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4 Key Things to Know About Building Trump’s Border Wall

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President-elect Donald Trump has legal authorization to move forward on his core campaign promise of building a border wall; he just needs the money to do it.

Trump said he still intends to require Mexico to pay for the wall, but needs congressional appropriation to expedite the process.

Here are four things to know about the border wall.

1. Legal Authorization

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized a 700-mile, double-layered border fence along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

The measure had broad bipartisan support and passed the House by a vote of 283 to 183 in September of that year. It then passed the Senate a couple of weeks later with a vote of 80-19. President George W. Bush signed the bill on Oct. 26.

A fence might seem short of Trump’s promise of a “big, beautiful, powerful wall.” However, Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, a pro-border enforcement group, said he believes it is essentially in line with Trump’s pledge.

“Fence or wall or barrier, he called for securing the border,” Mehlman told The Daily Signal. “His campaign was about fulfilling the promise of the 2006 law.”

2. How Much of the Wall Is Already Built?

The first layer of the planned double-layered wall is a little over half finished, as is much of the fence to stop vehicles, but the second layer still has a long way to go.

In May 2011, President Barack Obama asserted the border fence is “now basically complete” because the primary and vehicle fencing has been built. PolitiFact said this was “mostly false,” because the secondary fencing was such a key aspect of the fence. When finished, the complete wall is supposed to be wide enough to drive a truck between the two layers.

The Department of Homeland Security has completed 353 miles of primary pedestrian fencing, which runs directly along the border and is intended to prevent crossings on foot. The department also completed another 300 miles of vehicle fencing, which prevents motorized vehicles from crossing.

However, just 36 miles of secondary fencing is finished. This fencing runs behind the primary fencing, usually separated by a patrol road that allows the Border Patrol to monitor the area between fences. Another 14 miles of tertiary pedestrian fencing, which runs behind the secondary fencing, is intended to prevent attempts to cross the border on foot.

Mehlman said these May 2015 numbers on the wall are the most recent, and are about the same as the 2012 numbers regarding miles complete.

The cost of building that much of the existing fence was $2.3 billion, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

3. How Will Congress Pay for It?

Since Congress doesn’t have to pass a stand-alone bill for the wall, the Republican majority reportedly intends to make it part of an appropriations bill that must pass by the end of April. Most media reports are not putting a finite figure on the cost other than in the billions.

The most ambitious estimate was $11 billion, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a pro-border enforcement think tank.

She told The Daily Signal she expected it would be less, adding that number is small compared to the estimated $50 billion taxpayers spend each year on illegal immigration costs, from crime to welfare benefits.

Since so many Democrats, including Senate Democratic Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, voted for the Secure Fence Act, Republicans reportedly believe they will have a political advantage in pushing the appropriation through. Further, Democrats won’t likely want to shut down the government over stopping the wall, according to Vaughan.

“I don’t think it will be politically difficult for Schumer or others to change their position on border security because so many have already done a total reversal on border security,” Vaughan said. “But shutting down the government, that is something they were severely critical of the Republicans for doing and this would be a popular bill.”

4. Could Mexico Really Pay?

For now, the Trump transition team is not getting into specifics as to when the Mexican government would cover the cost of the wall.

“There will be ongoing discussions with Congress on how to fund and organize [the wall],” Trump transition team spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Friday during a conference call.

The notion of getting some form of reimbursement from Mexico shouldn’t be outright dismissed, Vaughan said.

“It’s hard for me to see the Mexican government agreeing to write a check for the U.S. wall, but the Trump administration could find ways to extract revenue by withholding remittance, by seizing the assets of Mexican crime syndicates, or reducing foreign aid,” Vaughan said. “It’s not only Mexico. It could be other countries in Central America.” (For more from the author of “4 Key Things to Know About Building Trump’s Border Wall” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry

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President-elect Donald Trump’s public campaign to push U.S. companies to make their products in America is already having an impact, especially on one of his favorite targets: the auto industry.

On Tuesday, Ford Motor Co., the nation’s second-largest automaker, said it will cancel a plan to build a small-car assembly plant in Mexico that Trump has criticized, and instead expand a Michigan plant, creating 700 local jobs.

A few hours earlier, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on cars built by General Motors Co. in Mexico, writing on Twitter: “Make in the U.S.A. or pay big border tax!”

In response to Trump’s attack against GM for selling Chevrolet Cruzes assembled in Mexico to U.S. car dealers, America’s largest automaker quickly defended itself. GM noted that almost all of the 190,000 Cruzes sold here last year actually were made at a factory in Lordstown, Ohio.

Experts say these actions, even if not directly attributable to Trump, showcase potential changes ahead for the auto industry, a sector that is ascendant after selling a record 17.55 million new cars in the U.S. last year.

“It’s bullying, and I don’t think it’s a sustainable way to do business, but Trump’s approach is being reinforced,” Dan Ikenson, who researches international trade and investment policy at the Cato Institute, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “He hasn’t taken the oath of office yet, and he has affected hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars in investment decisions, and thousands of jobs.”

Observers of the auto industry contend that investment decisions made by companies such as Ford reflect long-term business goals more than influence from the incoming administration.

Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields said “the primary reason” his company scrapped a $1.6 billion factory slated for San Luis Potosi, shifting production to an existing plant in Mexico, “is just [that] demand has gone down for small cars.”

The new jobs in the Michigan plant, meanwhile, mostly will support Ford’s production of self-driving and electric cars, which the company expects to be popular in the future.

“The U.S. auto industry is clearly at the top of the best cycle we’ve ever had, and even before the presidential election, the industry is acting differently in response to that,” Bernard Swiecki, an analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “We are now plateauing, meaning the building boom in Mexico will slow because the boom was designed to fill the need for capacity.”

Swiecki added:

I don’t think in any of these decisions Trump’s advocacy will be the main driver. The real driver will always be the business case. In the Ford decision, the business case lined up this way, and if at the same time you can curry some political favor with the president, you will take that.

No matter the motive, Swiecki and other experts say, the increasingly globalized auto industry is paying attention and taking the president-elect’s statements seriously.

Trump has vowed repeatedly to impose tariffs on vehicles imported into the United States from Mexico.

Trade experts agree that presidents have wide latitude to impose penalties on imports, at least temporarily, including restricting imports if they pose a national security risk under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

Edward Alden, who studies trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that targeting a single company with a tariff would be more controversial, and unprecedented.

“There is nothing that prevents the president from claiming that Ford’s investing in Mexico constitutes a national industrial emergency and to move forward with sanctions,” Alden told The Daily Signal in an interview. “It would be a gross distortion of emergency power, but Trump has indicated he is not terribly constrained by norms and expectations.”

Trump also has frequently criticized and promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal that went into force in 1994 under which the United States does not impose tariffs on products imported from Mexico and Canada.

Alden said that since the mid-1960s, the auto industry has been integrated across North American borders, starting with the Auto Pact of 1965, a trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada that allowed for tariff-free imports and exports.

“If you really try to create a build-it-in-America auto industry, you have to undo more than 50 years of history,” Alden said, adding:

The auto supply chain operates on a continental basis. If Trump blows that up by increasing the price of an imported vehicle with tariffs, it could reduce overall vehicle sales and cause manufacturers’ costs to increase substantially. This would force a massive restructuring of the industry.

Imported vehicles have become central to the American market, equaling more than 40 percent of annual volume.

Since the U.S. recession, automakers have committed big investments to new plants in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor.

According to the Center for Automotive Research, of the 11 assembly plants announced to be built in North America since 2009, nine were planned for Mexico.

The nonprofit, independent research center reported that from 2013 to late 2016, carmakers invested $68.5 billion in North America, a total that includes new plants as well as expansions and updates to existing facilities.

Seventy-two percent, or $49.4 billion, of that investment went to the U.S.

While American car companies say they have moved jobs to Mexico to remain competitive, they also invested in the U.S., creating jobs in design and engineering or in plants making parts for Mexican factories.

“The idea that something is made in the U.S. or made in Mexico is an outdated notion,” Bryan Riley, a trade policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “With cars, whether final assembly is in the U.S., Mexico, or somewhere else, you have components from all over the world.”

Riley added:

That is something that benefits Americans. You don’t want to go on a path that we are better off if we make everything in the U.S. We are much better off to say Americans have the freedom to spend and invest money where they want, and no one in Washington, D.C., should be interfering with those decisions.

(For more from the author of “How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry” please click HERE)

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Was the Video Torture of a Handicapped “Trump Supporter” Really a Love Crime?

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Chicago police just couldn’t decide whether the kidnapping and video-livestreamed torture of a learning disabled white man constituted a hate crime or just kids being “stupid.” As Fox 32 reported:

The footage shows the suspects kicking, hitting and cutting the hair of the victim while he was gagged. Shouts of “F*** Trump!” and “F*** white people!” can be heard in the background.

At one point, the victim is held at knife point and told to curse President-elect Donald Trump. The group also forces the victim to drink water from a toilet.

The victim was held hostage for at least 24 hours and as long as 48 hours.

The American Mirror commented: “To listen to the initial reaction of Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, the filmed shock attack on a white special needs resident … was just kids being kids.” It quoted Johnson:

Some of it is just stupidity. People just ranting about something they think might make a headline. … At this point we don’t have anything concrete to point to to suspect it’s a hate crime, but we’ll keep investigating and let the facts guide us on how this concludes.

Now, there is good reason to question the whole idea of a “hate crime.” Why should it matter from a legal point of view precisely why a criminal attacks someone and violates his right to life, liberty, or property? Was the record-setting murder spree that engulfed Democrat-run Chicago in 2016 — which largely saw non-whites killing non-whites — a wave of “love crimes,” since those murders weren’t racially motivated?

But granting that the legal category of hate crime does exist, why was there the slightest reluctance to label what these four vicious young people did a hate crime? They used racial epithets (check), targeted a member of another race (check), and forced him at knife point to denounce a white politician (check). It sounds like it fits the bill.

What would have happened if four white kids from Donald Trump’s native Queens had reacted to Barack Obama’s election in 2008 by kidnapping a handicapped black teen and forcing him to damn Obama at knife point? The entire racial grievance industry, the mainstream media, and the federal government would have swung into action to address a “national crisis” of white-on-black political violence.

What Matters Isn’t the Victim, but the “Narrative”

The media reactions to this crime were different, to say the least. The iconic Washington Post let columnist Callum Borchers blow right past the horror inflicted on a helpless, imprisoned American, to focus on the dangerous “pro-Trump” “narrative” which this attack could be used to bolster — the idea that just as white people can target black people for crimes, it can also work the other way around. We see here the mind of an ideologue, trapped in its little Habitrail, scurrying left and right to avoid the plain and ugly facts and obtain its little pellet of “social justice.”

Why did it take many long hours for Chicago police to classify this obvious hate crime as a hate crime, and charge the attackers accordingly? Indeed, they might not have done so without the explosion of public comment, admirably led by Paul Joseph Watson, a gadfly at Alex Jones’ InfoWars:

Only Whites Can Be Racist, Got It?

Why is there a double standard on hate crimes? For the same reason that leftists deny that black hatred for whites (or Asians or Jews) can constitute racism:

Because whites have all the institutional power in society, and “racism” is defined as an act that perpetuates institutional power. So when black rioters targeted Korean grocers during the Los Angeles riots, beat them bloody, called them “gooks” and burned their businesses, what they were doing wasn’t “racist.” You have to call it something else.

I had this principle of cultural Marxism carefully explained to me at an official gathering called by the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge, which priests and church employees were forced to attend, back in the early 90s. Clearly someone in the church had taken his Saul Alinsky training and put it to use.

It’s a gross oversimplification to lump together all people of the same ethnic group as having the same power or “privilege.” White coal-miners in Appalachia who have been put out of jobs by Obama administration regulations clearly have less institutional power than my black classmates from Yale enjoy. To lump people together in broad racial categories and grant them different treatment under law… that in fact sounds more like the classical definition of racism. (For more from the author of “Was the Video Torture of a Handicapped “Trump Supporter” Really a Love Crime?” please click HERE)

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Trump and Congress Want to Audit the Fed. Let’s Do It Already!

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Back when Ron Paul was in Congress, you could always count on him to do one thing: introduce the same bill every year, heedless of futility or Sisyphean labor, to conduct a comprehensive audit of the United Stated Federal Reserve Bank.

It never went anywhere. But undaunted, the elder Paul continued the tradition right up until his retirement, at which point he passed the mantle to his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%).

Rand continues to introduce the bill every year, with increasing probability of action, receiving a rare vote in the Senate in 2016. This year, the warriors of monetary policy may have their best shot yet at success, as a new version of the bill is being sponsored by Rand and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. (A, 94%) with vocal support from the incoming Trump administration.

The Federal Reserve is a nominally independent agency that regulates the nation’s money supply, controls interest rates, and occasionally intervenes in markets more directly, as when it purchased toxic mortgages during the 2008 housing crisis. The Fed generally operates behind the scenes in comparative secrecy, with the general public having only a vague conception of what the agency actually does.

What few people realize is that when the Fed alters the money supply and changes interest rates, it is sowing the seeds of future economic disaster by introducing distorted signals into money markets. Not only does dramatically expanding the money supply (as the agency has done for the last decade) create inflation that causes consumer prices to rise, but it also leads investors into making bad decisions that harm the economy as a whole.

The Fed is adamant that it is already subject to audits by the inspector general, and that it is already fully transparent. The agency is also adamant in its opposition to the Audit the Fed bill. Can you spot the inconsistency? If the agency is already transparent, then the bill would do nothing, so why oppose it?

The truth is that, while the Fed is subject to periodic audits, these are only partial reviews of the agency’s activities that leave out many of the most important aspects of what the Fed does: Transactions with foreign governments, internal communications, and the open market operations that constitute most of what the Fed does are currently exempt from scrutiny. If people knew exactly what goes on behind the agency’s closed doors, they would be shocked at how much power it has to screw things up for the rest of us.

We would also discover that the Fed is not nearly as independent as most people believe. The Fed chairman is appointed by the president, which imparts an inherently partisan slant to anything the agency does. I suspect an audit of internal communications would reveal far more consideration for political concerns than the Board of Governors lets on.

Make no mistake: Auditing the Fed will not be a panacea that will immediately change anything, but it is a necessary first step toward exposing the agency’s actions to the public and convincing ordinary citizens of the need to end the agency’s charter. (For more from the author of “Trump and Congress Want to Audit the Fed. Let’s Do It Already!” please click HERE)

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It’s the Debt, Donald, the Debt

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History can be a fickle judge. Something considered revolutionary in the immediate past can seem quite insignificant later. The long-term reputation of many early twenty-first century American politicians will partly depend on whether they tackle our republic’s colossal public debt.

That includes the incoming President, Donald Trump. He clearly knows it’s a problem. In one campaign stop, he said, “So we have now $19 trillion in deficits. $19 trillion, you know if you look, we owe! … And we’re gonna knock it down and we’re gonna bring it down big league and quickly.”

Any new administration can only do so many things. Yet over the last 16 years, America’s public debt has grown so massive that reducing it must become a priority. And while public finance isn’t the sexiest of subjects, mishandling or simply ignoring the issue will have serious long-term consequences for the United States.

What’s at Stake?

On December 30, 2016, the United States’ official public debt was $19.97 trillion. It’s almost doubled since 2008. It also exceeds the size of America’s economy in nominal GDP in 2016 ($18.56 trillion).

Put another way, America’s public debt is approximately 107% of nominal GDP. To make matters worse, these numbers don’t include state and local government debt or the unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs like Social Security.

The reasons for this rise in public debt aren’t hard to grasp. At its most basic level, it reflects a failure of Congress and the Executive Branch to match spending and revenue since 2000. The gap has narrowed over the past 5 years. Nonetheless, spending continues to exceed revenue. In terms of what’s driving federal expenditures, it is social programs such as healthcare, income security, education, and housing. Spending on activities such as national defense has remained static.

So why should we care? What’s another trillion here or there?

Americans should worry because there’s plenty of evidence that this level of public debt can have grave effects on economic growth.

Once a country’s debt/GDP ratio reaches a particular threshold, one consequence appears to be slower economic growth. Economists argue about the exact threshold at which debt starts to impact growth. Some cite the figure of 85% of GDP. Others say 90%. Economists also debate how fast high debt negatively impacts growth. Yet there’s considerable consensus that, at some point, high debt-to-GDP ratios do have this impact.

Again, some might say, so what? Why should we care about a couple of percentage points less of growth?

Slower economic growth has several negative consequences. Take, for instance, employment. Slow growth means that businesses hire fewer people.

Another effect is that rises in living standards become sluggish, partly because real wage growth slows down. Slow growth also makes it harder for governments to pay down public debt, not least because tax revenues can’t match spending.

Slow growth, however, isn’t the only negative effect of too much public debt. According to a 2010 Congressional Budget Office study, it also undermines “future national income and living standards,” raises the possibility of serious “losses for mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and other holders of federal debt,” and increases the “probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money.”

What Should We Do?

To address these and other problems associated with high public debt, governments have several options.

One is to raise personal and corporate taxes across the board. That, however, makes a country less competitive. That in turn has negative consequences for growth.

Another option is to cut expenditures in real terms. Here, however, we face a major problem.

A growing majority of federal government spending is now mandated and funded by what are called “permanent appropriations.” This is spending based on existing laws rather than the budget process. That includes “big league” programs like Social Security and Medicare. To get federal expenditures under control in these areas, Congress would have to change existing laws.

2005 was the last time Social Security reform was attempted. It failed, despite President George W. Bush’s willingness to spend political capital on this issue. The opposition was formidable, not least because retirees and about-to-be-retirees vote.

This may explain why Trump has stated he’ll protect Social Security and has ruled out tackling its problems by raising the retirement-age, increasing taxes, or reducing benefits. Trump has said that he’ll seek reform through improving efficiency and reducing waste. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough. Personally, I doubt it.

Why Growth Matters

This leaves us with one option for reducing public debt. And that is to increase the American economy’s rate of growth. A high-growth economy means more employment, a reduced call on the government to help those in need, more tax revenues to reduce debt more aggressively, and a lowering of the debt/GDP ratio.

Here we have some cause for optimism. The new administration is publicly committed to faster growth in the American economy. It wants, for example, to reduce taxes (including corporate taxes which are among the world’s highest) and engage in significant deregulation, especially with regard to the financial sector.

Such measures should incentivize entrepreneurship, help start new businesses, and make capital more available. If this boosts business confidence, there’s a chance that what John Maynard Keynes called “animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action” will further bolster growth.

On the other hand, every regulation has a group willing to defend it. Any deregulation will face political opposition, some of which will be substantial. Moreover, the Trump Administration seems ready to turn America away from a general commitment to free trade and towards more-or-less protectionist policies. This will harm productivity and thus growth. Tax-cuts and internal deregulation matter for growth, but so does the American economy’s exposure to the discipline of international competition.

Excessive public debt is one of those long-term problems that undermine a country’s well-being and which democratically-elected governments have few political incentives to address. It’s politically easier to punt the problem to future generations.

Any serious effort to make America great again, however, requires a willingness to sell hard choices to the American public. That’s the essence of leadership, which is what Donald Trump has promised. And when it comes to public debt, it’s just what we need. (For more from the author of “It’s the Debt, Donald, the Debt” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

California’s Embarrassing Hire of a Failed Attorney General to Take on Trump

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The California Legislature is hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to represent the state in expected fights with the new Trump administration over environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

But based on Holder’s track record, don’t expect to see California racking up legal victories.

Although nobody is questioning the skills of the attorneys at Holder’s firm Covington & Burling, hiring Holder as, essentially, California’s outside counsel seems like an odd choice given that the Justice Department under Holder (and continued under Loretta Lynch) has one of the worst records of any modern presidency before the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, losing far more cases than either of the Justice Departments of the prior Bush or Clinton presidencies.

Holder is also the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt by Congress for withholding documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, the most reckless law enforcement operation ever conducted by the Justice Department. That operation has resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, as well as many Mexican citizens.

That also reflects poorly on Holder’s legal judgment.

Some may say that California is just preparing to do what other states like Texas have done in successfully suing the federal government during the Obama administration. But those cases are very different than what California is apparently planning to do.

The states have been suing to stop unconstitutional conduct by the executive branch when President Barack Obama failed in his duty to “faithfully execute” the law or acted unilaterally in ways that improperly changed the law.

The president does not have the authority to change, rewrite, or ignore federal laws he does not like. And federal agencies do not have the power to issue regulations outside the bounds of the statutes authorizing their conduct.

Stopping that type of misbehavior is the opposite of states attempting to obstruct enforcement of federal law or force the federal government to act outside its limited power.

For example, 26 states were successful in obtaining an injunction against Obama’s immigration amnesty plan because no president has the power to alter federal immigration law to provide amnesty and government benefits that have not been authorized by Congress or to decide that he will wholesale not enforce the law.

But California is going to try to prevent the new administration from enforcing federal immigration law despite the fact that the Constitution clearly gives Congress plenary authority over immigration and imposes a duty on the president (and thus the executive branch) to enforce the law.

Similarly, one of the reasons for California’s economic decline and severe budget shortfall problems is that it has been rated as the worst state in the country to do business in for the past 12 years in an annual survey of CEOs by the Chief Executive Network because of its high taxes and burdensome regulations.

As one CEO said in the survey, “California has been running businesses out of the state for years, and in fact, their policies are getting worse.”

Yet the state is hiring Holder to start a crusade against any efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the severe federal regulatory burden that adds to the negative effects on businesses and consumers that California already imposes.

Furthermore, the news that the California Legislature is hiring Holder came only a day after Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, to be California’s new state attorney general.

Neither Brown nor Kevin de Leon, the Democratic leader of the state Senate who was quoted in a New York Times article praising Holder’s retention, seemed to realize the complete lack of confidence retaining Holder shows in Becerra’s legal ability to carry out his role as attorney general—which is defending the state of California and its interests in environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

This is particularly humiliating for Becerra given that he had told the Los Angeles Times that he intends to protect California’s “progressive” policies on immigration, Obamacare, energy, and criminal justice.

Becerra has already challenged the federal government, saying that “If you want to take on a forward-leaning state that is prepared to defend its rights and interests, then come at us.”

Looks like he is not going to get that chance, however, even if he is confirmed as the attorney general. Those cases will instead be handled by Holder and an entire team of lawyers at Holder’s private law firm, Covington & Burling, a premier Washington, D.C., law firm not exactly known for its low billing rates.

There is little doubt that California taxpayers, who are already living in a state with high taxes and huge budget problems, are going to get soaked for a lot of legal costs in addition to the price they already pay for the Office of the State Attorney General, which has 4,500 lawyers, investigators, police officers, and other staff.

Apparently, however, the California Legislature doubts their ability to fulfill their duties of defending the state’s interests.

All of this illustrates that the California Legislature has made a poor—but no doubt a very expensive—choice that will hurt the state.

But it is hardly surprising, I suppose, that the state would hire a former attorney general whose Justice Department did everything it could to defend the mountain of new, out-of-control regulations issued by the Obama administration in order to try to keep those economically costly regulations in place.

Nor is it shocking that an attorney general who did everything he could to avoid enforcing federal immigration law during the Obama administration will now try to help California obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law during the Trump administration.

Holder’s goals seem to have stayed the same; it’s just the playing field that has changed. (For more from the author of “California’s Embarrassing Hire of a Failed Attorney General to Take on Trump” please click HERE)

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Did Voters Trash Conservative Principles by Voting for Donald Trump?

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I have read countless commentaries, many of them by NeverTrump conservatives, on why it is “dangerous” for the Republican party and the American right to embrace Donald Trump’s populist agenda. And on some counts, I agree. Trump’s more ham-handed attempts to “protect” American workers from foreign competition could end up costing more American jobs in the long run. His decision to kick entitlement reform further down the road means that we won’t make Social Security solvent anytime soon. His distrust of U.S. intervention in foreign countries could encourage bad actors on the world scene to fill the power vacuum. There are substantive, prudent arguments to be made about such issues, on a case-by-case basis.

What bothers me isn’t the willingness to stand independent of the GOP’s standard-bearer when the facts seem to point against him. That’s the job of any patriotic citizen who isn’t directly employed by the White House or a political party. Instead, what we ought to question is a largely unspoken assumption that some Trump critics seem to take for granted, namely:

That conservatism is primarily a set of universal ideas, which could apply equally anywhere on earth. We must stand by them even if they seem to directly harm important institutions to which we owe concrete loyalty. That is the cost of being principled.

That was the central argument, I think, of writers like Ross Douthat (and some at National Review) who asserted that a Hillary Clinton victory would be healthier in the long run, because while it gravely harmed churches, the natural family, individual liberty, and national security, at least it would maintain unsullied the purity of conservatism’s principles.

Conservatism was Born, Not Cloned

Let’s remember the origin of the left-right spectrum. It emerged not in a climate-controlled faculty lounge, but in the sweaty halls of the French National Assembly during the tense build-up to the Revolution. Deputies who wanted to tear down the monarchy, dismantle the churc, and put the radically centralized power of the French state in the hands of middle class radicals, grouped themselves together on the left side of the room. On the right were those who supported the monarchy in some form, and those who wished to protect the church.

Yes, you could find abstract political principles which, carefully teased out, might explain the views of each faction. But in fact, they were dividing based not on such abstract arguments, but over a series of concrete, practical questions: Shall we topple the king and guillotine him? Should the state seize my local church’s lands? Or should we retain the monarchy and perhaps reform it? Should we leave the church alone, and perhaps give it more independence from royal power?

Likewise, in 2016 conservative voters — in sharp contrast to the most prominent conservative writers — decided to back a candidate who pledged to protect particular good things that they considered important, rather than abstract principles that line up neatly in a 700-word column.

Most broadly, they wanted to preserve and restore a middle-class America led by tolerant Anglo-Protestant values, which was domestically safe and internationally respected. They asked for the government to concentrate on furthering those goals, and doing whatever was pragmatically necessary to achieve them. If that lines up with the small-government preference of classical liberals, fine. If it encourages other countries to choose tolerant, democratic capitalism, all the better.

But those rather abstract goals ran a distant second or third in the minds of such voters to the concrete, particular promises which Mr. Trump made so effectively. Proof of that fact lies in the otherwise puzzling preference of evangelical voters for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz. (Full disclosure: as a pointy-head myself, I backed Ted Cruz till the end.)

And voters would not be dissuaded by pundits’ arguments that protecting the things they considered vital to a good life for them and their children somehow violated what seemed to them abstract taboos. For instance, when virtually all domestic terrorism — and most terrorism around the world — emerges from orthodox Sunni mosques, voters overwhelmingly (according to polls) backed Donald Trump’s proposed “pause” on Muslim immigration. They were not at all moved by complaints by Speaker Paul Ryan, for instance, that such a policy was un-American, because it somehow impinged on religious freedom. Nor are voters much impressed by libertarians’ arguments that every human being has an absolute right to pick up and move wherever he wants, regardless of national borders.

The same divide between protecting a concrete good and obeying an abstract principle applied to foreign policy. GOP interventionists such as senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham called for the U.S. to obey some categorical imperative to promote democracy everywhere, all the time, right now, no matter what, by confronting Russia and risking an open conflict in order to protect “moderate rebels” in Syria. Voters rejected candidates such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio who touted this principle, in favor of Donald Trump — who narrowed his eyes and judged that we don’t have a dog in that fight.

Street Corner Conservatism Returns

In the Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti recently touted the 1975 book Street Corner Conservative by former Nixon speechwriter, Bill Gavin. A man ahead of his time (whose book is sadly out of print), Gavin called on conservatives to temper their efforts to work out a perfectly self-consistent ideological program, and focus on defending the concrete goods and particular institutions that mattered to GOP voters. It seems that with this election, Gavin has been vindicated — along with the only major politician who took his advice, his one-time White House colleague Pat Buchanan.

We can’t throw principles out the window. Mindless partisanship and economic populism are in the long run the way you end up with a country like Argentina. Instead, we should re-examine our principles and see if perhaps they are too abstract, if we have slimmed them down too much by cutting off their real-world connections. Perhaps the principles dominant inside the conservative movement became unmoored and needed revision — and voters let us know that in the only way they can. It’s our job to listen to them, and respond with an agenda that defends the Golden Egg of freedom without choking or starving the Goose. (For more from the author of “Did Voters Trash Conservative Principles by Voting for Donald Trump?” please click HERE)

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Trump Will Have His Hands Full Fixing LGBT Extremism in the State Department

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It may be a new year, but there’s nothing new about the concerns surrounding the State Department’s liberal activism. While Americans were busy unwrapping presents, conservatives were tearing into something else: Obama’s record on social issues. After eight years of watching the State Department operate as a global base for abortion and sexual activism, most Republicans are ready to get back to the real business of diplomacy. That’s a tough job under normal circumstances, but after two terms of President Obama, the Trump team will have its hands full.

Lately, there have been some who have suggested that (after almost a decade of proving otherwise) the State Department has nothing to do with abortion and sexual politics. Tell that to our friends around the globe, who’ve spent the last eight years trying to dodge this administration’s biggest export: rainbow flags and abortion dollars. Under President Obama, this radical agenda has completely infiltrated the State Department — usually eclipsing the agency’s other vital functions, like defending religious liberty. Obviously, America has a sincere interest in stopping the unjust persecution or targeting of any human being. But what’s happened for the last eight years is not the simple defense of those who are mistreated — it’s the elevation of people around the world based on sexual behavior.

State’s Culture of Extremism: LGBT Issues

While some people are falling for the line that social issues are “irrelevant” to the work of the State Department, the Trump team isn’t buying it. They’re keenly aware of the culture of extremism at the agency — so much so that they’ve requested a detailed list of the ways the office has tried to promote “gender equality.” Late last month, the New York Times reported on the Trump memo, which asked the department to provide, among other things, details on the positions “‘whose primary functions are to promote such issues’ — as well as how much funding was directed to gender-related programs in 2016.” (Read more from “Trump Will Have His Hands Full Fixing LGBT Extremism in the State Department” HERE)

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Trump’s ‘Historic’ Opportunity to Reshape the Federal Courts

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After an election in which the Supreme Court proved to be a deciding factor in how people voted, President-elect Donald Trump has a significant opportunity to reshape the federal judiciary from top to bottom.

In addition to the vacant Supreme Court seat, Trump will inherit at least 103 openings in the lower courts—that is, district and circuit courts. They don’t get the same attention as the top court, but hear many more cases on a variety of issues involving federal law.

The 103 vacancies is nearly double the 54 openings President Barack Obama had upon taking office in 2009.

Another 12 federal judges have announced plans to leave their posts later this year.

While the Supreme Court reviews roughly 75 cases a year, the nation’s 13 regional circuit courts (or federal courts of appeals) heard more than 55,000 cases last year. The Supreme Court accepts 1 percent of the cases submitted to it, so in the great majority of cases, the circuit courts set a legal precedent when they decide appeals.

“If you are a cultural warrior watching for rulings on gay marriage and abortion, the Supreme Court is where you should look, but if you are a business, a taxpayer, an employee involved in a workplace dispute, or someone making a discrimination complaint, the circuit court is often the final word,” Curt Levey, a legal affairs fellow at FreedomWorks, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks say they expect Trump to quickly nominate justices to the lower courts, taking advantage of an opportunity given to him after Senate Republicans declined to confirm some of Obama’s judicial nominees the past few years.

Before the last Senate ended its two-year term, 25 of Obama’s court nominees did not get a vote on the floor after the Judiciary Committee approved them, The Washington Post reported.

The nonpartisan Judicial Conference of the United States, a national policymaking body for the federal courts created by Congress, has deemed 41 of the openings to be judicial emergencies, because cases in those jurisdictions are severely backlogged as a result of long-vacant seats.

Though Trump did not talk about the lower court openings on the campaign trail, the circuit courts often serve as a pipeline of judges considered qualified for a Supreme Court appointment. Of the current Supreme Court justices, only Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, did not serve on a U.S. appeals court.

Trump could get additional opportunities to nominate Supreme Court justices, beyond Antonin Scalia’s replacement.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 83, and Stephen Breyer, 78, both liberals, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, 80, considered a swing vote, may choose to retire soon.

District and circuit judges, like Supreme Court justices, serve lifetime appointments unless they retire before they die.

“President-elect Trump realizes this issue gave him the election, that there’s a historic interest in the Supreme Court and the courts in general, and that the public increasingly recognizes the significance of the president’s role in shaping the courts’ composition,” Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

‘Big Fight’ Ahead

Democrats eager to strike back at Republicans are likely to try to thwart Trump’s effort to name more conservative judges, even if their ability to vote down potential judges is limited.

When Democrats controlled the Senate, they changed the rules to allow for confirmation of all presidential nominees, except for the Supreme Court, by a majority vote. Republicans now have a 52-vote majority.

But Senate leaders usually follow a tradition of considering lower court nominees only if they are supported by both senators representing the state in which the court is situated. Democratic senators are represented in 28 of the 50 states in the new Congress, including large ones such as California, Florida, and New York.

“Trump won’t automatically get who he wants,” Russell Wheeler, an expert on judicial nominations at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. Wheeler added:

The Democrats will put up a big fight and say, ‘There were nominees for these vacancies which were bipartisan and you refused to bring them for a vote when you could have confirmed them in an afternoon.’ It will be the fight over the Scalia vacancy, only multiplied by 100 because there are a lot more players in this.

Obama’s Influence on Federal Courts

Even with Republicans’ resistance to Obama’s nominees in his second term, the outgoing president was able to dramatically reshape the federal judiciary.

In his eight years, Obama ended up with three more judicial confirmations than his Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush, 329 to 326.

Today, nine of the 13 circuit courts have a majority of justices appointed by a Democrat, compared to only one when Obama took office.

Wheeler says Trump’s appointments won’t significantly shift these appeals courts because only about 10 percent of the 179 circuit judgeships—17 of them—are vacant.

This is significant because the Supreme Court, experts say, tends to take cases on issues in which the circuit courts split on their rulings. So if more of the courts are liberal-leaning, they likely will be more cohesive in their decisions, and those rulings, without making it to the Supreme Court, would become the law of the land.

According to Wheeler’s research, the Republicans’ challenge today is compounded because the majority of district and circuit court judges who are most likely to retire in the coming years are Republican appointees.

Still, Wheeler predicted that by mid-2020, Republican appointees would hold about half of the 673 district judgeships, compared to the current 34 percent.

In the circuit courts, Wheeler expects Democratic appointees to fall from 51 percent to about 43 percent by mid-2020.

“It’s not insurmountable in four years for Trump to restore the courts almost to what they were before Obama took office,” FreedomWorks’ Levey said. “If he can do that, the chances are conservatives will be in great shape if Trump serves eight years.”

Policy Impact

Legal experts say many of Trump’s policy priorities could be affected by the makeup of the courts.

For example, if Trump fulfills his plans to repeal some Obama administration regulations dealing with issues such as the environment, labor, and energy development, he likely will meet resistance from opposition figures and groups who could challenge his changes in the federal courts.

“In general, what will happen is as the Trump administration and his Cabinet appointees try to pull back, amend, change, or otherwise void regulations issued by the Obama administration in many different areas, you will see a huge number of lawsuits filed by everyone from environmental groups to perhaps state attorneys general to try and stop regulations from being changed or rewritten,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Ernest Young, a Duke University law professor focused on the federal courts, said he expects Democrat-led states to respond to Trump’s potential regulatory changes by issuing their own regulations on issues such as climate change and immigration.

If that happens, Young predicts the lower federal courts will see cases involving conflicts between federal and state law.

“Progressive policy experiments at the state level will raise questions about what extent the federal government can shut those down,” Young told The Daily Signal in an interview, adding:

I expect you will see more challenges dealing with the validation of state law—about how easy or hard it is for federal statutes to preempt state law. Some of those may go to the Supreme Court, but the lower courts are critical on issues like that.

(For more from the author of “Trump’s ‘Historic’ Opportunity to Reshape the Federal Courts” please click HERE)

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Is God Capturing the Heart of Donald Trump?

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When I walked in Mr. Trump’s office in April 2016 at his invitation, I knew I had been sent by God. I went with confidence in the Lord, trusting that He would speak through me. I was impressed to ask Mr. Trump’s second son, Eric, to join us for the first few minutes. I felt he would want to say some things about his father, and I would say some things about the need for a fatherless nation to have a father. The interaction was gratifying — more than I could have hoped.

Eric said, “I have a great father.” I said, “Let’s join in prayer and hope that he will learn what it is to be a wise father figure to a fatherless nation.” Eric agreed, and I don’t think we’ve ever stopped agreeing in our hearts and in prayer that President-elect Trump can actually become that kind of example.

Not many thought what is happening with Mr. Trump would have been likely, perhaps even possible, and certainly not probable. As I look in from the outside, and also from the inside as a result of the journey I’ve had in interaction and prayer with Mr. Trump, I sense that he is being captured by the heart of our Father.

I think many of his decisions may even surprise him — not that he lacks a brilliant mind, tremendous insight and ability to make a deal. This is beyond that. In my opinion, Mr. Trump is receiving wisdom only God can provide. The Lord freely offers it to anyone willing to hear, seek and heed. I think Mr. Trump is hearing, and I believe he is diligently seeking to heed what every American must know: America cannot be great without God.

The Great Shepherd in Stormy Times

I believe God is seeking to impart to President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect Pence and every prospective cabinet member the very heart of the ultimate Father and the Great Shepherd. Our Lord made it clear that when we allow Him to become our Shepherd, we need not want. He is our source. However needy we may be, He is the solution and He will often use compassion-filled people to meet our needs. But we will never, never become dependent on a source other than God our Father and Shepherd.

When we understand the freedom the Shepherd offers, we refuse to become pawns to any power-broker, power source or political party; for the Shepherd, who loves us with the love of the Father, will lead us in green pastures, not barren deserts. He will meet our needs. He will give us opportunity and productivity. He will lead us beside water made calm by His Spirit.

The raging storms of terrorist activity and continual threats to freedom can be miraculously calmed. The enemy will not cease to scheme, plot and attack, but when we move into the presence of overwhelming peace that only God can offer, there will be supernatural calmness and security. We will find our souls being restored, just as Betty’s and mine are being restored now.

Four years ago, just three days after Christmas and three days before the new year, we lost our baby girl, Robin — our miracle baby. That beautiful baby we did not expect and was so difficult to carry to term came into this world to sow seeds of life for the next 40 years that will reap eternal dividends. When we think of our precious daughter, our Lord restores our soul. He binds up our broken heart. Yes, it is still broken, and He is still binding it with His love and peace. We will depend on that from now until we see our beautiful daughter in His presence when we enter forever the house of the Lord. And we will say with her, “I was glad when they said, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’”

I can promise you that God our Father and Shepherd wants to restore the soul of every person reading these words and every broken heart in this nation. He will lead us not in paths of religious pretense and the “traditions of men taught as the commands of God” but rather in His righteousness, and He will do it for His name’s sake, for His glory — and He will be exalted.

“Surround Me”

I want to be honest with you. I think the leadership we have chosen in our nation wants that deep in their hearts. They may not say it the way we as Christians would want to hear it, but I believe it is the longing of their hearts. Yes, I believe it is the longing of President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Pence. I believe Mr. Trump wants for you something so far beyond what he can give you that he knows it must come from above. The morning after the election, I talked to him by phone. “We’re going to keep surrounding you with prayer, love and all the help we can give you,” I said. He responded, “Surround me. Don’t let me ever forget! Surround me!”

I’m saying to every person who knows how to pray, who knows God as Father, and who has experienced the watch-care of the Great Shepherd, please pray for our nation’s leadership and all they appoint, for they will be under fierce assault.

You can rest assured there will be a non-stop, all-out attack on every decision Mr. Trump makes. Some will be as fierce and potentially damaging as the father of lies, the enemy of truth and wisdom, can bring to pass. You will see venomous hatred spewing from expected and unexpected sources.

The poisoned darts will also be aimed at those he appoints. I’ll be sharing in another column their willingness to wear the bull’s-eye on their backs and sacrifice for their country, knowing the cost for taking this journey with President-elect Trump.

Our experience with our daughter confirms that even when we “walk through the valley of the shadow death,” we “fear no evil” because He is with us. As the passage says, “His rod and His staff comfort us.” That means we receive His correction and direction through the rod and the staff of the loving Shepherd. He will, in fact, “prepare a table before us in the presence of all our enemies and anoint our heads” with the oil of His love, compassion and mercy. We will be able to say we are witnesses of the fact that “goodness and mercy” indeed follows us all the days of our lives and throughout eternity. And we know that we “will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” beginning now, as we choose to live in His shelter.

This is the heart of the Father and the heart of our Shepherd. I believe it’s what the people who voted for correction, hope and change in our nation desire — whether they’ve confessed the Lord or not. How I pray that all will come to know Him and experience Him with all the evidence of His grace and glory. I believe the desire of our Father and Shepherd is the desire of the leadership we have chosen in our nation. We must pray for that because if that is not their desire, it must become their desire. Our desire must be His desire.

We Can Make a Kingdom Imprint

Let me sum it up. Although I was not initially a Donald Trump fan or supporter, God sent me to him. The love God has given me for him is totally supernatural. Although he might not put it in these terms, I believe Mr. Trump wants what our Father in heaven wants for all people: God’s best for you and every American. I think he knows that if we receive God’s best, we are in fact going to be a blessing and an inspiration to the nations of the world, and we will be a beacon of hope and freedom until Christ comes. We can make a kingdom imprint in today’s very sick world. (For more from the author of “Is God Capturing the Heart of Donald Trump?” please click HERE)

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