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Why This Potential Pick for DHS Would Be a Huge Reversal on Trump’s Biggest Campaign Promise

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The possible appointment of Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Tex. (F, 56%) to the position of Homeland Security chief may finally signal to Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters that the president-elect is not going to follow through on his chief campaign proposals of border security and immigration.

McCaul, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, met with the president-elect Tuesday in Trump Tower. He is said to be among a handful of individuals in the running to become the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

During his presidential campaign, especially in the GOP primary, Trump promised to build a security wall along the southern border to strengthen domestic national security. He has also pledged to enforce immigration law and restore order to the immigration system as a whole.

Conservative critics of Rep. McCaul say he’d be a “very disappointing” pick to lead DHS, a gargantuan government department created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

McCaul, of course, has also earned the scorn of many a conservative for floating the idea of challenging Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 96%) in a primary.

“We certainly hope that Donald Trump would not reward a deceptive pro-amnesty lawmaker like Michael McCaul with a Cabinet position,” William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, told the Washington Times on Tuesday. “That would be very disappointing to all of us that believed his campaign promises to secure our borders and deport millions of illegal immigrants under current U.S. laws.”

Immigration hawks are particularly startled by McCaul’s 2015 Secure Our Borders First Act. Critics say the Texas representative’s co-authored bill ignored policy solutions to deal with the millions of people living in America illegally, like the administration’s “catch and release” policy.

Another factor working against McCaul’s credibility to head the Cabinet department simply in charge of “keeping America safe” is his support for Obama’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) agenda, which seeks to prevent jihadist radicalization through a mix of community and counter-propaganda approaches.

The overarching goal of the CVE approach is to stop would-be jihadists before they act, by countering the destructive narratives that may radicalize them within their local communities and online. The problem, critics claim, is that the structure of the program does not actually lend itself to countering violent extremism.

Obama’s pilot program has been criticized as a “catastrophic failure,” primarily because it fails to address the roots of this brand of violence and extremism (jihadism), and engages Muslim organizations with extremist ties, instead of reformist outfits.

As Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim reformist and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy puts it, entrusting groups like these with counter-terrorism responsibilities is akin to “treating arsonists like firefighters.”

What was Rep. Mike McCaul’s role in this? After criticizing President Obama’s approach during the White House CVE conference in Feb. 2015, the House Homeland Security Committee chairman sponsored a bill to create an entire CVE office inside the Department of Homeland Security.

Other potential nominees for DHS secretary (and related national security posts) include: Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, California Rep. Duncan Hunter, former Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Smith Walker, Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and former CIA officer Clare Lopez. (For more from the author of “Why This Potential Pick for DHS Would Be a Huge Reversal on Trump’s Biggest Campaign Promise” please click HERE)

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Will Trump and Republicans Finally Shut Down Suicidal Somali Immigration?

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For years, our political leaders have learned all the wrong lessons from Israel. They spent two decades trying to localize the jihad and diminish its significance to that of a conventional land dispute between “Israelis and Palestinians.” All the while forgetting Israel was confronted with a global Jihadist threat and that they were the harbinger of what was going to come to the West. Yet, rather than tightening immigration, Europe and the United States opened the doors to the Islamic world and are now facing the same enemy Israel has faced for years, albeit without their robust security apparatus. Now, with the news of the Ohio State attack fresh in our minds, we can appreciate that much like in Israel, bombings, stabbings, and vehicular attacks have become a regular occurrence.

If we don’t get serious about prioritizing our security needs through immigration policy, yesterday’s attack in Ohio State could be just the beginning of things to come. In fact, it is a reflection of a new norm that has already come to our shores. From Chattanooga and Fort Hood to San Bernardino and Orlando, we’ve witnessed jihad through mass shootings. From University of California Merced and the first Columbus, Ohio stabbing last year, to the Minneapolis mall stabbing and yesterday’s stabbing and vehicular attack at Ohio State, we are witnessing jihad by other means. The common thread is not the weapon of choice, but the jihadist motivation perpetrated on America by individual Muslim immigrants or children born to immigrant parents that have been admitted over the past two generations to this country.

Nowhere do our suicidal immigration policies exemplify this problem more than with Somali immigration over the past two decades. We’ve brought in over 130,000 Somali refugees ever since Somalia collapsed into a failed state in the early ‘90s. To my knowledge, we have never taken in a consistent and significant flow of refugees from any other country for this many consecutive years. While everyone is focusing on Syrian refugees, we have brought in at least as many Somali refugees this year, even though the conflict there has been raging for over a generation.

What have we gotten for our hospitality?

At least 40 young Somalis have been investigated for terrorism in the Minneapolis area since 2008 and some of them were convicted earlier this month. But the problem runs much deeper than a few dozen individuals. What sort of climate of neighbors, friends, family, and religious community leaders cultivates the mentality that leads to involvement in terrorism?

Last year, U.S. Attorney Andrew Lugar warned that there is “a terror-recruiting problem in Minnesota” among the Somali youth and that it does not stem from overseas but “may be their best friend right here in town.” Similarly, a federal judge warned earlier this month, “This community needs to understand there is a jihadist cell in this community. Its tentacles spread out.”

Last year, Ami Horowitz (no relation), a filmmaker who produces documentaries, recorded “man on the street” segments with Somali immigrants in Minneapolis’s Cedar Riverside community. His findings were quite disconcerting to say the least. Almost all of the dozen or so people he interviewed said they preferred Sharia law over the Constitution and felt it should be a crime to insult Muhammad. This random sampling, while more pronounced in the Minneapolis Somali community, jives with other findings that show these sentiments to be widespread among American Muslims. A poll commissioned by the Center for Security Policy last year found that 51 percent of Muslims living in America believe “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to sharia.” Twenty-nine percent agree that violence against those who insult Mohammad is acceptable and 25 percent agree that violence against America can be justified as part of Global Jihad. Among males under the age of 45 that number rises to 36 percent.

Thus, the threat of homegrown terrorism is born out of the threat of homegrown subversion and a culture that is fundamentally incompatible with our values. This is why the entire debate over “vetting” refugees is a non-sequitur. Authorities will rarely discover official ties to known terror groups when investigating families with young children apply for refugee status from a Middle Eastern country. But a large number of these families subscribe to Sharia law and raise their children accordingly. In other words, they are not people “who are attached to our Country by its natural and political advantages,” a quality James Madison felt should be a litmus test for immigration.

What experience in America and Europe has shown over the past few years is that the children of immigrants are the ones who are most likely to be drawn into jihad. Yet, there is no way to vet people like Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the Ohio State jihadist, who came to America as a teenager. The Chattanooga shooter was just two years old when he came from Kuwait, the Elizabeth New Jersey bomber was a young boy when he came with his asylum-seeking family from Afghanistan, and the Orlando and San Bernardino terrorists were born after their families immigrated here.

Perforce, there is no way to vet a mentality born out of a religious worldview that rejects our values. Europe’s experience stands as a testament to the suicidal path we are following with regards to immigration, particularly from countries like Somalia.

As with any form of immigration, there will always be decent and productive people from any country. Somalia is no different. But it is downright reckless for our political leaders to continue risking our security when we are having such widespread difficulty with many of the Somali immigrants already in America. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself a Somali immigrant, wrote last year, “I have no objection to other people coming to America to seek a better life for themselves and their families. My concern is with the attitudes many of these new Muslim Americans will bring with them – and with our capacity for changing those attitudes.”

This is Trump’s first big test. Instead of focusing on flag burning or other sensational headlines, he needs to return to his campaign promises to end these suicidal immigration policies. The Ohio State jihadist demonstrates the veracity of his campaign rhetoric on refugee resettlement. Why is Trump not being more vocal about it?

Furthermore, this will be Rep. Tom Price’s, R-Ga. (D, 62%) other major test, aside from overseeing the repeal of Obamacare. Many people forget that the head of HHS oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement. He must immediately rein in the private resettlement contractors and enforce the letter and spirit of the statutes which require advanced consultation with states and to ensure that local communities are not fundamentally transformed and burdened by resettlement, as required by law. He should work with governors, such as Texas Governor Greg Abbot who are drawing the right conclusions from recent terror attacks committed by refugees:

As I noted last week, Trump can shut off immigration from dangerous countries at will on the first day of his presidency without an act of Congress. Concurrently, it would be advisable for Republicans in Congress to back up his executive order with permanent legislation to prioritize the safety of the American people over the cult of multiculturalism.

Over two decades after Black Hawk Down, the mistakes of our Somalia intervention are plaguing us more acutely than ever and have now become an enemy within. It’s time to stop the madness. (For more from the author of “Will Trump and Republicans Finally Shut Down Suicidal Somali Immigration?” please click HERE)

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See College Students’ Responses When Asked to Compare Castro to Trump

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College students in the nation’s capital thought it was a “tough question” whether former Cuban President Fidel Castro or American President-elect Donald Trump is more favorable.

Campus Reform, a project of the Leadership Institute, polled several students at American University in Washington, D.C., and captured the students’ responses in the video below.

Many students could not give a clear answer whether they thought Castro, the Cuban dictator who died last week, or Trump was a better leader.

Some of the American University students told Campus Reform they favored Castro over Trump.

“I would say at this very moment, I have a better opinion of Fidel Castro,” one female student said in the video.

As The Heritage Foundation’s Ana Quintana wrote in an op-ed piece for The Daily Signal, “Religion was criminalized, dissent was violently punished, and Cuban citizens became property of their communist state” under Castro’s rule.

One student told Campus Reform she didn’t have an opinion on either man.

“I never really had an opinion on [Castro] to start with other than he was really, really bad for the world,” the student said. “Donald Trump, I still don’t have any opinion on. I just choose to ignore it.”

Another student said that if Trump’s administration “is anything like he said it will be, then I think that Fidel Castro will absolutely have been a better leader to the Cuban people than Trump will be to the U.S., just based on his statements alone.” (For more from the author of “See College Students’ Responses When Asked to Compare Castro to Trump” please click HERE)

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FBI and NSA Poised to Gain New Surveillance Powers Under Trump

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The FBI, National Security Agency and CIA are likely to gain expanded surveillance powers under President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, a prospect that has privacy advocates and some lawmakers trying to mobilize opposition.

Trump’s first two choices to head law enforcement and intelligence agencies — Republican Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general and Republican Representative Mike Pompeo for director of the Central Intelligence Agency — are leading advocates for domestic government spying at levels not seen since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The fights expected to play out in the coming months — in Senate confirmation hearings and through executive action, legislation and litigation — also will set up an early test of Trump’s relationship with Silicon Valley giants including Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Trump signaled as much during his presidential campaign, when he urged a consumer boycott of Apple for refusing to help the FBI hack into a terrorist’s encrypted iPhone.

An “already over-powerful surveillance state” is about to “be let loose on the American people,” said Daniel Schuman, policy director for Demand Progress, an internet and privacy advocacy organization . . .

In a reversal of curbs imposed after Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about mass data-gathering by the NSA, Trump and Congress may move to reinstate the collection of bulk telephone records, renew powers to collect the content of e-mails and other internet activity, ease restrictions on hacking into computers and let the FBI keep preliminary investigations open longer. (Read more from “FBI and NSA Poised to Gain New Surveillance Powers Under Trump” HERE)

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Threatening Electors Violates Federal Law. So Why Isn’t Loretta Lynch Doing Anything About It?

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Before Donald Trump’s stunning victory on November 8, liberals called for acceptance of election results. But since the election didn’t go as they’d planned, some have taken to harassing and intimidating electors in an attempt to change the election results. Some of these threats may violate federal law, yet the Justice Department acts strangely uninterested in investigating.

Following the election, a coalition of liberal activist groups launched #NotMyPresident Alliance, an organization dedicated to fighting the inauguration of President-elect Trump. As part of that effort, #NotMyPresident distributed personal contact information — including telephone numbers and addresses — of electors in states that voted Republican.
According to Buzzfeed, Maddie Deming, a strategist for the group, said they wanted to put electors in the spotlight and “to hold them accountable for their decision.” Whatever the intent, the initiative has produced a deluge of threats.

Electors across the country report receiving not only a flood of emails and phone calls to change their vote to Hillary Clinton but death threats as well. Alex Kim, a Texas Republican elector, reported that he and other electors had “receiv[ed] thousands of emails a day” urging them to vote for Clinton, including threats of harm and death. Arizona’s electors have reported harassment as well.

Michael Banerian, a Michigan GOP elector, received some of the most extreme threats according to The Detroit News. One email, Banerian said, talked about “shoving a gun in my mouth and blowing my brains out.” Another told him to “do society a favor and throw yourself in front of a bus.”

In Georgia and Idaho, the threats have been so extreme that the secretaries of state both released statements calling for the harassment to end. But the federal law enforcement agency that should be acting to stop these threats — the U.S. Department of Justice — has not done a thing.

Section 11b of the Voting Rights Act (52 U.S.C. §10307) makes it a crime for anyone to “intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote.” While this has been applied in the past to ordinary, everyday voters in federal elections, the language does not limit it only to such voters. Electors who are casting their votes for president and vice president are also protected by Section 11b since the Electoral College is an essential part of the federal voting process. This is supported by Section 14(c) of the VRA, which says that “voting” includes “all action necessary to make a vote effective in any primary, special, or general election.” Obviously, the votes cast by Americans on Nov. 8 will not be effective if the electors they chose are intimidated from casting their votes in the Electoral College.

Federal law (3 U.S.C. §7) requires electors to cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December, which this year is Dec. 19. These are recorded as “certificates of vote,” signed, sealed, and delivered by December 28 to the president of the Senate and the archivist of the United States (3 U.S.C. §11). Congress is required to meet on Jan. 6, 2017 in joint session to count the Electoral College votes (3 U.S.C. §15).

The Dec. 19 deadline for the electors to cast their votes is less than three weeks away, which makes it essential that the Justice Department act immediately — and very publicly — to deter and stop these threats and this intimidation. Yet the website of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs contains no announcement of an investigation into these threats. Moreover, we can be pretty certain that if investigators had actually contacted any of the threatened electors, it would have been reported in the press by now. The obvious conclusion is that the Justice Department has done nothing to enforce Section 11b against those who have tried to intimidate and who have threatened electors with bodily harm if they vote for Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, that’s not surprising. After nearly eight years of operation, the Obama administration has yet to file a single Section 11b case. Indeed, shortly after Mr. Obama entered the Oval Office, his Justice Department essentially dismissed almost all of a pending, high-profile Section 11b case concerning voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the Civil Rights Division had the open-and-shut case dismissed because its “progressive” new leaders did not believe the Voting Rights Act should be used against black defendants to protect white voters. This radical position ignores the fact that the law is race-neutral and protects all voters.

Seriously, if Hillary Clinton had won and Donald Trump supporters were threatening Clinton electors with bodily injury, does anyone doubt that the Justice Department would have acted immediately to enforce Section 11b?

Making threats and attempting to intimidate electors is as anti-democratic as it gets. The U.S. Justice Department, which is charged with protecting all voters, should act to quash this outrage immediately. Failure to do so will just be further evidence that this Justice Department does not believe in equal protection under the law. (For more from the author of “Threatening Electors Violates Federal Law. So Why Isn’t Loretta Lynch Doing Anything About It?” please click HERE)

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6 Interesting Facts About Elaine Chao, Trump’s Pick for Transportation Secretary

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President-elect Donald Trump tapped Elaine Chao to head the U.S. Department of Transportation, his transition team announced Tuesday.

“Secretary Chao’s extensive record of strong leadership and her expertise are invaluable assets in our mission to rebuild our infrastructure in a fiscally responsible manner,” Trump said in a statement. “She has an amazing life story and has helped countless Americans in her public service career.”

Chao is an experienced administration official, having served as labor secretary under President George W. Bush and deputy secretary of transportation under President George H.W. Bush.

In the new Trump administration, Chao stands to serve an influential role, as the president-elect made investing in infrastructure and reducing or eliminating “burdensome regulations” a key component in his campaign.

“The President-elect has outlined a clear vision to transform our country’s infrastructure, accelerate economic growth and productivity, and create good paying jobs across the country,” said Chao in a statement. “I am honored to be nominated by the President-elect to serve my beloved country as Transportation Secretary.”

Trump’s ambitious infrastructure policy agenda includes transforming the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, railroads, ports, waterways, and pipelines “in the proud tradition of President Dwight D. Eisenhower,” according to his website.

If the Senate confirms Chao, she will succeed Anthony Foxx, who is the second official to serve in the position under President Barack Obama.

Here are six things to know about Trump’s pick for transportation secretary.

1) She comes from a humble background.

In 1961, at just 8 years old, Chao arrived in the United States on a freight ship from Taiwan. Her family was fleeing the communist revolution on mainland China. At the time, she spoke no English.

According to her biography, the experience of transitioning to a new country “motivated her to dedicate most of her professional life to ensuring that all people have the opportunity to build better lives.”

Chao graduated from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts before receiving her MBA from the Harvard Business School.

2) She was the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to a president’s Cabinet.

Chao served as secretary of labor under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. In this position, she was “the longest tenured secretary of labor since World War II, and the only member of President Bush’s original Cabinet to have served the entire eight years of his administration.”

Before serving under George W. Bush, his father, President George H.W. Bush, tapped Chao to run the Peace Corps. A year later, she headed the nonprofit United Way of America, which faced controversy after its former president was accused of abusing charity funds.

Under the first President Bush, Chao also served as deputy transportation secretary.

According to The New York Times, she became so popular among Chinese-American families for holding these posts that they would “wait to meet her in airports.”

3) She’s worked with a variety of D.C.-based think tanks.

In June, Chao became a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, researching areas of “employment, labor mobility, international trade, and U.S. competitiveness in a worldwide economy.”

Prior to joining Hudson, she served as a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, which is the parent organization of The Daily Signal, for two stints from 1996-2000 and 2009-2016. At Heritage, she focused on jobs and the economy, trade, and competitiveness issues.

4) She’s been an influential force behind her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Although Chao has never herself run for elected office, she has put in her fair share of campaigning for her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader from Kentucky.

During his 2014 re-election bid against the well-funded Alison Lundergan Grimes, “Chao headlined 50 of her own events and attended hundreds more with and on behalf of McConnell,” according to Time.

Her husband isn’t afraid to admit her influence: “The biggest asset I have by far is the only Kentucky woman who served in a president’s Cabinet, my wife, Elaine Chao,” McConnell said at the annual Fancy Farm GOP political picnic in August, according to Time.

5) She backed Donald Trump for president.

Unlike her former boss, Chao joined dozens of former George W. Bush administration officials in September in voicing their support for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Chao, along with former Treasury Secretary John Snow, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson—among others—were part of a coalition of Bush alumni supportive of Trump, according to Reuters.

6) She’s the second person to head the departments of Transportation and Labor, and be married to the Senate majority leader.

From Alex Burns of The New York Times:

Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, wife of former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, led the Department of Transportation under President Ronald Reagan and the Department of Labor under the elder Bush. (For more from the author of “6 Interesting Facts About Elaine Chao, Trump’s Pick for Transportation Secretary” please click HERE)

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Trump Chooses Conservative Georgia Congressman, a Harsh Critic of Obamacare, to Be Health Secretary

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President-elect Donald Trump plans to select House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his Health and Human Services secretary, two people familiar with the decision said late Monday.

In picking Price, Trump tapped an arch-conservative lawmaker and leading critic of the Affordable Care Act to lead his push to roll back President Obama’s signature health law.

Price, a six-term congressman from suburban Atlanta, has never held an executive position comparable to leading the federal Department of Health and Human Services, a behemoth that includes the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid.

Three of the four previous Health and Human Services secretaries were former governors. Price, an orthopedic surgeon, would be the first physician to serve as the department’s secretary since Dr. Louis Sullivan, who held the post from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. (Read more from “Trump Chooses Conservative Georgia Congressman, a Harsh Critic of Obamacare, to Be Health Secretary” HERE)

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Liberal Media Hacks Say Challenging Election Results Undermines Democracy… Unless You’re Hillary Clinton

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Before the election, the media was in hysterics over the possibility that Donald Trump might not concede defeat if Hillary Clinton was declared the winner. Now that the election is over, and Trump won, the media’s reaction to Hillary Clinton actually challenging the results is … tepid? At best?

During the third and final presidential debate, amid concerns that voter fraud would become an issue, Donald Trump said that he would accept the results of the election after taking a look at it “at the time.”

As Trump told moderator Chris Wallace in October:

I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time.

What I’ve seen — what I’ve seen is so bad. First of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing. The New York Times actually wrote an article about it, but they don’t even care. It’s so dishonest. And they’ve poisoned the mind of the voters.

But unfortunately for them, I think the voters are seeing through it. I think they’re going to see through it. We’ll find out on November 8th. But I think they’re going to see through it.

Trump was simply reserving his legal right to challenge the election if there was suspicion of voter fraud. Hillary Clinton referred to Trump’s comments as “horrifying.”

And, taking their cue from the Democratic nominee, the media reaction to Trump’s statements was apoplectic.

The New York Times: Donald Trump Won’t Say if He’ll Accept Result of Election

CNN: Donald Trump refuses to say whether he’ll accept election results

Huffington Post: Trump’s Shocking Answer On Respecting Election Results Is The Only Debate Moment That Matters

The Huffington Post was particularly startled. The very day before the election, Julia Craven wrote an article recounting the history of a contested presidential election in 1876, noting that “civil unrest” and “fears of a second Civil War” were among the concerns of the American people during that time.

Forecasting a situation where Trump lost and refused to concede to Hillary Clinton, Craven anticipated 1) The legitimacy of the president would be undermined; 2) violence from Trump supporters would break out; and 3) Trump’s refusing to concede would undermine the integrity of “democracy itself.”

Now, it is important to note two of those things have happened since Trump’s victory. First, the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency is being undermined by large groups of malcontents parading around, flipping off buildings and protesting and tweeting #NotMyPresident. Secondly, there have been incidents of violence after the election … from liberals and Hillary Clinton supporters.

As for the liberal media’s concern over an election challenge “threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy,” that was then, it seems.

Now that the Clinton campaign is jumping on the Green Party bandwagon to challenge the results after wacko-liberal Jill Stein raised millions of dollars for a recount in Wisconsin, the silence from the editorial pages of America’s major newspapers is deafening.

Check out this reporting, and compare it to the headlines above:

ABC: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Joins Wisconsin Recount

Washington Post: Clinton campaign will participate in Wisconsin recount, with an eye on ‘outside interference,’ lawyer says

New York Times: Hillary Clinton’s Team to Join Wisconsin Recount Pushed by Jill Stein

CNN: Clinton to join recount that Trump calls ‘scam’

Politico: Trump rages as Clinton helps recount

And then there’s the Huffington Post, who ran this milquetoast headline:

“Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Says It Will Participate In Wisconsin Recount”

Now, let’s be very clear about something: The Clinton campaign is entitled to challenge the results of the election if they believe something is amiss; that is their legal right. (Just as the Trump campaign had the right to reserve concession if they believed incidents of fraud manipulated the results.)

The issue is not with calls for a recount — it is with a biased liberal media disproportionately applying their scorn and hysterics because they’re playing team sports for the Democrats. (For more from the author of “Liberal Media Hacks Say Challenging Election Results Undermines Democracy … Unless You’re Hillary Clinton” please click HERE)

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People Voted for a Conservative Court: What Court Will Trump Give Them?

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As we react, and overreact, to every report regarding who might serve in the forthcoming Trump administration, let us make sure we keep our eye on the prize. For there is one decision to come soon after the inauguration that I believe could very well be the barometer for his presidency.

That decision will be who Trump nominates to succeed Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is the one decision the Trump presidency cannot get wrong — even slightly. This has to be a hundred percenter. A no doubter. This is no time for a John “Obamacare” Roberts or an Anthony “Rainbow Jihad” Kennedy redux.

This is the replacement for Scalia we’re talking about, so this needs to be someone whose judicial philosophy is embedded like the Rock of Gibraltar in his or her record. No guesswork, just someone with the sort of bedrock originalism Scalia was known for, and young enough to helm the spot for a couple of decades at least.

Nothing less than the ideological balance of the court is at stake in this decision. While I’ve spent much of my career fighting judicial oligarchy masquerading as stare decisis — and I remind everyone reading this that in no way, shape, or form did the Founding Fathers intend for the rule of law to hinge on one SCOTUS appointment — I also can’t live in the land of make-believe.

As the great prophet Bill Belicheck likes to say, “It is what it is.” While the courts shouldn’t (and don’t really) have this much power, we sadly behave as if they do.

Which explains why so many conservatives — who said after 2008 and 2012 they were done plugging their noses for Republican presidential nominees who didn’t seem to be with us — did it once more in droves in 2016. Exit polls showed more than one in five voters said Supreme Court appointments were the most important factor in how they voted for president. And among those voters, Trump bested Hillary by a whopping 17 points.

So now is a time to take a trip to the way-back machine. This is from Nov. 10, 2003:

A battle between two Christian conservative heroes is shaping up in Alabama. On Nov.10, attorney general Bill Pryor (R) asked the Alabama Court of the Judiciary to remove the state’s Chief Justice Roy Moore from office. Moore, long an outspoken advocate for displaying the Ten Commandments on government property, is facing a trial before the court. He was suspended earlier this year by the state’s judicial ethics board after he openly defied a federal court order to remove a massive monument to the Ten Commandments from a state building. At the time Pryor announced his intention to cooperate with federal authorities to remove the monument even though he had earlier defended Moore’ position that the display is Constitutional.

Why do I bring up this story? Because the same Bill Pryor mentioned here is also being prominently mentioned as a potential candidate to replace Scalia.

No, this is not the Scalia replacement you’re looking for.

Anyone willing to use his power as attorney general — under a Republican administration — to undermine the source of our rule of law cannot be trusted to defend the rule of law on the nation’s highest court. We already have enough justices on the court who believe the law evolves according to the whims and desires of mere mortals, thank you very much.

Again, we’re looking for originalists, not legal positivists. The former recognizes “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as the original source for our laws. The latter thinks the law is changed and even originates from every stroke of a judge’s pen. If you wanted that, you would’ve voted for Hillary.

Pryor is not a Scalia for a Scalia. At best he’s a Roberts for a Scalia, and that’s a loss. We have to do better than that. We have to do better than the guy who stabbed Judge Roy Moore in the back for daring to stand up and defend the rule of law. Because what is the original rule of all law in our form of government?

The Ten Commandments.

We need someone who won’t bow to the political winds like Pryor did because President George W. Bush wanted no part of such a vitally important fight. Or like Roberts did concerning Obamacare not once but twice.

Lyndon Johnson was correct when he said, “Power is where power goes.” And those nine black-robed Supreme Court justices have real power. That power must be used accordingly. So repeat after me: there can be no calculated risks in the replacement of Scalia. We need to be as certain of this person’s convictions as we are of gravity.

And when Trump is only assuming the presidency because he won the four states that put him over the top by 1.4 points or less apiece, that means all of you who plugged your noses November 8 for decisions like this are owed bigly. He would not be moving from Trump Tower to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue without each and every one of you. And if he can settle a few Trump University lawsuits he considered to be frivolous to preserve his presidency, you better believe he must deliver for you here.

If Trump won’t give us a Scalia for a Scalia now, when he’s on a honeymoon with the American people and has ample political capital to spend, what makes you think he’ll fight to replace a Kennedy or Ruth Bader Ginsburg (both of whom are over 80 years-old) with a conservative later on when that fight promises to be much tougher?

This is why this is the most important early decision of the Trump presidency. It will set a tone in telling us whether Trump will keep his most important promises or not. (For more from the author of “People Voted for a Conservative Court: What Court Will Trump Give Them?” please click HERE)

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More Than 800,000 Noncitizens May Have Voted in 2016 Election, Expert Says

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An election expert projects more than 800,000 noncitizens voted in the 2016 election and overwhelmingly for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

While substantial, that number doesn’t overcome Clinton’s 2.2 million popular vote lead over Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who won a decisive Electoral College triumph of 306 to 232.

On Sunday, the president-elect tweeted he would have won the popular vote had it not been for illegal votes cast. The Trump transition team on Monday cited nonpartisan studies on noncitizens voting and of faulty voter registration across the country. Only citizens 18 or older can legally vote.

“Extrapolating on data from several years ago certainly doesn’t substantiate the claim that Trump is making now,” Jesse Richman, an associate professor of political science at Old Dominion University, told The Daily Signal. “That could change. If there is a recount in Michigan and Trump loses by a few votes, then it’s very plausible that noncitizen voting made a big difference. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that.”

Richman was the co-author of a 2014 study that looked at noncitizen voting in the 2008 and 2010 elections. In the comparable presidential election year, the Old Dominion study determined 6.4 percent on noncitizens in the United States voted in the 2008 presidential election, and about 81 percent of those voters backed Democrat Barack Obama.

Richman applied those numbers to 2016:

The basic assumptions on which the extrapolation is based are that 6.4 percent of noncitizens voted, and that of the noncitizens who voted, 81.8 percent voted for Clinton and 17.5 percent voted for Trump. … 6.4 percent turnout among the roughly 20.3 million noncitizen adults in the U.S. would add only 834,318 votes to Clinton’s popular vote margin. This is little more than a third of the total margin. … Is it plausible that noncitizen votes added to Clinton’s margin? Yes. Is it plausible that noncitizen votes account for the entire nationwide popular vote margin held by Clinton? Not at all.

A December 2015 study led by Stephen Ansolabehere of Harvard University argued the 2014 Old Dominion study was flawed and that “the likely percent of noncitizen voters in recent U.S. elections is zero.” Richman responded to the criticism and said suggesting zero percent does not hold up.

Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller cited the Old Dominion study reported on in The Washington Post in 2014, as well as a Pew Research Center study from 2012 about problems with voter registration across the country.

“An issues of concern is that so many have voted that are not legally supposed to,” Miller told reporters in a conference call Monday.

He said this warrants more attention than the “shiny object” Jill Stein and the Green Party are using to push recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that have no chance of overturning the election.

Beyond the noncitizens voting study from Old Dominion, Miller pointed to the Pew study from 2012 that found 24 million voter registration records in the United States, or about 1 in 8, were “significantly inaccurate or no longer valid.”

The Pew study further found “1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters,” that “12 million records contain an incorrect address,” and that “2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.”

It would take a very high percentage of noncitizens voting to overcome the Clinton popular vote lead, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors strong immigration enforcement.

“If 10 percent of noncitizens voted, it would likely make a popular vote difference,” Camarota told The Daily Signal. “It’s not the Electoral College he’s upset about. It’s the popular vote. I wish he wouldn’t focus on it. Bill Clinton got just 43 percent of the vote in 1992. How many states did he win more than 50 percent of the vote in?”

Trump could be correct about the number of illegal votes, but there is no way to know, said Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow with The Heritage Foundation who focuses on voter integrity issues.

“It’s possible he’s right, but we don’t know because there is no way to quantify, no system in place to identify noncitizens voting,” Spakovsky told The Daily Signal. “The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security should obtain state voter registration lists and check against noncitizen database. And the DOJ should start prosecuting noncitizens who are voting.”

Prosecuting voter fraud will have to be a higher priority under the Trump administration than under the Obama administration, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog.

“It has got to be a priority I would think based on Mr. Trump’s rhetoric,” Fitton told The Daily Signal. “At least, make sure that only citizens are registered to vote. We need basic reforms to reassure people that elections are free and fair.” (For more from the author of “More Than 800,000 Noncitizens May Have Voted in 2016 Election, Expert Says” please click HERE)

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