigration policies. But their rhetoric about fiscal responsibility and safety falls laughably flat. (For more from the author of “Congressional Democrats Lose Their Minds over Trump’s ‘Wall of Hate'” please click HERE)

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Trump DOJ Likely to Find Many Offenses in Voter Fraud Probe, Experts Say

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President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will likely find numerous offenses to warrant launching a broad investigation into voter fraud, legal experts and watchdog groups say.

Trump has said that more than 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast during the 2016 election, causing him to receive a lower popular vote total than his vanquished opponent, Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the Electoral College.

On Wednesday, Trump said:

One legal organization took action on preventing voter fraud this week. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a voter integrity group, reached a consent decree with Noxubee County, Mississippi, which has had voter registration that exceeds the number of county residents since 2011, according to the group. A consent decree is a legal agreement between two parties without an acknowledgment of guilt.

The decree includes requiring the county to identify dead voters on the rolls, clear voter rolls of former county residents, and mail all registered voters who have been inactive since January 2011.

“They know the jig is up,” @TomFitton says.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation this week is also seeking to pry the release of information about noncitizens registered to vote in Manassas, Virginia.

Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said it is good that the Justice Department won’t just leave it to the nonprofit groups to weed out fraud.

“We need to know how many noncitizens are voting and know the unknowns,” Churchwell told The Daily Signal. “Trump could just enforce the law. The giant research project he tweeted about, or had a series of tweets about, is worthwhile and only something the federal government could do.”

It’s likely that 800,000 noncitizens illegally voted in the last presidential election, according to Jesse Richman, an associate professor of political science at Old Dominion University, who extrapolated on a 2014 study that examined illegal voting in the 2008 and 2010 elections.

Before the 2016 election, there were several documented cases of voter fraud. These included an FBI probe that found 19 dead people were registered to vote in Harrisonburg, Virginia; a woman arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for voting twice for Trump; and a CBS News investigation that found multiple cases of dead voters and double voting in Colorado.

Churchwell asserted Trump’s 3 million or more projection couldn’t be proven or disproven, but regardless of whether this is an overstatement, President Barack Obama’s Justice Department ignored Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the “motor voter” law. This provision requires local governments to maintain and keep voter rolls current.

The Obama administration has not enforced this provision of the motor voter law, and in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio, even took action to prevent maintaining the voter registration rolls.

Still others, such as Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal legal group at the New York University School of Law, insisted voter fraud is a myth and opposed an investigation.

“An expensive investigation of imaginary voter fraud is not needed. It could easily devolve into a witch hunt,” Waldman said in a public statement. “Worse, it could be used to justify sweeping voting restrictions. There is no need for another investigation that is not independent, rigorous, and fact-based.”

Waldman continued:

There is a great deal of evidence that our voting system locks out far too many eligible citizens from voting. The voter registration system needs an upgrade, and that is something that should unite all Americans. Errors on the voter rolls are emphatically not signs of fraud — they are signs that we need to improve the system.

An investigation into voter fraud would not be complicated, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group.

“You can see the numbers we are talking about by looking at public voter registration lists and cross-checking that against a list of noncitizens,” Fitton told The Daily Signal. “The federal government could coordinate with state and local governments and determine who registered to vote illegally. It’s a simple process. That’s why the left is so upset. They know the jig is up.”

Enforcing the law is long overdue, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.

“We don’t need [to create] a commission. The Justice Department can enforce the law and work with the Department of Homeland Security, and its records for citizenship and change of status to get an idea of who is illegally registered to vote,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal.

Regardless of the investigation’s outcome, von Spakovsky expects critics will dismiss anything that falls short of Trump’s 3 to 5 million illegal voter estimate.

“They may try to dismiss this, but the American people don’t believe what the media say about voter fraud not being real,” von Spakovsky said. “Polling solidifies that.” (For more from the author of “Trump DOJ Likely to Find Many Offenses in Voter Fraud Probe, Experts Say” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Immigration Actions Reverse Obama’s Open Borders Policy

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Moving swiftly to fulfill his campaign promise to get the nation’s illegal immigration problem under control, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Jan. 25 that constitute an almost complete reversal of the Obama administration’s nonenforcement and open borders policy.

From improving the physical barrier at our southern border to finally moving against sanctuary cities, these two executive orders put into effect a comprehensive program designed to secure our borders, implement interior enforcement, and reintegrate the assistance of state and local governments into federal efforts to enforce our immigration laws.

It has been a long time coming, but it seems to be finally happening: The federal government is actually enforcing our immigration laws.

As the first order, “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” correctly sets out in its preamble, “border security is critically important to the national security of the United States” and “aliens who illegally enter… without inspection or admission present a significant threat to national security and public safety.”

The president orders the Department of Homeland Security to immediately take the following steps:

Plan, design, and construct a physical wall, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border.

End the “catch and release” policy of the Obama administration, which Border Patrol agents sarcastically referred to as “catch and run” that flooded the country with illegal aliens, as well as dramatically increase the capacity of detention facilities to handle this change and the number of immigration judges needed to handle alien cases.

Return illegal aliens “to the territory from which they came pending a formal removal proceeding,” expedite determinations of apprehended aliens’ claims of eligibility to remain in the U.S., and make federal prosecutions of immigration offenses “with a nexus to the southern border” a priority.

Hire an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents.

Bring state and local law enforcement agencies back into immigration enforcement to get their assistance in the “investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens,” including through the 287(g) program, something the Obama administration did everything it could to end.

Stop the “abuse of parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens” by doing what the Obama administration refused to do: Apply the plain language of the provisions in immigration law that set out strict standards for asylum and parole.

Authorize immigration agents and even state officials who are helping federal authorities to enter all federal lands in pursuit of illegal aliens—again something that the Obama Interior Department refused to allow in areas where national parks and other lands were along our borders.

The second, complementary order, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” aims at enhancing interior enforcement of our immigration laws, particularly for “aliens who engage in criminal conduct in the United States.”

This order outlines that executive branch officials are directed to:

Put a priority on removing aliens who have committed criminal offenses; that includes not just violent criminals, but also aliens who engage in fraud in connection with the government or public benefits.

Hire an additional 10,000 immigration officers.

Enter into agreements with as many state and local governments as possible to aid the federal government in enforcing federal immigration laws.

Cut off funding from the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to sanctuary cities, as well as take appropriate action in court against any such sanctuary cities whose policies violate federal immigration law.

Review all previous immigration actions and policies to rescind or revise any that are inconsistent with federal immigration law or this executive order.

Implement a comprehensive program to prosecute illegal aliens for criminal violations of the law.

Implement sanctions against all “recalcitrant” countries that refuse to take back their nationals who are deported from the U.S.

Establish an office within the Department of Homeland Security to help the victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens.

There is no question that all of these actions, taken together, will be a major step in getting our illegal alien population under control, securing our border, and deterring and reducing the huge influx of illegal aliens into the U.S. that was spurred by the Obama administration’s lax policies.

It would seem that the political will to enforce our immigration laws and take a tough line on the illegal aliens that have been flooding into the country for many years has finally appeared in Washington in the form of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

It is about time. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Immigration Actions Reverse Obama’s Open Borders Policy” please click HERE)

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Change We Can Believe In: Trump’s Executive Orders for American Sovereignty Are Game-Changers

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It’s Christmas come early for conservatives. Actually, for all Americans who care about homeland security.

Today represents a turning point in which President Donald Trump has used Obama’s pen and phone for the first game-changing series of executive actions.

The core job of the federal government is not to get involved in health insurance or “stimulate” the economy. The most important job is to protect our national sovereignty and the security of all the states. That begins with border security and crafting an immigration policy that puts American interests first. While some of our statutes need updating, many of the existing immigration laws are actually written properly, albeit have been ignored by Obama and past presidents. This is where Trump’s executive actions come into place.

The immigration laws were written as such that they gave the president broad latitude to clamp down on immigration and ratchet up enforcement, but not to loosen immigration and open up the borders. And rightfully so. A nation must retain the ability to shut down immigration swiftly in order to protect American sovereignty and security. On the other hand, any expansion must be done judiciously with the full input of the American people as reflected through a robust debate in Congress. Some liberal critics might suggest that conservatives are being hypocritical by promoting robust executive action from Trump after criticizing Obama’s use of his executive pen for years. The difference is that Trump is actually following the statutes passed by Congress while Obama violated the letter and spirit of the laws.

Suspending refugee program and cutting off visas from dangerous countries

The insane nightmare of importing the entire Middle East is long over. At least for now.

Here are the details from a preliminary draft:

Trump plans to shut off the issuance of all new immigrant and non-immigrant visas for 30 days from the following six volatile countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. After 30 days, the secretary of state and secretary of homeland security must submit a report to completely revamp the vetting process going forward.

Countries will have to submit within 60 days any information that the administration determines necessary, pursuant to the findings of this report, in order to adjudicate a visa application and ensure they are properly vetted. Any country that fails to submit this information will not be able to send foreign nationals to our country. All the while, the ban can be extended and expanded at any time.

In addition, the entire refugee resettlement program is suspended for four months pending a complete investigation of the program and a plan to restructure it and prioritize those who are truly in danger because of religious persecution. After 120 days, the program may resume but only for those countries from which Secretaries Kelly and Tillerson determine do not pose a threat. The program from Syria is completely suspended until the president personally gives the green light.

Furthermore, the order suspends the Visa Waiver Interview Program, and therefore requires that anyone wishing to renew their non-immigrant visa first undergo an in-person interview with U.S. officials in the consulate of their home country.

This common sense order can’t come at a better time. Obama has brought in 46,500 refugees, not including other visa categories, from these six countries just since the beginning of 2016. Obama’s bureaucrats are still running the State Department (and unless Tillerson is pressured to clean them out, they will continue to do so), and have brought in almost 1,000 refugees since Inauguration Day alone!

While liberals will cry foul about taking such action from the White House, we must remind them that the Immigration and Nationality Act (§ 212(f)) gives the president plenary power to “by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants.” This power is universal, enforceable at the will of the president, and applies any time for any circumstance.

Border fence

Trump also announced that he is directing DHS to begin the process of constructing the border fence, a signature promise of his campaign. Although this endeavor will eventually need more appropriations, which will likely be forthcoming in April, Trump absolutely has the statutory authority to begin construction. Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 — as amended by the REAL ID Act of 2005, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 — requires DHS to construct “not less than 700 miles” of fencing along the border. The locations, nature of the fence, time-frame, and any length beyond 700 miles are left up to the discretion of the president. In addition, the DHS secretary may waive all legal requirements that impede any construction.

As CRS observes:

Indeed, nothing in current statute would appear to bar DHS from potentially installing hundreds of miles of additional fencing or other barriers along the border, at least so long as the action was determined appropriate to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry.

[You can read more here for why a border fence is a force multiplier that will actually stop 95% of border crossings and is amazingly cost effective.]

Restoring interior enforcement

As part of today’s executive orders, Trump announced that they would cut off law enforcement grants to sanctuary cities. As I’ve noted before, this is one of the few areas where states have no right to push back and cutting off funding is part of existing law.

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of the orders was the restoration of the Secure Communities Program. Obama unilaterally abolished it as part of the DAPA amnesty and the elimination of this program is responsible for the surge in criminal aliens. Secure Communities was one of the most effective law enforcement programs in the field. It facilitated coordination between local law enforcement to share information through the universal fingerprint database on illegal aliens held in their prisons.

There is no reason anyone here illegally in the first place should remain in the country if they are in prison for any reason. Overall, ICE detainers declined 73% from the peak in March 2011 before the first round of Obama amnesties was fully implemented. Restoring Secure Communities will go a long way in getting rid over well over a million criminal aliens, a goal that any intellectually honest liberal should share.

Work to be done: End Obama’s illegal DACA amnesty

Obviously, there is a limit to what a president can do in one day. Certainly the list of accomplishments from today are enough to register as a great start. However, there is one action Trump must take immediately: the repeal of Obama’s DACA amnesty.

As we noted earlier this week, the Trump administration is giving indications that they don’t plan to rescind DACA. The prevailing talking point is that they want to focus on criminal aliens and dangerous refugees. And to their credit, they have certainly gone a long way towards addressing those issues today. However, the issue with Obama’s amnesty is that 1) it’s patently unconstitutional and 2) it’s not merely an issue of deportation but one of providing illegal aliens with Social Security cards and refundable tax credits. Trump’s own DHS is now issuing hundreds of unconstitutional DACA papers every day. That can and must end now simply by shutting off the spigot. We don’t have to deal with the deportation issue now. And while we’re at it, let’s stop calling them “Dreamers” and focus on American Dreamers, to paraphrase Trump.

Overall, Trump has gone a long way in embarking on some of the most important immigration changes in decades, and has fulfilled many of the homeland security ideas on our checklist, something that should have happened after 9/11.

Today is a blueprint for how to move forward. We need to continue focusing on the issues that matter, always remaining relentlessly on offense promoting our affirmative ideas on multiple fronts to overwhelm the other side rather than reacting to the latest nonsense in the media. Conservatives should be proud that the pressure and culture of accountability they built throughout this election bore fruit in such spectacular fashion.

As for Trump, if he sticks to policy, eases off on Twitter, and picks up his pen, he will go a long way to truly making America great again. (For more from the author of “Change We Can Believe In: Trump’s Executive Orders for American Sovereignty Are Game-Changers” please click HERE)

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Scientists, Women, the Press Think Trump Is Coming for Them

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A week or so before the election, there was a rumor bumping around the Internet which said Trump, if he were to become President, would immediately begin rounding up LGBT folk and placing them into camps. I replied to one of these exceptionally nervous people on Twitter, “It won’t be so bad. I hear Thursdays will be lasagna nights.” That earned me a blocking. (I have since deleted my account so that I don’t cause any more hurt feelings.)

Over this past weekend, a mob of angry females tromped through the streets of Washington DC. Boy, were they upset. Fuming. Nary a happy face. Trouble was, no one was able to discover why these citizens were displeased. Perhaps the nation is suffering a critical shortage of blue hair dye? Can somebody look that up?

One woman not reduced to incoherent ravings about her cat (that’s what I thought I heard), said Donald Trump was going to come after women and break them up like “puzzle pieces.” Jack the Ripper, look out! It’s Donald Trump, puzzle breaker.

The eminent New York Times writer Ross Douthat isn’t shivering over internment camps or feminist puzzle breaking, but he did wring his hands over the possibility that Donald Trump “will escalate from tweets to Erdoganian crackdowns, that truly independent journalism will be marginalized while the White House breeds a lap dog press.”

It doesn’t do to criticize Times writers, of course, but is it even theoretically possible for the press to more resemble a fluffy white pampered poodle, blind with devotion, madly licking its master, and barring its wee yellow teeth and yipping at intruders than it did during Mr Obama’s tenure?

Fear of an all-powerful Trumpenführer has not been confined to dyspeptics, dye-jobs, and diarists. The officially brightest among us — scientists themselves! — have convinced themselves Trump is going to confiscate their data. Headline at Forbes: “Fearing White House Purge Of Climate Science, Scientists Frantically Copying Data.” The author, James Conca, said:

It’s not like the new administration is going to start burning books or flushing files down the toilet, but website access will disappear, reports will be put in deep storage, and datasets will become more difficult to access, or will degrade in quality, as funding is cut from the agencies maintaining them.

Conca says this data is needed because the United States has been under attack from the Polar Vortex, a beast which he intimates was caused by global warming (which he mistakenly refer to as “climate change”).

Conca is calling these deletions, which have not happened, a “purging of science” which will result in the nation “sliding further into the abyss where truth and lies have equal weight and science is just another ideology to ignore when it’s inconvenient.”

Engadget asks whether the data panic is “irrational.” “Possibly”, they admit, but then they claim the new administration “has been picking climate change deniers for positions in relevant agencies, and has threatened to stop ‘politicized science.’” (Incidentally, no Trump hire has ever denied the climate has changed.)

How Trump will reach into the computers of all those scientists and vacuum up their precious bits hasn’t been specified. Maybe he will hire the Russians who hacked and stole the election from its rightful winner to do the job? Scientists will come in to their offices after a weekend to discover their hard drives have been purged of the proof the sky will soon fall and replaced with JPEGs of Rosie O’Donnell laughing.

Scary stuff! No wonder Harvard is sponsoring an “Archive-a-thon” to begin the backups before Trump comes after them. The announcement doesn’t say, but it’s a good guess the Archive-a-thon will take place in a Safe Space complete with puppies and coloring books to calm the nerves of these great brains. Don’t scoff. It’s got to the point where there is serious talk of scientists having a march on Washington.

Since there is so much angst out there, it is well to review its cause. Progressives assured us, in turn, that Ronald Reagan was Hitler, that George Bush père et fils were Hitler, that Barack Obama opponents John McCain and Mitt Romney were each Hitler, really that every Republican since Goldwater was Hitler, and so none of us would have been surprised to learn that Donald Trump was Hitler, too.

But it was worse! The Left insisted Trump was literally Hitler. Which brings to mind Mr Trump’s inauguration speech in which he spoke of “an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge” — including, as we have just seen, knowledge of the word literally.

After decades of creating and telling themselves horror stories, it was inevitable that the Left would begin believing them. It is thus not surprising that Trump’s election resulted in a full-blown moral panic. We’re in for four (or eight?) years of having everything that goes wrong blamed on Donald Trump. Might as well enjoy it. (For more from the author of “Scientists, Women, the Press Think Trump Is Coming for Them” please click HERE)

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How President Trump Could Make the IRS Great Again

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The president, Congress, and the American taxpayer are none of them fans of the Internal Revenue Service. Voters were justifiably angered by well-publicized mismanagement in recent years on the part of high-ranking IRS executives, many of whom are gone but are probably collecting sizeable government pensions. These missteps included:

Lois Lerner’s stone walling of Tea Party groups;

IRS employees subsequently pleading the 5th before Congress;

an extravagant Disneyland training conference;

a multi-million-dollar technology contract awarded to a military school drop out with a fictitious injury who is now doing hard time for killing his wife;

and IRS executives goofing off during the workday to practice line dancing (at least it wasn’t disco dancing) and making skits parodying Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island.

Despite all this, the IRS is not an agency out of control. The IRS answers to an alphabet soup of other government agencies which monitor its operations, such as the Government Accountability Office, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the IRS Oversight Board. The current IRS commissioner has clamped down on abuses and in many ways the pendulum has swung the other way. Now rank and file employees (the people who didn’t create the problems but have to clean up the mess) must complete a form and get high level approval to attend a free training conference across the street from their offices. Bathroom passes are probably next.

The bad news is that the IRS is now being starved of resources which it needs to keep the government running — the government which you the voters just elected and inaugurated. On Monday, President Trump signed an Executive Order freezing all federal hiring not directly related to the military, public safety, and public health. President Trump should have also exempted the IRS. Here’s why:

Why IRS Needs Funds Restored

The Federal Government’s fiscal condition is dire. The national debt hovers around $20 trillion ($20,000,000,000,000), with almost $9 trillion added during the Obama Administration. In 2016, the federal government ran about $1 trillion in the red. The voluntary compliance rate hovers only around 81%, and the Gross Tax Gap, the estimated amount of taxes that should be collected before enforcement efforts but is not, stands at $468 billion. This figure does not include the unpaid taxes from illegal activities such as pimping and drug dealing.

Despite the ballooning national debt and massive annual budget deficits, Congress has slashed the IRS budget 19% in constant dollars since 2010. This has resulted in the IRS hemorrhaging employees, from 95,000 in 2010 to 80,000 in 2015. This decline in personnel has resulted in fewer auditors, investigators, tax collectors, and people answering the phone. There are fewer people working at the IRS now than when Ronald Reagan took office.

In 1998, the IRS had about 3,300 highly trained special agents combating tax fraud, money laundering, and related financial crimes (I was one of them). Today there are fewer than 2,300. The same trend exists for revenue agents (the people who conduct field audits) and revenue officers (they do the actual collections). At this rate, getting caught cheating on your taxes is going to be about as likely as Publishers Clearing House knocking on your door.

The money invested in the IRS produces astronomical returns. The IRS uses the $5 billion Congress gives it for enforcement and reduces the Gross Tax Gap by $62 billion, resulting in an estimated annual Net Tax Gap of $406 billion. In other words, for every dollar you give the IRS for enforcement it returns $12 to the Treasury. MIT-trained economist Dr. Jeff Dubin wrote in a 2007 article that a $353 million additional investment would result in $16.8 billion, between in additional dollars collected and greater voluntary compliance. No business owner would forgo the opportunity to earn that kind of return on investment.

To tackle America’s fiscal nightmare, President Trump should exempt the IRS from the hiring freeze and press Congress to appropriate the funds necessary to close the Tax Gap. Start with an extra $2 billion. That would bring the IRS budget back to 2010 budget levels. Then hold the IRS accountable for every dime. Tell it to start with cracking down on the pimps and the dope dealers who never did an honest day’s work (I have a few names they can start with). Then go after the fraudulent tax preparers who add fake dependents and abuse the ITIN system to bilk the Treasury out of tens of billions of dollars in bogus refunds. Stop chasing the little guy, like my friend who is a semi-retired septuagenarian who filed his corporate return late (he was in the hospital) and is fighting a $1,700 fine.

President Trump has big plans to Make American Great Again. To do that, he needs to make the IRS Great Again. To my friends at the IRS I say this: Sharpen your pencils and double knot your wingtips. It’s time to get to work! (For more from the author of “How President Trump Could Make the IRS Great Again” please click HERE)

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