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You Can’t Make America Great Again by Destroying Americans Like Barronelle Stutzman

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Donald Trump made his success in the building trade. One of the key reasons he speaks so plainly and bluntly to ordinary voters is the many years he spent jawboning with construction workers and foremen. So let’s hope he understands this metaphor: Just as you can’t put up a great building with shoddy materials and lazy workmanship, you can’t make America great again if the government you run is attacking that country’s building blocks. If the foremen and workers you’re paying are putting too much sand in the concrete, or using tin instead of structural steel, the building that you end up with is doomed to collapse.

If your appointees and agencies are hunting down and executing the “little platoons” that make ordered liberty possible, your country will fall apart. As founding father John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

America will not be rejuvenated but ruined if Trump doesn’t act to support the First Amendment Defense Act and protect the kind of people who made America great — people like Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington florist who faces destruction because she politely declined to take part in a same-sex wedding.

A small business owner, churchgoer, and faithful Christian, she pretty much defines the kind of citizen that keeps our country going. They give to charity at higher levels than other people. They are more likely to stay faithful to their spouses. Their kids join the military, police and fire department. They volunteer for civic-minded projects, and sign up for neighborhood watches. They believe in Christian mercy but also insist on justice — which is why so many of them voted for Donald Trump, in the hope that he would bring order to our country’s chaotic immigration process, and regain control of our borders. They love their country, their city, their neighborhood, their family, and God.

The ACLU Didn’t Build America. People of Faith Did.

These are the heirs of the Pilgrims, who sailed across an ocean and planted a colony in the howling wilderness, rather than live under a government where unaccountable bureaucrats could demand that they violate their conscience. They’re the heirs of the Abolitionists, who smuggled escaping slaves along the Underground Railroad, to flout an unjust law. They’re heirs of the suffragists, who didn’t expect five judges to pervert the Constitution, but who worked through the system and played by the rules to change the Constitution to offer women the vote.

They’re the kind of people who joined the Civil Rights movement and worked with fellow Christians from very different backgrounds, of another race, to demand that the Constitution keep its promise to every American. They’re the kind of people today who pray outside abortion clinics and run crisis pregnancy centers. Drive by some government-funded murder mill early on Saturday morning, and look at those people’s faces. Whom will you see? Dozens and dozens of people like Barronelle Stutzman.

Does President Trump really want to side with the narrow-eyed fanatics who defend partial-birth abortion, and open borders, and massive bureaucratic interference with every American’s life? Those are the kind of people who support the American Civil Liberties Union — the organization that stands to benefit from seizing Ms. Stutzman’s 401k, and auctioning off her home. They’re the people who put on those sickening hats and threw a national tantrum the day after Trump’s inauguration. They rioted in Berkeley, or cheered the rioters on as they skimmed the MSM headlines while sipping their pumpkin lattes. They regard Trump’s presidency as illegitimate, and will seize any excuse to claim that the election was hacked or stolen. They want to silence free speech on campus and impose their arrogant, secular agenda in every nook and cranny of American life.

Mr. President, You Must Pick a Side

And to do that, they must destroy all the Barronelle Stutzmans. They will use whatever power they can grab hold of, from perversions of federal law like the Obama administration’s gay hijack of the Civil Rights Act, to education bureaucrats’ perverted, transgendered reading of Title IX. They use corporate power to blackmail non-profit organizations like the Boy Scouts, and their dominance of the media to blacken the names of good, innocent people who happen to disagree with them — and get them fired.

These kind of arrogant cynics thought it would be clever to use Obamacare to bankrupt Catholic nuns, and close down Hobby Lobby. They tried to use Title IX in California to shutter Christian colleges. They will use force, fear, or fraud without compunction, because they believe that they serve the abstract demands of “justice” and “liberation,” and that the end justifies the means. It was lawyers like this who wrote the briefs that sank President Trump’s sensible executive order on immigration, and who serve on the Ninth Circuit Court that wrote that absurd decision. Reporters who think like this are spinning “fake news” about the president every single news cycle, distorting and mocking every word that comes out of his mouth.

Mr. President, you need to pick a side: The Barronelle Stutzmans of America, who voted for you and trusted you and just want to live in peace — or the arrogant, strutting elites who hate her and everyone like her, and who hate you even more. Will you stand up for your supporters, the people who made America great, and can make it great again? Or will you cave in to the bullies who oppress her, and reject you?

We are waiting for your answer. (For more from the author of “You Can’t Make America Great Again by Destroying Americans Like Barronelle Stutzman” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Stellar Pick for National Security Adviser

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Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster is a perfect fit for the position of national security adviser, and it is no surprise that his selection by President Donald Trump has delighted many in the defense and national security community.

Trump announced Monday night that McMaster will replace Michael Flynn, the retired Army general who resigned a week ago after he admitted misleading the vice president about the content of a December phone call with the Russian ambassador.

McMaster is a scholar-warrior, much like two fellow flag officers serving in Trump’s Cabinet—retired Marine generals James Mattis and John Kelly.

McMaster is a brilliant strategist who has devoted his Army career to understanding military history and helping America’s armed forces learn from the mistakes of the past in order to fight more effectively in the future. One of us, Thomas Spoehr, can say this with confidence, having known him for many years.

Notably, McMaster wrote a 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” which criticized top military leaders during the Vietnam War for failing to give their candid advice to the president and secretary of defense. As national security adviser, one of McMaster’s key roles will be to provide unvarnished advice to the president.

More recently, as commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment during the Iraq War, McMaster led U.S. forces in beating back an insurgency that was running rampant in the western Iraqi city of Tal Afar, where al-Qaeda had taken control.

In an interview with National Geographic, he described the situation his troops, and the Iraqi people, faced in Tal Afar:

All the schools were closed because of violence, all the marketplaces were closed. There was no power. There was no water. The city was lifeless. People lived in abject fear.

What McMaster did next changed the course not only of one city, but the entire U.S. military strategy in Iraq. He invested in working directly with the Iraqi people and building trust in the U.S. military’s capability to eliminate terrorists threatening their livelihoods. He moved his troops off large bases and brought them in contact with local residents.

In so doing, McMaster contributed to laying the groundwork for a new counterinsurgency strategy implemented by Army Gen. David Petraeus that ultimately would lead to the neutralization of al-Qaeda in Iraq and increased stability throughout the nation.

This strategy was not popular at the time, yet McMaster recognized its potential and was unwavering in his drive to try a new approach. Remaining willing to re-examine strategies and plans is a key attribute for the national security adviser.

McMaster is also just as much a warrior as he is a scholar and brilliant intellectual. He served in the first Persian Gulf War, receiving a Silver Star for his leadership and bravery in the 1991 Battle of 73 Easting, the largest tank-on-tank battle since World War II.

In this 23-minute battle, McMaster’s company destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel transports, and more than 30 trucks.

These accomplishments speak volumes about McMaster’s professionalism, leadership, and passion for defending America. He is an extraordinary choice to be national security adviser, and Trump was wise to select him.

Going forward, Americans can rest assured knowing that H.R. McMaster will be the man providing national security advice and options to the leader of the free world. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Stellar Pick for National Security Adviser” please click HERE)

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7 Statutes That CLEARLY Support Trump’s Immigration Executive Order

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While nullifying Trump’s immigration order, the so-called “judges” were conniving in their omission of any statute. As I noted last week, every part of Trump’s order is covered by multiple statutes. This week, I found two more portions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that support his actions.

Let’s review:

1. INA 212(f) [8 U.S.C. §1182(f)]

Gives the president at-will and absolute power to shut off any immigrant and non-immigrant visa category for any period of time if he determines — subject to nobody else’s review — that it’s in the national interests.

This single statute covers every aspect of the order.

2. INA 215(a)(1)[8 U.S.C. §1185(a)(1)]

Conditions entry or exit of any alien (immigrant and nonimmigrant) to “reasonable rules, regulations, and orders, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may prescribe.”

No limitations are placed on this power, and it was used by Jimmy Carter during the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

3. 8 U.S.C. §1184(a)(1)

Conditions the “admission to the United States of any alien as a nonimmigrant” to “such time and under such conditions as the Attorney General may by regulations prescribe.”

4. 8 U.S. Code §1735

Passed unanimously by Congress in 2002, requires the president to cut off visas to state sponsors of terrorism, which at the time of passage, included five of the seven countries included in Trump’s travel ban.

Trump could easily add Somalia and Yemen to the terror state list and reinstate Iraq and Libya – and it would all be covered under this statute.

5. 8 U.S.C. §1157(a)(2)

Grants the president full authority to set the cap and geographic intake of refugees. Obama used it to the detriment of the country; Trump can use it to protect our security.

After further researching the INA, I found two more applicable provisions:

6. 8 U.S. Code §1201(h)(i)

Makes it clear that the issuance of a visa does not “entitle any alien” to be “admitted [into] the United States, if, upon arrival at a port of entry in the United States, he is found to be inadmissible under this chapter, or any other provision of law.”

Thus if the president, using the other authorities and his war powers, chooses to suspend particular visas, those individuals are inadmissible under law. Furthermore, the statute continues by giving plenary power to customs officials to revoke visas at any time.

[T]he consular officer or the Secretary of State may at any time, in his discretion, revoke such visa or other documentation.
What’s more, this provision of law, which passed the Senate 96-2 in 2004, explicitly stripped the courts of any jurisdiction to adjudicate the revocation of visas for anyone seeking entry into the country (as opposed to someone living here who is being deported).

The jurisdiction-stripping provision includes even a basic habeas corpus petition. How in the world can the courts be allowed to get involved in this matter? It is unconstitutional. I’m glad to see that the state of Texas has made this argument in its amicus brief against the liberal states suing the Trump administration.

7. 8 U.S. Code §1253(d)

Requires the secretary of State to cut off both immigrant and nonimmigrant visas to foreign nationals of countries that refuse to repatriate their illegal or criminal aliens. According to the Immigration Reform Law Institute, as reported by The Washington Times, 27 countries qualify for a visa cutoff, including five of the seven countries targeted under Trump’s order (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan).

Accordingly, not only is Trump triple and quadruple covered by statute for every aspect of his immigration order (not to mention his own foreign affairs powers), he is actually required to cut off visas pursuant to several laws. Moreover, the courts have absolutely no authority to even adjudicate a case second-guessing a president’s action with regards to foreign nationals seeking entry into this country. Politics aside, the law is the law.

Yet where is Congress? Where are GOP leaders rushing to join Steve King in condemning the courts even in a non-binding resolution for their display of civil disobedience?

Make no mistake about it. There is not one morsel of legitimacy to these court opinions. They are engaging in civil disobedience and nullification against our most foundational laws governing security and sovereignty of the entire federal union.

As Robert Bork observed during a time when the courts weren’t nearly as rogue as they are today: “To the objection that a rejection of a court’s authority would be civil disobedience, the answer is that a court that issues orders without authority engages in an equally dangerous form of civil disobedience.” (For more from the author of “7 Statutes That CLEARLY Support Trump’s Immigration Executive Order” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The President Trump Should Be Looking up to (and It’s Not Reagan)

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If President Donald Trump is looking for a conservative to model his presidency after, it should be Calvin Coolidge — our 30th (and most underrated) president. Ronald Reagan receives much (deserved) attention from the conservative movement, but even “The Gipper” recognized how principled Coolidge was. So much so that Reagan brought Coolidge’s portrait back into the White House.

As we celebrate Presidents Day, it is fitting to remember Calvin Coolidge. Born on the 4th of July, Coolidge became a lawyer at his father’s urging and quickly rose through the ranks of Massachusetts politics. He served as President Warren Harding’s vice president, and upon Harding’s sudden death in 1923, Coolidge assumed the commander in chief role. The next year, he was elected president in his own right.

During his tenure as president, from 1923 to 1929, taxes were lowered, the economy boomed, and the presidency was relatively scandal-free — a welcome departure from the scandal-ridden Harding years. Coolidge was one of the most and best conservative presidents of the 20th century.

Here are three things you may not know about “Silent Cal.”

He reduced the federal debt

During World War I, U.S. federal debt increased from $1.5 billion to $24 billion in just three years, from 1916-1919. Harding started the process of reducing the debt, and Coolidge carried on after Harding’s death.

Furthermore, total federal spending was reduced by an enormous 43 percent with Coolidge as VP and president from 1921-1924, and the federal debt shrank from $22 billion in 1923 to just south of $17 billion in 1929, when Coolidge left office.

He reduced income taxes

As Conn Carroll writes at Townhall.com, the top income tax rate was lowered from 73 percent to 24 percent from 1921 to 1926 — a 49 percent reduction. In 1925, the tax rate for the lowest tax bracket was reduced to 1.5 percent for people making $4,000 to $8,000 a year, which is the equivalent of around $55,000 to $110,000 in 2016 dollars.

He was a man of his word

Coolidge retained the services of Harding’s “literary clerk” — a precursor to the modern speechwriter — only till 1925. His son, John, long insisted that his father wrote his own speeches, and Coolidge published volumes of his speeches. They include pieces about the importance of religious liberty, the Boy Scouts, civil rights, and patriotism, among many other topics. Coolidge also held the most press conferences of any other president (outside of FDR’s three-term presidency.

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What we need now, more than ever, is for a president who is a man of his word, and one who will reduce the federal debt, reduce taxes, and stand up for religious liberty. President Trump, like Reagan, should look to Calvin Coolidge as an example.

(For more from the author of “The President Trump Should Be Looking up to (and It’s Not Reagan)” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

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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