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Democrats Take Aim at Trump Nominees, Unlike Republicans’ Speedy OK of Obama Cabinet

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Senate Democrats are mounting an aggressive effort to reject or delay President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for major Cabinet positions, in a reversal of the deference Republicans showed in speedily confirming President Barack Obama’s nominees eight years ago.

In January 2009, the Senate confirmed 10 of Obama’s Cabinet choices within his first week as president, nine of them by voice vote, in which senators’ yes and no votes aren’t recorded.

Now, though, the Senate’s top Democrat has put the chamber’s top Republican on notice that at least eight of Trump’s picks are in Democrats’ crosshairs, beginning with one of their own colleagues—Trump’s choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Others targeted are Trump’s picks for secretary of state, treasury, education, labor, and health and human services.

“Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist,” new Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday in a statement to The Washington Post.

“If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken.”

In addition to Sessions, The Washington Post reported, those targeted by Democrats include Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO who is Trump’s choice for secretary of state, and Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.

Other Trump choices on the hit list, Democratic aides told the newspaper:

— Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for secretary of health and human services.
— Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-N.C., for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
— Philanthropist and education activist Betsy DeVos for education secretary.
— Restaurant chain executive Andy Puzder for labor secretary.
— Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for environmental protection administrator.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., answered the Democrats on Tuesday by releasing statistics and quotations he said illustrate how much deference Republicans gave to Obama’s nominees in 2009—and how much Schumer and other Democrats have said they respected such deference.

Why Democrats Have Few Options

Democrats don’t have the numbers to outright defeat Trump nominees, thanks to a procedural change they made when they last controlled the Senate.

Republicans need a simple majority of 51 votes to move to confirm the president’s Cabinet appointments, rather than the supermajority of 60 previously required, and they have 52 seats. In addition, incoming Vice President Mike Pence will have the power to break any tie votes.

Democrats’ requirement of only a simple majority to avoid a filibuster and put a confirmation to a floor vote, or advance other business, is known on Capitol Hill as “the nuclear option.”

“They have tied their own hands on this,” Heritage Foundation procedural expert Rachel Bovard said of the Democrats, “and because of ‘going nuclear,’ essentially they have put every … nominee at a 51-vote threshold and there’s 52 Republicans.”

Referring to Republican leadership and the Trump transition team, Bovard added in a phone interview with The Daily Signal:

So, if they can get every Republican on board for each nominee, which I think that they’ll be able to do, there’s not much that Senate Democrats can do against that. It’s completely their own fault.

Sixty votes still are required to end debate and proceed to a vote to confirm a nominee for the Supreme Court, though a simple majority is required to confirm.

Democrats controlled the Senate in 2009, and would for two years, but Republicans put up little or no resistance to the choices of a new Democrat president, Obama, for top executive branch offices.

Now that Republicans control the Senate, however, Democrats appear to be showing little such deference to a new Republican president’s picks to run major government departments.

‘A Longstanding Tradition’

Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, previously was policy director for the Senate Steering Committee and an aide to several Republican senators and House members.

She told The Daily Signal that Obama’s Cabinet nominees enjoyed an easy confirmation process because of the well-established tradition of senatorial respect for a president’s major appointees, who run executive branch departments as the president expects.

Bovard said of the traditional attitude of senators:

They may not agree with everything that the nominee says or does or pledges, but it has been a longstanding tradition particularly in the Senate just to say, ‘Look, the president has the right to pick his own people.’ That is sort of the underlying trend.

Obama’s immediate predecessors as president, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, also enjoyed relatively speedy Cabinet confirmations.

The Senate confirmed 11 of Bush’s Cabinet appointees in the first week of his first term; it confirmed 17 of Clinton’s nominees in the first week of his first term, according to Senate records.

Interestingly, the Senate used the voice vote more in confirming Obama’s initial Cabinet choices than it did in conforming Bush or Clinton nominees.

The Senate confirmed eight of Bush’s initial Cabinet picks by voice vote, and three of Clinton’s initial choices.

McConnell’s release of confirmation statistics for Obama includes a quote from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

“I think we owe deference to a president for choices to executive positions, and I think that that is a very important thing to grapple with,” Kaine said at a 2013 hearing held by the Armed Services Committee.

In November, the release from McConnell’s office reminded, Schumer suggested he would work with Republicans to get things done in Congress and avoid needless delays.

“We have a moral obligation, even beyond the economy and politics, to avoid gridlock and get the country to work again,” Schumer told Bloomberg. “We have to get things done.”

Senate Democrats can do little to derail Trump’s nominees, Bovard said, but they can use various procedural maneuvers to delay the process. Among them: failing to show up to a committee meeting so that a quorum is not present, and, on the Senate floor, prolonging debate for up to 30 additional hours.

‘Confident in the Nominees’

Conservatives in Congress appear eager to work with the department heads and other executive branch officials Trump has assembled, Bovard said.

“I think for the most part conservatives feel confident in the nominees that have been put forward. I think they are trying to give Trump’s Cabinet a chance,” she said. “They have not come out swinging in any direction except forward.”

This positive attitude is largely due to the stalwart conservative convictions of Trump’s picks, Bovard said, citing three:

Betsy DeVos is really well-known to conservatives for her work on school choice, Jeff Sessions has been a titan of the conservative movement for decades, even Ben Carson [Trump’s pick for secretary of housing and urban development] has been a longtime proponent of reforming HUD. So these people aren’t unknown to conservatives.

Questioning his honesty, the Democratic National Committee demanded on New Year’s Eve that Sessions recuse himself from the Senate vote to confirm him as attorney general. A hearing for Sessions before the Judiciary Committee is scheduled for Jan. 10, which is 10 days before Trump is sworn in as president.

The Democratic National Committee accused the Alabama senator of withholding information in filling out the screening questionnaire issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement, Adam Hodge, DNC communications director, said:

Jeff Sessions has fiercely argued in the past that omitting information isn’t just wrong, that it may also be illegal. So what does he do once he’s nominated to be the attorney general? He omits information from his dark past, particularly when he was deemed too racist to be a federal judge.

Based on his own reasoning, and in keeping with Senate tradition, Sessions must recuse himself from voting on his own nomination.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions in the confirmation process, says such attacks are unfounded.

“Sen. Sessions’ four-decade career in public service includes bipartisan victories on criminal justice issues with folks like Sens. [Edward] Kennedy and [Dick] Durbin,” Flores said, citing two Democrats in a written statement provided Tuesday to The Daily Signal. She added of Sessions:

He has bipartisan endorsements that include law enforcement, victim rights organizations, and African-American leaders because they understand he will refocus the Department of Justice on upholding the rule of law and ensuring public safety. The time for playing politics should have ended on Election Day.

A Question of ‘Previous Political Activity’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, earlier said Sessions’ questionnaire was incomplete and asked Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone the Jan. 10 hearing to allow for more time to review the materials he submitted.

Grassley, in response, said Sessions has been upfront about his past, including old accusations, and that he submitted more material to supplement his answers. The committee chairman added that hearings would not be postponed.

Among her concerns, Feinstein said, is that Sessions, an early supporter of Trump for president, was not clear enough in explaining his involvement in “any political campaign.”

Grassley replied in a letter to Feinstein: “The question regarding previous political activity is of course designed to ascertain whether and how a nominee has been politically active. There can be no surprise that a sitting United States senator is politically active.”

Feinstein said another concern is that Sessions has not submitted the text of some speeches.

“Regarding the claim that several speeches were not included, of course you also know that we and our colleagues are frequently called upon to speak at a variety of constituent and other events,” Grassley replied. “Senator Sessions explained that he made his best effort to identify and locate copies of such remarks where available.”

The committee chairman added that Sessions produced all items requested in the questionnaire.

Grassley noted that past Cabinet nominees have not been able to provide transcripts for every speech they ever gave. And, he said, Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder, “supplemented his questionnaire materials several times.”

“In December 2008 alone, Attorney General Holder supplemented his questionnaire responses with more than 200 items of information,” Grassley said. (For more from the author of “Democrats Take Aim at Trump Nominees, Unlike Republicans’ Speedy OK of Obama Cabinet” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Trump Needs to Do Better by 2020

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The year 2017 and the inauguration of a new president are upon us. And though the historic, stunning election of November 8, 2016 is behind us, it looks like the final data on what happened that day are very close to being at last finalized.

I’ve watched that data carefully on pretty much a daily basis since November 8, courtesy of the running tabulation collected by Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, who has been the superb go-to source for people tracking this data. In the first two weeks after the election, Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead over Donald Trump expanded somewhere in the range of 100,000-plus votes per day, which was shocking to behold. We have truly never seen anything like it.

Thus, while most pundits have moved beyond post-election analysis, I think it’s crucial to pause to revisit the numbers now that we have nearly finalized hard data. We can draw some fairly definitive conclusions.

So, looking at this from the winner’s perspective — that is, Donald Trump’s — let’s call this the good, the bad, and the ugly.

First, the good

Trump’s amazing win was an Electoral College triumph — the only victory that counts in winning a presidential election. It is striking just how narrowly Trump defeated Hillary in the crucial swing states that secured his win.

If the total percentage of victory in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were flipped by a mere one percent — or in some cases 0.2 percent — Hillary Clinton would have won them all, and thereby taken the overall election handily. Of course, they weren’t reversed. Trump flipped those states in ways that recent Republicans presidential nominees were unable to do. I wrote a piece on the eve of the 2012 election predicting that Mitt Romney would win Pennsylvania. Close, but no cigar. Trump, however, pulled it off — and it was a great accomplishment.

More good news from Trump on the swing states: As I looked closer at the 13 swing states, I see that Hillary did not reach 50 percent or more in a single swing state. That’s pretty significant. Trump did so in two of them, Iowa and Ohio, where he crushed her in both by margins of, respectively 9.4 percent and 8.1 percent. He got 51 percent in each, which was a major feat. Other swing states, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were very tiny margins for him but major victories nonetheless. He also blew the Clinton campaign out in Indiana, a state that Barack Obama won in 2008.

And still more good news from Trump on the state data: It’s interesting how low Hillary’s percentages were in some states. She got under 40 percent in 18 states. She actually got less than 30 percent in six states (Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming). Trump earned less than 40 percent in 10 states and the District of Columbia. He didn’t get less than 30 percent in any states but almost did so in California, the most-populous state, where he was annihilated by Hillary, securing a mere 31.6 percent of the vote. And forget all that bunkum from Trump pom-pom boys about how their guy could compete in New York. He got his butt handed to him in New York with a mere 36.5 percent of the vote there.

Moreover, don’t make the mistake of over-inflating Trump’s seemingly sizable Electoral College vote over Hillary. The final tally was 306 to 232, which was good, but far from great. As Nate Silver pointed out in an enlightening historical analysis of Electoral College victories, Trump’s Electoral College margin was nice but well below average. Out of 54 presidential elections, his Electoral College margin ranks 44th.

Now, for the bad and the ugly for Donald Trump

The sheer depth of Trump’s popular-vote loss to Hillary is literally unprecedented in how bad it is. It is a terrible defeat for a winning president, and Trump enthusiasts should not delude themselves otherwise. They ignore or dismiss it at their and his future political peril.

Looking again at the latest cumulative popular-vote tabulation, Hillary’s lead over Trump as I write is 2.865 million. Her popular-vote lead still might hit three million, but will probably come in just under that. Still, those who (going forward) write about it or casually remark on it will probably tend to round it up to three million.

How dreadful is this for Donald Trump? The previous record popular-vote loss for a winning president was George W. Bush losing by only 543,000 votes to Gore in 2000. Trump’s loss dwarfs that by over five-fold.

Even more alarming, Trump’s percentage loss is 46.1 percent vs. 48.2 percent for Hillary. It has continued to fall and still may slip under 46.0 percent.

The 46.1 percent figure gives Trump a lower percentage than not only Hillary, but also Obama in 2012 (51.1 percent) and 2008 (52.9 percent), Romney in 2012 (47.2 percent), Bush in 2004 (51.0 percent) and 2000 (47.9 percent), Kerry in 2004 (48.5 percent), and Gore in 2000 (48.4 percent).

For a while, I thought that Trump might get lower than who was 45.7 percent, but that probably will not happen. Of course, here as well, historians and pundits and others will round down Trump to 46 percent, just as they tend to round up McCain to 46 percent. It will then look like basically the same vote percentage for both.

(By the way, Michael Dukakis in 1988 got 45.6 percent of the vote, which likewise is usually rounded up to 46 percent by historians. And amazingly, with that Trump-like popular-vote percentage, Dukakis was obliterated in the Electoral College, 426 to 111.)

Some Trump enthusiasts will likely dismiss all of this shocking data by arguing that if we simply removed California, New York, and Illinois from Hillary’s vote totals, Trump would have won the popular vote. That’s just downright absurd. The same could have been said for Romney, for Bush in 2000, and maybe even for McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 32 percent) (I would need to do the math). It wouldn’t be fair to do that to Hillary’s vote total any more than it would be to remove Texas and the South from Trump’s vote total.

Trump also countered that he would have campaigned in places like California had the presidency depended not on the Electoral College but on the popular vote. Sure. But so would have Hillary. In fact, Hillary thus would have campaigned in Texas and the South as well.

This is an asinine argument. If a student of mine made this argument on an exam, I’d give him an “F.”

Look, Trump admirers, your guy got crushed in the popular vote in historically unprecedented fashion for a winning president. So be it. Accept that and move on. You’re far better off conceding your liabilities, so you can work to improve them next time around. Making false assumptions and excuses will be your political downfall. You were extremely fortunate you didn’t get burned by them in November 2016.

So, for Trump supporters who have been emailing me gloating about how brilliantly right they were, in defiance of the literal 90 percent-plus of polls that had him losing to Hillary (i.e., getting less votes), cut the nonsense. The polls were actually right. You were wrong. Be humble and be thankful, because you and your guy are extremely fortunate, even as (yes) his Electoral College triumph was a great achievement.

And here’s where your gloating can come back to bite you: If Trump gets 46.1 percent of the vote in 2020, he’ll be the first one-term president in a while, after three consecutive two-term presidents, and four of the last five.

Keep this recent but crucial historical fact in mind: Barack Obama in 2012 actually got fewer votes than he did in 2008. He got fewer popular votes, fewer Electoral College votes, fewer states, fewer counties, and a lower overall percentage vote. He still won, yes, but his margin of victory over McCain in 2008 had been very significant. He had room for error his second time around. Donald Trump does not.

Don’t gloat. Trump almost achieved the impossible: becoming the only Republican who could’ve lost to Hillary Clinton.

But let’s wrap up on a positive note, circling back to the good from November 2016: Donald Trump deserves tremendous kudos for squeaking out Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida, and for sizable margins in places like North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and all-around for a solid Electoral College win. Those are the numbers that really count. And that is why we will watch Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton taking the oath of office in about three weeks. (For more from the author of “The Numbers Don’t Lie: Trump Needs to Do Better by 2020” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

2016: A Year of Ups and Downs … and Trump

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Well, we made it to the end of 2016. Boy, was that exhausting, and frustrating, and depressing, and exhilarating — often at the same time. And it was unbelievable. Unbelievable, as in, “OMG, I can’t believe the guy from The Apprentice is going to be president!” Folks can quibble about the President-elect’s net worth, complain about his financial and real estate holdings, but one thing is inescapable: Donald J. Trump owned 2016.

On New Year’s Eve, it’s fitting to note he also owns a winery. However, you don’t need to travel to Charlottesville for vintage Trump. He seemed to offer a sip, glass or barrel full every day. Yes, for of it was bitter left a bad taste in the mouth. Some critics refuse to taste anything other than their own sour grapes. Others love every drop of Trump vintage 2016.

What is hard to argue is that in 2016 Donald Trump captured the mood of many every day Americans. All the moods. Captured them in his face. Let’s face it, the guy does “expressive” the way New York City does New Year’s Eve. So it seems that if we want to remember what we’ve gone through in 2016, as a nation and as individuals, politically and personally, we really don’t need a lot of words. We just need the mug of the man who we used to call “The Donald,” but who in mere weeks we will be calling “Mr. President.” (For more from the author of “2016: A Year of Ups and Downs … and Trump” please click HERE)

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The Enormous Opportunity of Trump’s Presidency

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In 2016, the American people voted to change the direction of our country. They elected a new president and vice president. They returned Republican majorities to Congress with a two-year probation period to show we can deliver results.

This election cycle and its outcome were a loud message to the Washington establishment. In 2017, it’s my resolution to continue working to ensure that message translates into real results.

That means keeping our promises and making tough decisions.

For the last seven years, Georgians and Americans across the country struggled to cope with the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. It’s time for bold changes that will get our economy growing again, and get Americans working again. The policy prescriptions of the Obama years failed.

President-elect Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office are an enormous moment of opportunity to begin turning the page.

We need to put patients in charge of their health care choices with a free-market solution that increases access and lowers the overall spiraling costs of health care, which Obamacare did nothing to address.

We need to undo the regulatory regime and scale back the power of unelected bureaucrats. Let’s start with the Environmental Protection Agency’s onerous Waters of the U.S. Act and Clean Power Plan, things we know are crushing farmers, land owners, and small businesses right here in Georgia.

We need to begin dramatically reforming and simplifying our tax code. We can start by doing away with the repatriation tax, which has locked trillions of dollars in overseas profits out of our economy.

We also finally need to unleash our full domestic energy potential, starting with simply approving the Keystone XL pipeline, something both Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress support.

Both political parties are to blame for both the crisis we face today and Washington’s lack of results. The lessons of 2016, and the failures of the last seven years, must not be forgotten in 2017.

In 2017, politicians in Washington must be ready to say, “we cannot afford it.” The national debt surpassed $19 trillion earlier this year. Unless we change course, it will rise to nearly $30 trillion over the next decade. The debt crisis is here, and we must not wait any longer to acknowledge and deal with that economic reality.

In 2017, we have to restore America’s role as a global leader. President Barack Obama’s failed foreign policy created a void of American leadership. Largely as a result, the world is more dangerous than it has ever been in my lifetime. We have to develop a real strategy to defeat ISIS and deal with the multitude of threats we face from all corners of the globe.

In 2017, we need to advance conservative ideas and principles. We will nominate and confirm a judge to the Supreme Court. Whomever he or she will be, they must stand steadfast in support of the United States Constitution and our founding principles of economic opportunity, fiscal responsibility, limited government, and individual liberty.

This is not about securing the legacy of another career politician. The American people demanded real change in the way Washington does business. Come January, an outsider businessman who is listening to the people will be in the White House.

That’s just the first step. Trump is surrounding himself with a dream team of policy experts, many of whom have spent their careers outside of the Washington bubble.

The people of Georgia elected me to do all I can to change the direction of our country. Working with Trump and his capable team, we now have an enormous moment of opportunity to really begin doing so. I’m excited to get to work. (For more from the author of “The Enormous Opportunity of Trump’s Presidency” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Says He Will Meet With Intelligence Leaders About Russia

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President-elect Donald Trump will meet with the Intelligence Community next week to discuss Russian interference in the election, he said in a vaguely worded statement issued Thursday evening that did not mention sanctions announced by President Obama earlier that day.

“It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” Trump wrote in the brief statement. “Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation.”

The statement did not define “this situation,” but the transition team earlier in the day had promised a response to the announced sanctions would be forthcoming.

Trump has repeatedly denied any Russian involvement in the hacks of the Democratic party that intelligence officials have said were an attempt to “interfere” in the U.S. election.

He has characterized any reports to that effect as an attempt by Democrats to delegitimize his election. (Read more from “Trump Says He Will Meet With Intelligence Leaders About Russia” HERE)

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Be Vigilant: These Trump Cabinet Picks Don’t Bode Well for Privacy

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It may be premature to sound the alarm on future actions that Trump may or may not take as president. His public statements and Cabinet picks, however, certainly do give hints of trends and attitudes that may turn into policy over the next four years. And from that perspective, those of us who worry about protecting the 4th Amendment against the overreach of government mass surveillance may be in for a bumpy ride.

To begin with, the president-elect himself said during his campaign that he would be “fine” with reestablishing bulk collection and storage of phone metadata. You may recall that mass collection of this data was specifically outlawed under the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015 after Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which the government was collecting — unconstitutionally — telephone metadata without a warrant.

Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, retired general Mike Flynn, is hard to pin down on the specific issue of surveillance. His defense intelligence background and his unabashed support for other extralegal practices such as torture do not inspire confidence that he would be a principled defender of due process. Senator Sessions, R-Ala. (C, 78%) too, Trump’s pick for the nation’s chief law enforcement post, has a record of supporting the expansion of the government’s ability to spy on Americans en masse.

But most concerning so far is Trump’s pick of Mike Pompeo, R-Kan. (C, 76%) to head the CIA. Pompeo made pretty explicit what he thought of constitutional restrictions on government surveillance in an article he co-wrote early in 2016. The article stated that:

“Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.

While I like and respect Pompeo on many other issues, on due process and privacy he’s as wrongheaded as it’s possible to get. The right to not be subjected to government surveillance unless justified by a specific court order follows directly from the protection against undue search and seizure found in the 4th Amendment of the Constitution. That’s no mere “legal and bureaucratic impediment.”

As Rare’s Jack Hunter notes about Pompeo, he appears not to “understand that the purpose of the Constitution and our Bill of Rights isn’t to protect terrorists, but innocent civilians from rogue, unlimited government power.”

It’s worth noting that we don’t know who Trump will tap for the crucial roles of director of national intelligence or director of the National Security Agency. But early indications don’t point towards a good outcome there either.

Though the CIA and NSA are supposed to focus their intelligence gathering overseas, the never-ending War on Terror has provided them (and the FBI) with ample opportunity and motive to turn the defense surveillance apparatus upon U.S. citizens. In doing so, these agencies frequently ignore the 4th Amendment’s demands that such an invasion of privacy should at least be accompanied by a judge’s warrant.

This turn towards domestic surveillance isn’t necessarily malicious in intent. The intelligence community has a natural interest in constantly expanding their ability to spy on our information — it’s their job (though they do swear oaths to defend the Constitution as well). That’s why it’s crucial that someone be watching the watchmen to tell them “no” when they’ve overstepped their bounds.

We stand at a critical juncture in policy as it relates to digital surveillance. The rapid advance of technology leads us to create ever larger quantities of personal electronic data for the government to harvest, often in cooperation (sometimes indistinguishable from coercion) with the private sector. From access to bulk phone data, to collection of our actual communications and browsing habits, to the security of strong encryption, to the use of mobile data collection like license plate scanners and cell tower simulators, it is becoming increasingly possible for the government to know everything we do in real time.

That intimate level of knowledge can be used to protect us by identifying potential terrorists, but can just as easily be used against innocent citizens in the hands of less-than-benevolent stewards. This realization has led to the recent formation of a bi-partisan Fourth Amendment Caucus in Congress dedicated to providing legal boundaries against the expansion of government mass surveillance.

Judging by the early signs coming from the Trump administration, we will need this vanguard against the further erosion of our constitutional civil liberties. (For more from the author of “Be Vigilant: These Trump Cabinet Picks Don’t Bode Well for Privacy” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

13 Victories Conservatives Want From President Trump by Next Christmas

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What should conservatives expect from Donald Trump’s first 100 days of presidency?

Aided by full Democratic control of Congress, President Obama was able to do much harm in his first 100 days of White House control. In 2009, Obama had virtually free reign to implement his agenda.

He used that free reign to … pass a then-$787 billion stimulus bill; create a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq; pass a budget appropriating funds for Obamacare, expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (i.e. SCHIP); relax enforcement of federal marijuana laws; formally endorse the U.N. Statement on ‘Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity’; end the federal funding ban on embryonic stem cell research; and overturn a ban on federal funding for international abortion providers.

Now the tables have turned. Donald Trump is president-elect and the Republicans have full control of Congress. What follows is the conservative’s Christmas 2017 wish list. These are the agenda items Republicans should demand of the Trump administration in its first 100 days of White House control.

1. Full repeal of Obamacare

This is the big one. The Republicans emphatically won control of the House of Representatives in 2010 solely on the “stop Obamacare” wave and promise. They gained control of the Senate in 2014 on the same promise. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly broken their promises on this disastrous law.

Now is the time. Donald Trump needs to pressure the Republicans in Congress to fulfill their promises and deliver on a full and complete repeal of Obamacare. They can accomplish this by using budget reconciliation to pass the repeal without giving the Democrats an opportunity to filibuster. Failure to immediately deliver on this, as health insurance premiums continue to rise for American families, will break American confidence in the Republican Party and doubtlessly put GOP control of Congress in jeopardy in the 2018 midterms, along with Trump’s chance for reelection in 2020.

2. Border security and The Wall

While Obamacare’s repeal is the signature policy demand on the Right, illegal immigration and a southern border wall between the U.S. and Mexico are the signature issues that propelled Donald Trump to the front of the pack during the Republican presidential primary.

Trump has proposed a concrete wall anywhere from 35 feet to 50 feet or higher, estimating the cost of his proposal to be as high as $12 billion. He’s also famously pledged to make Mexico pay for it.

Daniel Horowitz has previously written for CR on the necessity for a legitimate southern border wall. And while some question the practicality of a concrete wall, a double-layered border fence is practical, effective (where it has been tried in San Diego and Israel), would cost roughly $2 billion, and, in fact, is already required by the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

The construction of the wall will not be completed overnight. But in the same way that President Obama budgeted funds for Obamacare before that law’s passage in his $3.5 trillion 2010 budget, Trump ought to insist Congress do the same to address the porous southern border.

3. Government lobbying ban

As part of his promise to “drain the swamp,” President-elect Trump pledged to institute a five-year lobbying ban for former officials after they leave the White House or Congress. Additionally, Trump has proposed a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.

These are common sense reforms that would decrease the influence of lobbyists for crony capitalists in D.C., and they have bipartisan support. Trump can accomplish his lobbying ban through executive order, but going through Congress would obviously have more force and social capital.

4. Repeal Dodd-Frank

“Dodd-Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function.” Donald Trump told Reuters back in May. “It makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs. And that has to stop.”

He is absolutely right. This atrocious piece of 2010 legislation (officially the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Financial Stability Oversight Council — two boards of unelected bureaucrats that hang over the heads of banks in this country, zapping them with millions of dollars in fines and draining needed capital for investment and growth out of the marketplace to … only God knows where.

While liberals and populists love the idea of sticking it to the Big Bad Banks, like most all liberal policies, it has had the unintended consequence of hurting the little guy (small community banks) the most.

As of June 2015, American financial institutions suffered more than $160 billion in losses to government fines, which translates to a loss of approximately $3 trillion of potential growth, stifling job creation. Congress should enact and President Trump should sign a repeal of Dodd-Frank, unleashing capital into the economy and stimulating job growth in parts of the country that so desperately need it.

5. Nominate a pro-life justice to the Supreme Court

For many voters, keeping Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat out of the clutches of a liberal Clinton-appointed judicial activist was the single reason to vote for Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to nominate a pro-life justice to the court.

Trump won, and to the victor goes the Supreme Court nomination. The president-elect has floated a widely praised list of legal minds. The problem is, as the Eagle Forum’s Andy Schlafly told Conservative Review contributor Steve Deace, though many justices on Trump’s list have the backing of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist society, “most of them are actually not pro-life.”

Take Wisconsin Justice Diane Sykes, “probably the top pick of the Federalist Society,” according to Schlafly. “If you dig into her record you find that when she was a state court judge, she sentenced two pro-life advocates to jail for 60 days for a peaceful protest they engaged in. She also struck down an Indiana law that defunded Planned Parenthood,” Schlafly stated.

“This is not a pro-life judge,” he said. Conservatives need to hold President-elect Trump’s feet to the fire on this issue. Trump must nominate a justice who has a clear record of unabashedly pro-life, pro-Constitution rulings. Anything less would repeat the mistakes of previous Republican presidents, and lead to the nomination of another liberal David Souter or back-stabber John Roberts.

6. Pain-capable abortion ban

It is not enough to simply nominate a pro-life justice and trust the courts to take care of the abortion issue. Congress and enforcement from the executive branch is necessary to end the inhumane and evil practice of late-term abortions. Trump went so far as to promise a “Pro-life Coalition” on the campaign trail.

Trump can move beyond campaign rhetoric by signing into law a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which a child is capable of feeling pain. The cruelty and inhumanity of abortion is the same at all stages of a child’s development in the womb. Public opinion has swung in favor of the pro-life movement, and tangible policy achievements by the incoming Republican administration are more possible than ever (and the pain-capable abortion ban has already passed through the House of Representatives once).

7. Defund Planned Parenthood and make the Hyde Amendment permanent

The abortion mill that was caught on tape allegedly discussing the illegal sale of baby body parts has been formally recommended for prosecution by the special House committee responsible for investigating the illicit activities first exposed by the Center for Medical Progress. Efforts by conservatives to defund Planned Parenthood have been repeatedly defeated by threats of an Obama presidential veto and spineless Republicans who melt at the whisper of “shutdown.” But no more.

With the self-proclaimed pro-life Donald Trump in the White House, the veto threat is gone, and the worry over a government shutdown with it. There is no excuse to continue funneling tax dollars to Planned Parenthood now. And President-elect Trump should make the Hyde Amendment — which outlaws federal funding for abortion — permanent law, as he promised to do during the campaign.

8. First Amendment Defense Act

Congress and the president must act to protect the First Amendment rights of religious Americans. And President-elect Trump can accomplish that by signing into law the First Amendment Defense Act.

As the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah (A, 100%), explained, “The First Amendment Defense Act (S. 1598, H.R. 2802) would prevent any federal agency from denying a tax exemption, grant, contract, license, or certification to an individual, association, or business based on their belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.”

“For example, the bill would prohibit the IRS from stripping a church of its tax exemption for refusing to officiate same-sex weddings.”

Trump has previously expressed conditional support for the legislation. “If Congress considers the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, then I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signatures and enactment,” Trump wrote in a letter last year.

Congress ought to make First Amendment protections for the religious a top priority. And Donald Trump ought to keep his promise to sign that legislation into law.

9. Fix the Fed

President-elect Trump has consistently railed against the Chinese and has pledged to designate the communist country a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office. He would do well to also look inward and tackle the number one manipulator of U.S. fiscal policy: the Federal Reserve.

John Gray and Tommy Behnke have written on the opportunity for Trump to affect major policy change at the Fed by filling two vacant positions on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (and potentially up to four by 2018) with hard-money advocates. The leadership at the Federal Reserve is responsible for run-away inflationary policies that have cut the purchasing power of the dollar, and for artificially low interest rates that have recklessly disrupted the business cycle. The Fed’s created bad incentives for entrepreneurial capital investment — creating the environment for another great recession.

In a positive sign, Donald Trump has endorsed a return to the gold standard, and voiced awareness of the Fed’s bad leadership. “Sadly, we all know what’s happening to the dollar,” Trump told The Street in 2011. “The dollar is going down, and it’s not a pretty picture, and it’s not being sustained by proper policy and proper thinking.” Trump should appoint members to the Federal Reserve Board that share his thinking on hard money and believe that a change in policy is necessary.

Additionally, Trump ought to sign into law Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%)’s legislation to audit the Fed to ensure accountability. He can also fight to enact positive reform by pushing to end the Fed’s dual mandate to keep the money supply stable and fight unemployment — a reform supported by Vice-president-elect Mike Pence.

10. Tax reform

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 40%) recently announced that comprehensive tax reform is all but guaranteed in 2017 using the budget reconciliation process, and stated he prefers a “revenue-neutral tax package.”

Republicans need to think bigger than “revenue neutral” and go for, as Brian Darling wrote for Conservative Review, “a wholesale scrapping of tax credit cronyism and massive tax cuts for business and individuals alike.”

What would that look like? It looks very much like adopting a plan proposed by President-elect Trump on the campaign trail. As CR’s John Gray wrote last year (“Donald Trump’s Tax Plan is YUUGE”), the Trump tax plan offered the largest tax cuts of any Republican plan proposed during the presidential primary:

The (Trump) tax cut not only easily surpasses all other candidates’ tax cuts in size, but it surpasses all of the other tax cuts combined! You heard that right. According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, Jeb Bush’s tax cut of $3.665 trillion, Rand Paul’s tax cut of $2.974 trillion, and Marco Rubio’s tax cut of $4.14 trillion add up to an aggregate cut of $10.779 trillion. At $11.98 trillion, the Donald’s tax cut is YUGE.

Since his initial proposal, Trump has tweaked the plan to address criticisms. The latest iteration would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, eliminate the death tax, permit families to deduct the full cost of child care, permit businesses to immediately expense all capital investments, and substantially lower individual income tax brackets to 12 percent, 25 percent, and 33 percent. These are great pro-growth ideas that conservatives ought to see signed into law next year.

11. Scrap Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders (DACA to start)

This is a Day 1 pledge from Trump that has been long-awaited by conservatives. Trump has promised to “cancel immediately all illegal and overreaching executive orders,” and he needs to start with President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty.

Recent statements by the president-elect indicate that he could be going back on his word and wavering on his promise to repeal the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order that granted amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants. That is unacceptable equivocation.

Failure to repeal DACA, which Trump himself has called “illegal and unconstitutional,” would constitute a broken campaign promise of the highest order and signal that Trump is no different from the amnesty-embracing Establishment Republicans he railed against on the campaign trail.

12. Repeal the EPA “Waters of the United States” rule

The Environmental Protection Agency is on a constant crusade for ever more control over every aspect of Americans’ everyday lives. In 2009, the agency moved to declare carbon dioxide — otherwise known as human breath — a “dangerous pollutant” in order to introduce a slew of new regulations to control the economy.

Likewise, in 2015 the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jointly issued a new water regulation that, in practice, illegally gave the EPA the authority to regulate non-navigable waters by redefining terms to circumvent restrictions on the EPA’s regulative authority in the Clean Water Act of 1972.

The result, as the National Federation of Independent Business concluded:

If rain collects on your property somewhere or you happen to have a pond or a stream bed that remains dry but for a small amount of time per year, then chances are the federal government will be requiring you to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a permit.

Landowners in violation of the rule could be fined an average of $37,500 per day. The EPA’s power grab essentially granted the administration an unlimited ability to extort land owners. Congress has attempted to pass a repeal bill to rein in the EPA, but President Obama vowed to veto any and all such repeal legislation. President-elect Trump needs to sign that repeal legislation in 2017.

13. National right to carry

“The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans,” reads Donald Trump’s official policy position on the right to bear arms. “The Constitution doesn’t create that right — it ensures that the government can’t take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendment’s purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. This is about self-defense, plain and simple.”

To that end, the president-elect has called for national concealed carry reciprocity. He declared: “A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.”

Almost every Republican in Congress claims to be pro-gun rights, and now with Republican control of the government, it is time to finally restore the constitutional right to bear arms for every American with a national concealed carry permit.

These are the campaign promises. These are the agenda items. 2017 is the time to transform talk into action.

Check back with Conservative Review next Christmas to see which promises President Trump fulfilled, and which ones he broke in 2017. (For more from the author of “13 Victories Conservatives Want From President Trump by Next Christmas” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump’s First 100 Days: What Blacks Should Hope For

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In late October of this year, then candidate Trump gave a speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in which he outlined his plan for his first 100 days in office. It included three major areas of focus: cleaning up corruption in Washington, job creation and what many called a “law and order” agenda. The speech was reported on and then largely forgotten.

So what should black Americans be looking for in the first 100 days of a Trump presidency? I believe we should press for three major priorities, which are very compatible with what Trump has already put forth: a growing economy that creates jobs, education choice for all families, and criminal justice reform.

Growing Economy

It is absolutely vital that we look for jobs to be created by a growing economy, not just by insisting that individual corporations keep jobs in America or by diverting tax payer money into massive infrastructure spending. A potential problem with these strategies is that the initial boost from the jobs created or “saved” is quite modest while the long term drain on the productive part of the economy is large.

I believe that Mr. Trump will not repeat President Obama’s mistake in this arena. We all understand that spending $1 million to create five jobs that pay $50,000 is not a good deal. But somehow the “cost-per-job” factor gets lost as the numbers get larger. In fact in May 2012, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Obama’s stimulus package — a job creation strategy similar to the current infrastructure spending proposal — may have cost up to $4.1 million per job.

Much more promising for overall economic health is the regulatory reform that Trump has also expressed support for. Regulations — including many associated with the Affordable Care Act — create huge barriers both to beginning new businesses and expanding existing ones. Over the past several years, thousands of new rules have been placed on businesses, hampering growth and costing (according to a Competitive Enterprise Institute estimate) nearly $2 trillion a year. Removing these would boost both productivity and employment.

Education Choice

Black Americans should also watch Trump’s first 100 days for a commitment to school choice. The selection of Betsy DeVos — a longtime school choice advocate — for Secretary of Education is an encouraging one, who opponents wasted no time criticizing. Critics typically recycle two tired arguments against allowing poorer parents the right to choose where their children are educated. The first is that school choice pulls money away from public schools. It does not. This accusation is at odds with actual public data that demonstrates per-pupil spending in public schools increases after school choice programs are implemented. (For example, per-pupil spending in Milwaukee public schools rose 58 percent in the years following the implementation of its voucher program.)

The second criticism is that most children will attend public schools, so all attention and energy must be focused on improving those schools. This argument ignores the fact that sometimes competition is the best incentive to make difficult reforms such as firing ineffective teachers and offering effective teachers the administrative support they need to do their jobs. During the campaign, Trump expressed support for vouchers and charter schools that provide life-changing alternatives for many black students trapped in chaotic, failing schools. African Americans should also encourage Trump to make good on his promises by taking concrete action.

Criminal Justice Reform

Although much of the press interpreted the selection of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General to be the death of any meaningful criminal justice reform, I think this is the best opportunity for President-elect Trump to shock some of his most vocal critics. The 115th Congress could easily choose to pass a version of the sentencing reform bill, which enjoyed widespread bipartisan support, but died in the Senate this year. If President Trump chose to sign it into law, it would send a powerful message that his administration can rise above petty politics and reduce the number of non-violent offenders in our already over-crowded prisons.

Although some see sentencing reform as opposed to Trump’s law and order platform, it actually enables law enforcement to focus on violent criminals, keeping everyone safer in the long run. While there are many complex challenges facing the country, progress in these three areas will go a long way toward improving the lives of blacks and ultimately all Americans. I am praying that Mr. Trump will continue to see the big picture and boldly take steps to help and heal the land. (For more from the author of “Trump’s First 100 Days: What Blacks Should Hope For” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Newsweek Editor Admits He Faked News on Fox

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Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald said Tuesday that his baseless claim that President-elect Donald Trump was once institutionalized in a mental hospital was actually part of a series of jokes and intended to be a “signal to a source” to talk to him.

Eichenwald’s explanation came Tuesday on “Good Morning America,” as host George Stephanopoulos asked him about the September tweet in which he said, without evidence, he believed “Trump was institutionalized in a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown in 1990.”

“Any regrets about that?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“There’s a long story behind it,” Eichenwald said after some brief laughter. “When you go through the full lead-up to that tweet — there was a reporting purpose for that tweet going out, which is more than you are going to want to hear about.

“I was making fun of Fox News and the rest, who were doing ‘Hillary has seizures,’ ‘Hillary has multiple sclerosis,’ ‘Hillary has Parkinson’s,’ you know, let’s go to Dr. Oz,” he continued, referring to a point in the election during which the two major-party presidential nominees’ health was under the microscope. (Read more from “Newsweek Editor Admits He Faked News on Fox” HERE)

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The Left’s Plans to Disrupt the Presidential Inauguration

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Although the paid violent protests have subsided since the presidential election, hard left wing groups are rallying to disrupt Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Some websites are actively recruiting demonstrators.

One, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), claims on its Facebook page that over 20,000 people are committed to a demonstration on Pennsylvania Avenue the day of the inauguration. Apparently composed of former Bernie Sanders supporters, the group calls for “a real political revolution.” They want to build a “grassroots movement against war, militarism, racism, anti-immigrant scapegoating and neoliberal capitalism’s assault against workers’ living standards and the environment.”

The group might rally hundreds of thousands of protesters, Fox News reported. A spokesman for Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department said they were preparing for at least 30,000.

Shut Down the Inauguration

DisruptJ20 takes a harder position. Like all hard left activities now, while any group can put together a professional-looking website and rally hundreds or thousands of people on Facebook and Twitter, the group DISRUPTJ20 has an impressive web presence. Who’s really behind it and how much practical support they have can’t be known. The group calls for a general strike on inauguration day.

The homepage of their website declares, “We’re bringing widespread civil resistance to the streets of Washington, DC through protests, direct actions, and even parties and we want you there with us.” On the group’s Contact Us page, they explain that they’re “planning a series of massive direct actions that will shut down the Inauguration ceremonies and any related celebrations — the inauguration parade, the Inaugural balls, you name it. We also planning to paralyze the city itself.”

Answering a question about their public planning, the site stresses “the difference between public events and ones where you do not want the cops to be warned about you coming.” They urge people to join and add, “We have always been public about our intent to shut down this inauguration.” They claim they’ve already been approached by the Secret Service, MPD (Metropolitan Police Department), Park Service, and Park Police.

The group does not like Donald Trump. “Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and misogyny,” they say. “He is the champion of neo-nazis and white Nationalists, of the police who kill the Black, Brown and poor on a daily basis, of racist border agents and sadistic prison guards, of the FBI and NSA who tap your phone and read your email. He is the harbinger of even more climate catastrophe, deportation, discrimination, and endless war.”

(For more from the author of “The Left’s Plans to Disrupt the Presidential Inauguration” please click HERE)

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