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Trump: ‘Very Important’ Supreme Court Nominee Will Overturn Roe v. Wade, Let States Control Abortion

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In a wide-ranging interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday night, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated his vow to nominate a Supreme Court justice who will vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“I’m pro-life. The judges will be pro-life,” said Trump, adding that if Roe v. Wade “ever were overturned, it would go back to the states.” Pressed by reporter Lesley Stahl on the consequences of abortion legalization being left up to the individual states, Trump said that women who want abortions will “have to go to another state” if the one in which they live bans the procedure.

During the campaign, Trump promised to sign a late-term abortion ban, vowed to defund Planned Parenthood as long as it conducts abortions, and to make permanent an annually-approved budget rider that bans federal funding for most abortions. While Trump’s positions are being widely hailed by pro-life groups, Trump’s answer also suggests that he would not try to make abortion widely illegal outright.

As for the High Court itself, Trump has promised to make nominating a replacement for deceased Justice Antonin Scalia a top priority once in office. This promise and others on abortion and religious liberty helped drive faith-based voters to back Trump. ABC News reports that 57 percent of voters who considered the Court their number one issue backed Trump, compared to 40 percent for Clinton. Exit polls showed that over one-fifth of voters said the Court was their most important issue.

The full exchange between Trump and Stahl on abortion and the Court is below:

Lesley Stahl: One of the things you’re going to obviously get an opportunity to do, is name someone to the Supreme Court. And I assume you’ll do that quickly?

Donald Trump: Yes. Very important.

Lesley Stahl: During the campaign, you said that you would appoint justices who were against abortion rights. Will you appoint– are you looking to appoint a justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?

Donald Trump: So look, here’s what’s going to happen– I’m going to– I’m pro-life. The judges will be pro-life. They’ll be very—

Lesley Stahl: But what about overturning this law–

Donald Trump: Well, there are a couple of things. They’ll be pro-life, they’ll be– in terms of the whole gun situation, we know the Second Amendment and everybody’s talking about the Second Amendment and they’re trying to dice it up and change it, they’re going to be very pro-Second Amendment. But having to do with abortion if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states. So it would go back to the states and–

Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but then some women won’t be able to get an abortion?

Donald Trump: No, it’ll go back to the states.

Lesley Stahl: By state—no some —

Donald Trump: Yeah.

Donald Trump: Yeah, well, they’ll perhaps have to go, they’ll have to go to another state.

Lesley Stahl: And that’s OK?

Donald Trump: Well, we’ll see what happens. It’s got a long way to go, just so you understand. That has a long, long way to go.

(For more from the author of “Trump: ‘Very Important’ Supreme Court Nominee Will Overturn Roe v. Wade, Let States Control Abortion” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Why Trump’s ‘Settled Law’ Comments on Gay Marriage Could Be Bad News for His Immigration Agenda

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President-elect Donald Trump’s belief that last summer’s gay marriage decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is settled law says a lot about where the incoming administration’s priorities are going to be. And it points to some potential future political problems from the federal courts, especially when it comes to immigration.

“It’s irrelevant,” he said on CBS’ Sunday’s airing of “60 Minutes,” regarding his personal views on gay marriage. “These cases have gone to the Supreme Court, they’ve been settled, and I’m fine with that.”

Firstly, this is a clear deviation from Trump’s stated position on Roe v. Wade in the same interview, which he and his surrogates have pledged to overturn. That clearly signals that, for some reason, SCOTUS railroading state sovereignty on making their own abortion laws isn’t the final word, but doing so for the kinds of unions that states recognize somehow is.

The myth of judicial supremacy drove one of the greatest narratives of the 2016 election cycle — that Americans had to get out the vote to decide on an executive who would pick the right oligarchs to legislate from the federal bench. Now it’s back, and some things apparently are “settled law,” while others are not.

Setting the inconsistencies here aside, conceding the myth of judicial supremacy as the president-elect has done here is going to create a host of problems down the road.

The transition team is already putting up a hard front on immigration, by staffing people like Kris Kobach, Kansas’ current secretary of state who helped write Arizona’s SB 1070. The state law, passed in 2010, drew intense criticism and boycotts from open-borders advocates for doing nothing more than giving police the ability to enforce America’s immigration laws. SB 1070 was gutted once and for all in a legal settlement with open-borders groups in September.

If the Trump administration and Congress are willing to kowtow to the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, they shouldn’t hold their breath on getting any sort of meaningful reform accomplished when it comes to immigration, either. If the federal courts and the Supreme Court start getting ahold of forthcoming immigration bills and first-100 directives, we’re going to have a lot of really problematic “settled law” on our hands.

Despite the technical victory immigration enforcement advocates won in U.S. v. Texas earlier this year, the federal circuit courts have still been, for the most part, openly hostile to any sort of immigration control at the state level whatsoever. This hostility has reared its head in everything from forcing Arizona to issue drivers licenses to illegals to mandating that six states completely ignore ICE while voiding thousands of illegal immigration detainers.

But considering it’s hard to imagine that the Trump administration would take judicial tampering in immigration reforms lying down, the president-elect’s statement that Obergefell is “settled law” is probably best understood as an indicator of future priorities. That shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, given his public stance in spring regarding bathroom bill battles, and his relationship with Peter Thiel.

However, despite this and other concessions that Trump has made to the LGBT community, others are still losing their minds and warning of the forthcoming homophobic cataclysm that will arise from a Trump-Pence administration. Following last week’s immediate election reactions (or, overreactions, rather), similar voices are now decrying the transition team’s inclusion of former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell as a sign of an oncoming assault on gay rights.

Huffington Post’s “Queer Voices” editor-at-large, Michelangelo Signorile points to comments made by Blackwell eight years about handling same-sex attraction and warns, “Expect each of these individuals and more religious bigots to have prominent positions in the Trump administration.”

Again, the heightened anxieties despite Trump’s historically moderate stance on the issue is beyond perplexing. Perhaps the shocking realization that a sizable chunk of the American people disagree with your agenda, that said voters’ First Amendment rights are no longer on the chopping block, and that the shiny new federal death ray you were going to use to obliterate the latter isn’t coming is a lot to deal with all at once.

Proponents of natural marriage have already made peace with the fact that many of their fellow citizens don’t see eye-to-eye with them. It’s time to realize that common-sense compromise on the subject at this juncture (like First Amendment Defense Act, which the president-elect has pledged to sign) isn’t persecution or discrimination; it’s a way forward in a republic that’s deeply divided on a fundamental issue of public and private import.

While it was grossly unrealistic in the first place that the Supreme Court — even with a shiny new originalist justice on board — would overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, it looks like the issue won’t face much pressure from the oncoming administration the next four years. However, if the Trump administration actually wants to clamp down on illegal immigration against the forces of an overwhelmingly open-borders federal judiciary, the president-elect might want to be careful using phrases like “settled law.” (For more from the author of “Why Trump’s ‘Settled Law’ Comments on Gay Marriage Could Be Bad News for His Immigration Agenda” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump’s Agenda Will Be at Risk If Congress Passes Big Spending Bill in December

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Congress returns this week for its lame-duck session—that period of time between November and the end of the year where accountability in Washington is at its lowest.

Voters aren’t really paying attention now that the main event—the election—is over, and retiring and newly defeated members are no longer held accountable for the votes they’re about to cast.

In short, this is prime time for the backroom deals, tax increases, bloated spending bills, and general arm-twisting that have given Washington such a bad name.

This time around, members of Congress will face pressure to “clear the decks” for the new president—code words for throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a giant bill and passing it as fast as possible on their way out the door, hopefully while no one is looking.

This is particularly true when it comes to spending bills. The lame-duck Congress must pass a funding bill by Dec. 9. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have previously discussed passing an omnibus spending bill—that is, a thousand-page package containing all 12 appropriations bills—to fund the government for the entire year.

Now that Donald Trump is the president-elect, such a move would be a mistake.

Come January, the Republicans will have unified control of the presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Passing a funding bill that expires well into the new term of the president-elect would bind the new Congress, and limit the legislative options of the new president.

As conservatives have pointed out—most recently in a memo by the Conservative Action Project—any spending bill longer than two months will significantly diminish the ability of Republicans to impose their legislative agenda in the new year.

Furthermore, passing an omnibus spending bill would be inherently undemocratic. On Nov. 8, the voters expressed their will and elected a new president, and a new Congress. For this current, lame-duck Congress to pass a spending bill that will restrict the ability of these newly elected representatives—including the new president—from implementing their priorities is an affront to the very principles on which electoral government stands.

Put another way, a deck-clearing, omnibus spending bill will effectively hamstring Trump from implementing key portions of his 100-day agenda.

The wall that Trump wants to build along the southern border? It won’t be immediately possible if this current Congress passes an omnibus spending bill in December. The repeal and replacement of Obamacare would likely be delayed as well.

The mandate the voters laid out is very clear, and this current Congress would do well to heed it. Ryan and McConnell should not waste their time negotiating with a departing president at the expense of the president-elect’s ability to do what the voters elected him to do. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Agenda Will Be at Risk If Congress Passes Big Spending Bill in December” please click HERE)

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Obama Predicts Trump Will Maintain Iran Nuclear, Paris Climate Deals

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President Barack Obama predicted Monday that his successor might keep some of his major legacy items such as the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement, and potentially even Obamacare, stating that President-elect Donald Trump isn’t ideological.

Trump will find that “reality will assert itself,” Obama said during his first post-election press conference.

“On a lot of issues, what you’re going to see is that now comes governing, now is the hard part,” Obama said.

The president had mostly cordial words for Trump, a Republican, whom he had a war of words with during the presidential campaign as he stumped for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Obama doesn’t believe Trump, a longtime New York businessman, will enter office with a particularly ideological agenda.

“He is coming to this office with fewer set hard and fast policy prescriptions than a lot of other presidents,” Obama said. “I don’t think he is ideological and ultimately he is pragmatic. That can serve him well as long as he’s got good people around him and he’s got a good sense of direction.”

Obama asserted this a day after a Trump interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired, where the incoming president said he wanted to maintain some provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing people to remain on their parents’ health insurance up to age 26.

“This has been the holy grail for Republicans for the last six or seven years, we’ve got to kill Obamacare,” Obama said, later adding, “It’s one thing to characterize this as not working when it’s just an abstraction. Suddenly you’re in charge and you’re going to repeal it, well, what happens to those 20 million people that have health insurance?”

Obama also urged Trump not to reverse his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive action that shields the children of illegal immigrants from deportation.

The controversial Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement are matters Obama anticipates Trump might keep.

“Do I think the new administration will make some changes? Absolutely,” Obama said. “But these international agreements, the tradition has been that you carry them forward across administrations, particularly if after you examine them, you find out they are doing good for us.”

Obama defended the Iran deal as holding Iran accountable. He said:

The main argument against it was that Iran wouldn’t abide by the deal, that they would cheat. We now have over a year of evidence that they have abided by the agreement. That’s not just my opinion. That’s not just people in the administration. That’s the opinion of Israeli military intelligence officers who were part of a government that vehemently opposed the deal. So my suspicion is that when the president-elect comes in and meets with his Republican colleagues on the Hill, that they will look at the facts, because to unravel a deal that is working and preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon would be hard to explain.

Obama noted both the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate agreement were multilateral deals, which will make it more difficult for the United States to withdraw unilaterally.

“Now, you’ve got 200 countries that have signed up for this thing,” Obama said. “The good news is, what we’ve been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that it’s possible to grow the economy and possible to bring down carbon emissions as well.” (For more from the author of “Obama Predicts Trump Will Maintain Iran Nuclear, Paris Climate Deals” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Anti-Trump Protests in 31 Photos

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From New York to the District of Columbia, Americans across the country took to the streets over the weekend to voice their dismay with President-elect Donald Trump. In the video above, The Daily Signal compiled a roundup of some signs, symbols, and messages used at these rallies. (Warning: Some signs contain profanity.)

(For more from the author of “Anti-Trump Protests in 31 Photos” please click HERE)

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Have White Evangelicals Joined With the KKK and Nazis?

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A gay website announces, “Who’s happy Trump won? The Klan, Nazis and anti-immigrant activists worldwide,” explaining that “racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, haters and anti-semites are genuinely ecstatic over his election.”

A respected NBA coach says, “I’m still sick to my stomach, and not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenor, tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic. And I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of [the] whole thing to me.”

Yet it was white evangelicals who played a critical role in getting Donald Trump elected, voting for him at the rate of 81 percent. Accordingly, a headline on USA Today proclaimed, “White evangelicals just elected a thrice-married blasphemer: What that means for the religious right.” And a New York Times op-ed was titled, “The Rage of White, Christian America.”

Are these sentiments exaggerated?

Commenting for Christianity Today, African American pastor Jonathan Brooks said, “Donald Trump is our president and I am speechless. Deep down inside, despite what we have seen over that last few years, I thought we had made progress. I just knew that a blatant racist and accused misogynist could not be the leader of our country. But I was wrong! America proved that we care more about preserving a way of life that privileges a few than protecting the lives of our most marginalized.”

Dominique Gilliard, another African American evangelical leader stated, “While Hillary was undoubtedly a flawed candidate, white evangelicals’ unprecedented supported of Trump — despite his racism, misogyny, and ethnocentrism — is revelatory, and deplorable. Did this bear witness to whiteness rather than the Gospel? What did this communicate to the world about our God?”

As expressed pointedly by Mexican-born Chicago pastor Paco Amador (quoting the words of Sandra Maria Van Opstal), “How long [Lord] must we live in a country that continues in the idolatry of white supremacy and self-preservation?”

But was this election really about “the idolatry of white supremacy and self-preservation”? Did white evangelicals simply ignore Trump’s “racism, misogyny, and ethnocentrism,” indeed, his alleged “blatant” racism? And why did a “slightly larger share of black and Latino voters cast ballots for Trump than supported Mitt Romney in 2012,” as noted in a post-election article on CNN.com?

If a vote for Trump was a vote for “white supremacy and self-preservation,” then why did more black and Latino voters cast votes for Trump than for Romney?

And how many African American and Hispanic evangelicals voted for Hillary Clinton? (Overall, 88 percent of African Americans and 65 percent of Hispanics voted for her.)

While many fine Christians are incredulous that a fellow Christian could vote for Trump, I am equally incredulous that a fellow Christian could vote for Hillary. To me, that is a vote for the shedding of innocent blood in the womb, for radical LGBT activism, for the potential restriction of our religious freedoms, and for an extremely dangerous shifting of the Supreme Court that could have negatively impacted our country for a generation or more.

And, quite candidly, my reluctant vote for Trump had nothing to do with “the idolatry of white supremacy and self-preservation” — of “whiteness rather than the gospel” — nor did I overlook our president-elect’s myriad, glaring faults. And of the many friends I know who voted for Trump, none of them did it glibly, none of them excused his failings, and none of them did it to preserve some kind of white power structure or privilege. (Interestingly, the vast majority of black callers to my radio show voted for Trump.)

How, then, do we bridge this deep, painful gap in our perceptions?

Bridging the Deep, Painful Gap

As a white, male evangelical, I need to listen carefully to my black and Hispanic colleagues, along with others who are appalled at the Trump election (in particular, women of all backgrounds), and I need to understand how threatening and obscene his words sound to them. And as much as I disagree, I need to understand why so many see this as an issue of maintaining white superiority.

More broadly, I need to understand how Trump is perceived by immigrants and minorities in general, especially Mexicans and Muslims. Although the media has certainly inflamed tensions, there is a reason those tensions exist.

On the flip side, those who are appalled that their fellow-believers could vote for Trump need to understand that many of us were primarily voting against Hillary and therefore for the unborn, for a conservative Supreme Court, and for religious liberty. We were also voting against what we felt was the negative direction our country had taken under President Obama, a direction that would have been continued under Hillary Clinton — and to repeat, for us, this had nothing whatsoever to do with “the idolatry of white supremacy and self-preservation.”

And while some of us would question whether Trump is actually racist, let alone blatantly racist, most of us would not dispute that he is the most unlikely candidate ever supported by conservative Christians. Yet we believe that, in God’s sovereign purpose, He could be raising up this unlikely vessel for such a time as this. And the fact that he has so many solid evangelicals so close to him, possibly at a level unprecedented in numerous elections, gives us genuine hope that he has an open ear to our cause and will seek to be the president of all the people of America.

Certainly, some evangelicals have almost granted president-elect Trump the status of savior, even trying to present him as a saint, and I have consistently challenged this mentality. Yet I do not believe that is the case with the vast majority of his conservative Christian voters, many of whom supported other candidates before finally turning to Trump. (Seminary president Dr. Richard Land, who voted for Trump and encouraged others to do so, said on my show that, out of the 17 Republican candidates, Trump was his 18th choice.)

In short, evangelicals who voted for Trump need to understand why their anti-Trump colleagues are so devastated and shocked by the outcome of the election. There are legitimate reasons for their concerns. Conversely, anti-Trump evangelicals need to understand that their colleagues who voted for Trump are not white supremacists who blindly embraced a debased candidate, and we had legitimate, prayerfully calculated reasons for our votes.

In the end, since Donald Trump is the incoming president of the United States, it is imperative that all of us come together and work for the common good, but that can only happen if we do our best to see one another’s perspective.

Can we find a way to join together as one for the good of our hurting nation, even with our deeply mixed views on our president-elect?

We really have no choice. And regardless of our views about president-elect Trump, for whose success as president we pray, we can and must do the work of the church — living godly lives, preaching the gospel, helping the poor and the needy, and standing for justice. (For more from the author of “Have White Evangelicals Joined With the KKK and Nazis?” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Donald Trump Has Laid out His Agenda and Mark Levin Will Hold Him to It

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Earlier this week, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin reviewed the agenda for the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

“The first hundred days, the first three or four months are crucial in getting the big things through congress,” Levin said. President-elect Trump laid out his agenda in a speech delivered in Gettysburg shortly before the election, an agenda Levin has called “outstanding.”

Listen:

Among the President-elect’s proposals were a full repeal of Obamacare, tax reform, an end to common core, and—of course—funding for a wall along the southern border and other increased border security measures.

Whatever the first hundred days will hold, be sure that conservatives will hold President-elect Trump’s feet to the fire to ensure he keeps his word. (For more from the author of “Donald Trump Has Laid out His Agenda and Mark Levin Will Hold Him to It” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Next Great Battle for Conservatives: Keeping RINO Insiders out of the Administration

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It’s no secret that Donald Trump is as much of a blank slate on policy as anyone who’s ever been elected president. Both supporters and opponents of the president-elect agree that Trump is still very malleable on many issues and has a lot to learn about both foreign and domestic policy. This is why it is critical for conservatives to win the ‘battle of personnel’ in the coming days. Failure to land conservative outsiders in key cabinet and advisory roles would be akin to failing to establish control of the beach head during the Normandy invasion. We can dream of our policy battles once we get a footing on land, but if the same RINO insiders who broke the system are allowed to control the administration, we will immediately fall back in the sea, rendering the entire election moot.

While many conservatives were and remain apprehensive about Trump’s commitment to conservative values on some issues, the appeal most saw in him was a figure who would bulldoze the failed elites and rid the system of its barnacles. This sentiment was perhaps epitomized during the debates when Hillary Clinton would proudly tout her decades of experience. Trump simply retorted, “Hillary has experience, but it’s bad experience.” It gets back to Bill Buckley’s old adage – “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

Nowhere is this more evident than with foreign policy, national security, and immigration. Almost everyone with experience in these fields within government has been on the wrong side of these issues and harbor views so divorced from reality that even random names in a telephone book would make better decisions. Yet, these same failed insiders are now gravitating to the transition team like a fly on stink and are looking for jobs.

The first challenge is to appoint a chief of staff who is not only resolute and organized but who shares the vision of the movement Trump has led. A good first start is to reject calls from establishment figures to name RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to this top advisory role.

Additionally, failure to keep the following people out of the administration would tarnish the entire appeal of a Trump presidency:

Chris Christie – potential pick for Attorney General

Just take a look at CR’s issue profile of Chris Christie and it will become clear that this man has been pushing liberal views on fiscal, social, and foreign policies for years. He was rabidly pro-amnesty before he latched himself onto Trump. The notion that someone with his principles and mindset would clean out the Justice Department is a fantasy. The notion that a man who appointed liberal judges as governor would fight legal battles against the rainbow jihad is an exercise in pink unicorns. Christie would be better suited at the Department of Transportation where he can manage traffic on the bridges.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) – potential pick for DHS Secretary

There is no doubt that the issues of immigration and Islamic terror are the two biggest factors in Trump’s win. This is why it’s so important to keep McCaul away from DHS. As we’ve chronicled in this column, McCaul has done nothing to fight the open borders crowd, and in fact, proposed terrible immigration bills as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. This is the exact sort of “bad experience” the voters want Trump to reject.

More importantly, McCaul has been a leader in the promotion of “Countering Violent Extremism,” which is subversion agenda advanced by North American Muslim Brotherhood affiliates to obfuscate any mention of Islamic terrorism. This is the very willful blindness that Americans so desperately wanted to change with the outcome of this election. Appointing McCaul to head Homeland Security would continue to empower groups like CAIR at a time when they must be banned from government. McCaul famously wrote a note to a top CAIR official suggesting that his organization is moderate and an effective weapon against terrorists.

Ambassador to Saudi Arabia would probably be a more appropriate position for Mr. McCaul.

Bob Corker – Secretary of State

There is no better example of elevating the arsonist to firefighter than the prospect of appointing Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) to head the State Department. Even in past Republican administrations, the State Department has served as a fifth column promoting the ‘America last’ agenda. This is why it is even more critical to place someone with an outsider’s mindset in the office of Secretary of State more than any other position. Bob Corker is the worst possible choice.

Corker is every bit as responsible for the Iran deal as Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. His views on foreign policy in general reflect the very inside-the-beltway mentality that must change with a new administration.

As I chronicled in my dossier on Corker back when he was being considered for Vice President, the Tennessee senator has sandbagged us on amnesty, taxes, Dodd-Frank, and the START treaty – just to name a few issues. Appointing Corker to any position of prominence, much less Secretary of State, would undermine Trump’s entire movement and reflect an exercise in making the establishment elites great again.

But maybe if Trump appoints him to a cushy ambassadorship, it could free up his Senate seat for conservatives …

Mike Rogers – National Security

Former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) is heading up the part of the transition team responsible for national security. He is rumored to be in the running for CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence. If there was ever a politician who emblematized the disease of “Washington insiderism” and represents the failure of Republicans to hold Obama accountable for his perfidious foreign policy, it’s Mike Rogers.

As Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rogers put out such a weak report on the Benghazi scandal that it was tantamount to a cover-up. As Trey Gowdy said at the time, Rogers didn’t even interview eye witnesses before he issued his report. In May 2014, ace national security report, Eli Lake, reported that Rogers downright opposed the formation of the Benghazi Select Committee and seemed to be defending the Obama administration.

Why was he siding with Obama?

While we might never get the full story, the details that are out in public should automatically disqualify Rogers to serve in the administration. In June 2014, Judicial Watch reported that Rogers’ wife, Kristi, who was a top executive at the British-based security contractor Aegis Defense Services, helped win major security contracts for her group. “Libya also was an area of activity for Aegis, Ms. Rogers’ company. As Rep. Rogers assumed control of the Intelligence Committee, an Aegis subsidiary, Aegis Advisory, began setting up shop in Libya,” wrote Micha Morrison of Judicial Watch.

Read the full report from Judicial Watch, which raises serious questions about a conflict of interest in Libya.

Rogers bizarrely announced his retirement and said he planned to pursue a career in radio, a move that shocked a lot of people in Washington. Yet, now he is groveling for a position in the new administration. What happened to his radio career?

If people around Trump plan to elevate a man like Mike Rogers to a top national security or intel post, they as may as well replace him with Huma Abedin.

In summary …

The key for Trump is to avoid the mistakes of the past and to NOT automatically rely on insiders. Everyone expects Trump to look outside the box for Cabinet positions. That is in fact his mandate. There are plenty of smart, qualified conservatives who have not been infected by the elitist Kool Aide and the corruption of Washington. And if he is ever short on staffing options, he should remember Bill Buckley’s advice and pull out a telephone book before he taps the very people that have endangered our national security. (For more from the author of “The Next Great Battle for Conservatives: Keeping RINO Insiders out of the Administration” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

3 Ways the Trump Administration Can Improve Education

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As the post-election dust settles, the incoming Trump administration now has the chance to consider some immediate policy goals for the new year.

As a part of its top and immediate education priorities, the Trump administration should seize the opportunity to advance education choice for children in Washington, D.C., and reverse President Barack Obama’s policies that have grown federal intervention and stifled innovation in education.

This can be accomplished in three ways:

1. Supporting the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. One of the greatest opportunities to improve the prospects of poor and minority children will be right at the White House doorstep when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office.

The nation’s capital is home to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (D.C. OSP), which provides scholarships to children from low-income families to attend a private school of choice within the District.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has been overwhelmingly successful. Students in D.C. who used these scholarships to attend private schools had graduation rates 21 percentage points higher than their peers who applied for a voucher but did not receive one (the program is oversubscribed and a lottery was employed to award scholarships when demand outpaced supply).

Graduation rates for D.C. OSP students reached 91 percent, far outpacing graduation rates in D.C. Public Schools.

Despite this success—and for a fraction of what is spent in the public system (D.C. Public Schools’ per-pupil revenue exceeds $29,400 per student per year, compared to the voucher amount, which is up to $12,600)—the Obama administration has tried to phase out the program, creating uncertainty for families.

As a federal city, the next administration should support education choice in the District of Columbia by supporting the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (which is due for reauthorization), and should consider supporting policies that expand education choice to more District families.

2. Rescinding ESSA regulations. On Dec. 10, 2015, Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the eighth reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the most recent successor to No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Although ESSA made some important changes to prescriptive and ineffective NCLB policies, lawmakers failed to enact reforms that genuinely restored state and local control of education. Not only were many conservative priorities absent from the bill that became law; the bill’s shortcomings are now being exacerbated by the Department of Education’s rulemaking process.

If the regulations that have been written by the department go into effect, ESSA will serve as a heavy-handed law that dictates the day-to-day affairs of local schools regarding spending, staffing, and accountability. This matters for states, local school districts, and the more than 49 million American schoolchildren who will be impacted by the law.

If the regulations as currently drafted are finalized, the next administration should rescind those regulations while supporting the longer-term conservative legislative policy priority of allowing states to opt-out from ESSA completely, as envisioned in the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act (A-PLUS).

3. Rolling back higher education regulations. Under the Obama administration, the Department of Education has supported policies that pick winners and losers in the higher education sector by, for example, promulgating regulations that unfairly single out for-profit colleges and universities.

The next administration should roll back two significant regulations: defense to repayment (regulation enabling the department to cancel the debt of students who can show their colleges have misrepresented the education students thought they would receive), and gainful employment (regulation that for-profit colleges and vocational programs must ensure their graduates’ loan repayments to not exceed 20 percent of their discretionary income), adversely affecting schools that serve nontraditional students.

Repealing such regulations would remove barriers to innovation in higher education and allow the marketplace to be a better determinant of quality, while also ensuring the federal government remains neutral on students’ and parents’ higher education choices.

Protecting education choice in the District would be a welcome change for low-income families in the nation’s capital, while signaling general support for policies that advance education choice.

Rolling back regulations weighing down ESSA would be a first step toward limiting federal intervention in local school policy, paving the way for more robust reforms in the year to come. And rescinding regulations unfairly targeting certain sectors of higher education would help ensure there is a market of higher education options that is diverse and reflects the varying needs of traditional and nontraditional students alike.

These are three important first steps in ensuring that students across America will begin to experience better and more diverse options in pursuing an education. (For more from the author of “3 Ways the Trump Administration Can Improve Education” please click HERE)

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Portland Police Declare Riot in Third Day of Anti-Trump Protests

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Chaos rocks Oregon on the third night of protests against Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States.

Police in Portland declared the situation a riot after windows were smashed and cars demolished.

As The Oregonian reports:

Police declared the demonstration a “riot” more than three hours after its 5 p.m. start, citing “extensive criminal and dangerous behavior.” The bureau said it warned the crowd about the designation, then tweeted that rioting is a class C felony.

The crowd – at least on par with the 2,000 that gathered the night before — started at Pioneer Courthouse Square in the early evening before taking off on a route that included a stop at the Portland waterfront and trip over the Hawthorne Bridge into Southeast Portland.

(For more from the author of “Portland Police Declare Riot in Third Day of Anti-Trump Protests” please click HERE)

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