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Trump’s Nominees Face ‘Unprecedented’ Democrat Obstructionism

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President Donald Trump starts his first full week in the White House with just two Cabinet secretaries confirmed by the U.S. Senate. That’s the lowest number in decades and a sharp contrast from former President Barack Obama.

Trump’s picks have fared worse than past Cabinet nominees. Even though Trump enjoys a Republican-led Senate, Democrats have kept their promise to delay confirmation of his nominees, even if they lack the votes to ultimately defeat them.

The Daily Signal reviewed Senate confirmation data for newly elected presidents, beginning with Jimmy Carter in 1977 through Obama in 2009. The chart above shows when the Senate confirmed each president’s Cabinet secretaries.

Those six presidents had an average of 10 Cabinet secretaries confirmed in their first week in office. President Bill Clinton had the most with 13. President George H.W. Bush had two nominees confirmed in week one, although three others remained in office from the Reagan administration.

The Senate confirmed two Trump nominees on Inauguration Day: James Mattis to be secretary of defense (98-1) and John Kelly to be secretary of homeland security (88-11). Senators were also supposed to vote Friday on a non-Cabinet nominee—Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., to be CIA director—but Democrats objected and delayed the vote until Monday.

Most of Trump’s nominees haven’t yet advanced out of Senate committees. Some of those votes will take place this week. The Senate Commerce Committee, for instance, announced it would vote on the nominations of Elaine Chao for transportation secretary and Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary on Tuesday.

While it’s possible the full Senate could act on those nominees this week, there’s nothing officially on the calendar.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn’t hold back in his criticism of Democrats for their delaying tactics.

“I urge colleagues to remember that we worked with the administration of former President Obama after he was first inaugurated,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech Friday. “We confirmed seven members of his Cabinet the day he took office, and nearly the entire Cabinet was filled within two weeks.”

In 2009, Obama had 10 Cabinet secretaries confirmed after his first week in office. Nine of those nominees won Senate confirmation by voice vote, where an official tally isn’t recorded. The Obama nominee who faced the greatest GOP opposition—Timothy Geithner for treasury secretary—was approved 60-34 on Jan. 26, 2009, less than a week after Obama took office.

Like Trump, Obama enjoyed a Senate controlled by his own party. Democrats had 57 senators on Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama took office. Today, Republicans have 52 senators.

None of Trump’s nominees currently face the likelihood of defeat, yet that hasn’t stopped Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., from delaying the confirmation process.

Schumer said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would continue to play the role of obstructionist.

“There are so many of these nominees that have different views than what the president-elect, now the president, campaigned on that of course there should be scrutiny,” Schumer said. “Now will we win some of these fights? Possibly. That’s why we have a debate.”

Friday’s debate over Pompeo illustrated the divisiveness in the Senate.

A new president’s national security team is usually the first to be confirmed. In the case of the CIA, both Director John Brennan and Deputy Director David Cohen resigned Friday, leaving the agency without a permanent director.

“It makes no sense to leave this post open,” McConnell said Friday. “Not for another week, not for another day, not for another hour. America’s enemies will not pause in plotting, planning, and training simply because the Democrats refuse to vote.”

Schumer countered that Trump’s nominees are “poorly prepared.” He said Democrats were slowing down the process to conduct a more thorough examination.

“If I were the Republicans, of course I’d want to ram a Cabinet like this through. I’m embarrassed by it,” Schumer said on “Meet the Press.”

Earlier this month, The Washington Post called the Democrats’ tactics “an unprecedented break with Senate tradition.”

“Republicans treated a newly inaugurated President Obama’s nominees fairly, and Democrats should do so now,” McConnell said. “Our country is counting on it.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s Nominees Face ‘Unprecedented’ Democrat Obstructionism” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

7 Obama Executive Orders That Are Ripe for Annihilation

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As Donald Trump prepares to take office Friday, thoughts of President Obama’s legacy looms. Simply put, many of the president’s signature achievements are built on a foundation of unconstitutional executive overreach. Barack Obama’s mark on U.S. history is that of an imperial president. His legacy is one of governance by fiat.

Article I of the U.S Constitution endows the Congress with the legislative power of government – the power to make laws. The presidency, as part of the executive branch, is given the Article II, Section 3 requirement of faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress.

After the Democrats lost control of the Senate in 2014, Obama declared at his first Cabinet meeting: “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation … I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.”

He assumed for himself Congress’ lawmaking power. Ignoring the people’s representatives in Congress, the president repeatedly and unconstitutionally sought to implement his far-left agenda through executive action.

His efforts bore fruit in the passage of several liberal policies. But now, with November’s election shakeup, whatever Obama accomplished through executive action can be undone by executive action.

Repealing Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders is exactly what President-elect Trump has pledged to do. Here is where he should start …

1. DACA and DAPA amnesty

The president unilaterally superseded the nation’s immigration laws by illegally granting amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants through his Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) executive orders.

This, of course, came after the president said at least 22 times that he does not have the power to make such sweeping, unilateral moves such as granting temporary legal status to illegal immigrants via executive order. The amnesty-granting move was so outrageous even the Washington Post editorial board characterized the move as “unprecedented” and wrote “Republicans’ failure to address immigration also does not justify Mr. Obama’s massive unilateral act.”

2. Obama’s Clean Power Plan executive actions

After the Obama administration failed to see cap-and-trade legislation become law in 2009, the president decided to take action himself. Through the EPA, the president instituted a series of rules that effectively instituted cap-and-trade (essentially a tax on carbon emissions). The plan is a job-killer (especially for the already-struggling coal industry) and raises costs for all U.S. households. It also illegitimately reinterprets the Clean Air Act to achieve its policy and is facing several court challenges from the states. President-elect Trump can put an end to the onerous climate regulations by instructing the EPA formally revoke the plan.

3. Forcing federal contractors to violate their religious beliefs

Executive Order 13672 required all federal contractors and subcontractors to affirmatively state that they make employment decisions without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. There was no exemption for religious liberty, and those that refused to comply with the order were declared ineligible to contract with the federal government. What this policy did, in effect, was restrict the First Amendment liberties of federal contractors, such as military chaplains, by forcing them to use vendors who disregard the religious teachings on marriage and gender identity respective to their denominations.

In the particular case of a military chaplains, they are required to have the backing of an endorsing body. If that endorsing body – say the Catholic Church – has a doctrine that disagrees with the progressive view on sexual liberty, that body will not be permitted to contract with the government and the chaplain will lose his sponsor, rendering him unable to serve. To preserve the First Amendment freedoms of federal contractors, this executive order must be revoked.

4. The transgender bathroom order

Obama issued guidelines to public school districts in the U.S. admonishing them to let transgender students use the bathroom of their self-proclaimed identity. Though the letter does not have the force of law, Obama’s Department of Education went ahead and threatened to revoke federal funding to schools that do not permit confused boys and girls into the bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex.

The most troubling aspect of Obama’s actions is, as CR’s Nate Madden wrote, “the administration has declared itself a scientific arbiter of what constitutes the very nature on man and woman.” The government should not have such power, and President-elect Trump should instruct his nominee for secretary of education, Betsy Devos, to roll back the Department of Education’s funding threats.

5. Appeasing the world’s leading terrorism sponsor: Iran

President Obama upturned a two-decade standing policy of the United States when he revoked economic sanctions against the terrorist-sponsoring Iranian regime in early 2016. The move freed up as much as $150 billion of frozen Iranian assets under the assumption that Iran would comply with the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.

A year later, we know that Obama secretly gave Iran exemptions on certain provisions in the deal, and even with these exemptions Iran is violating the terms of the agreement. President-elect Trump should reimpose sanctions on Day 1.

6. Gun control

In early 2016, President Obama announced sweeping executive actions on gun control that instructed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to redefine who is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. By broadening that term, the administration could classify anyone who sells a firearm as a “firearms dealer,” potentially subjecting private sellers to a slew of onerous regulations meant to apply to retail firearms dealers.

Redefining a law to apply to individuals Congress did not intend the law to apply to is an unconstitutional overreach by the executive branch. Further, placing an undue burden on gun owners potentially infringes on the Second Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. As a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, President-elect Trump ought to put these regulations on the chopping block.

7. Gutting work requirements for welfare

In the mid 1990s, a Republican-controlled Congress led by Newt Gingrich successfully compromised with President Bill Clinton to enact welfare reform that placed a work requirement on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. These work requirements were made mandatory and nonwaivable, and the subsequent success of the welfare reform led to a drop in welfare recipients and a decrease in child poverty.

President Obama illegally claimed the authority to waive the TANF work requirements. As a result, more individuals are back on on the government dole. If President-elect Trump wishes to pursue a pro-growth policy and get people working again, he should reinstate welfare reform requirements.

These are just a few of the many executive orders issued by President Obama that are under review by the incoming Trump administration. Obama staked his legacy on the election of a Democrat to succeed him and uphold his policies.

It is now in President-elect Trump’s power to ensure the Obama legacy is enshrined in our memories, and not in our laws. (For more from the author of “7 Obama Executive Orders That Are Ripe for Annihilation on Trump’s First Day” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

5 Remarkable Quotes from President Trump’s Inaugural Address

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It is official. Donald John Trump has taken the oath of office and is now the 45th President of the United States of America.

In his Inaugural address, President Trump talked about the people who put him into office, the “forgotten” men and women of America who have been left behind by the liberal, Big-Government policies of the previous administration.

His speech was not a conservative speech. He did not talk about limited government. Rather, President Trump pledged that the powers of government will now turn and be subservient to the American people.

“At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction that a nation exists to serve its citizens,” Trump said. “Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public.”

President Trump’s government will put “America first,” he promised. It will put the American people, all American people first, he said.

Here are some of the highlights from his speech:

1. America first:

“We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first.”

2. On domestic policy:

“We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.”

3. On foreign policy:

“We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.”

4. On unity:

“The bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.”

5. On the common brotherhood of all Americans:

“It’s time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.”

It is well and good that President Trump believes in a government for, and by, the people of the United States of America. But to make America truly great again, the new president must heed the wisdom of America’s founding fathers. His government must respect the constitutional limits imposed upon it by our founding documents. His administration must pursue an agenda that does not ask what government can do for the people, but rather what individuals, with the inestimable blessings of liberty, can do for themselves and their neighbors.

If President Trump’s administration adheres to the United States Constitution, if it secures the natural rights of the people and protects American liberties, he will be great. (For more from the author of “5 Remarkable Quotes from President Trump’s Inaugural Address” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

So Much for Tolerance: Photos of the Violent Protests of Trump’s Inauguration

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In some parts of the nation’s capital today, it looks like a war zone.

And it’s because of protesters who are presumably taking out their anger over the election—and the voters’ decision—by acting violently and destructively on the streets of Washington.

Here are some of the most compelling photos and tweets documenting the destruction:

(For more from the author of “So Much for Tolerance: Photos of the Violent Protests of Trump’s Inauguration” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump’s Inauguration Speech: Two Feet Firmly Planted on Our Fallen Earth

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Donald Trump has provoked more outright panic among people with advanced degrees than any politician in recent history. It would be easy for the unwary to draw the darkest conclusions. The desperate urgency of his enemies, from panicked globalists penning incendiary columns to social justice warriors literally torching limos, suggests that his rise represents some new force of extremism, or dark, regressive forces that threaten our very Republic.

Surely (onlookers could reason) Trump holds to some radical, dangerous creed, or else why are all these smart people engaged in such a nationwide public meltdown? If you’re sitting in a crowded theater, and not just one person but dozens are shouting, “Fire!”, you are likely to head for the exit.

But sometimes where there’s smoke, there really isn’t any fire, but instead a smoke machine planted in Lady Liberty’s skirt. Today we saw the peaceful transfer of power in our Republic, and the American experiment in ordered liberty is as safe as it ever was. In fact, in key ways it is safer.

Donald Trump: Inclusive Patriot

To those listening honestly with even a modicum of charity, Trump’s speech should have helped to disarm most of the genuine causes for worry that his critics have raised over many months. Trump firmly rebuked the small, vociferous cult of online Caucasoid tribalists whom some have tried to smear him as championing. Trump used these ringing words, which clearly came from the heart:

A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights and heal our divisions.

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: That whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

President Trump made it starkly clear that his vision of national solidarity, of “loyalty to each other” has everything to do with citizenship, and nothing to do with race. His is the healthy, Jacksonian nationalism of a Truman or a Reagan — and not the narrow, crabbed and envy-ridden sentiment of racial separatists or supremacists of any color.

A Foreign Policy for a Fallen World

Trump’s foreign policy principles are clearly drawn from that same Jacksonian heritage, which does not use lofty promises of global transformation that are sometimes hard to distinguish from Jacobin or Leninist rhetoric. Instead, Trump speaks plainly of defending our national interest in a fallen and perilous world. How often over the past 16 years have our decisions on crucial questions, from Iraq to the “Arab Spring,” been distorted and rendered delusional by universalist abstractions, which ignore the stubborn facts on the ground in Fallujah or Benghazi.

Too many “forgotten Americans” from coal mining country or struggling farms have bled out and died on alien sand, as our nation’s debts piled still higher, in pursuit of fantastical projects that seemed uplifting to some speechwriting civilian over on M Street.

Making Citizenship Great Again

Those who are tempted to panic over Trump’s pledges to enforce our duly enacted immigration laws should know that his promises, just like those laws, grow out of a deep respect for citizenship as a concept with texture and meaning, carrying both rights and duties — not some blank PDF which anyone on earth may download and print out at Kinkos.

While we recognize the equal humanity, under God, of foreign nationals, for Trump it is unpatriotic to treat them as indistinguishable from our fellow Americans — whose ancestors worked, fought, may even have slaved for the weal of this nation in particular, not for humanity as a category.

In fact, Trump’s vision of citizenship goes a good deal further than many libertarians and classical liberals think fitting: He sees the United States as one vast extended family, to the point that we should be willing to sacrifice economic efficiency for the sake of looking out for the least among us. Sound economists have warned us of the Rube Goldberg absurdities that come along with protectionism, and it’s not at all clear that less fortunate Americans would benefit from a trade war that we provoked.

Helping the Forgotten American

So when it comes time to implement Trump’s agenda in nitty-gritty policies, we must insist that measures meant to help Americans whose livelihoods are challenged by foreign competition be as small-scale and short-term as possible. Just as Trump rightly sees that the U.S. government cannot create democracy where the seeds for it always shrivel, he must realize that the same government cannot save entire industries whose economic foundations in reality are crumbling.

Americans have traditionally been a flexible, adaptable, “can-do” people, who picked up and moved from New England to flee its stony soil for the vast fields of the West, and left unprofitable farms to staff the vast factories of Chicago and Detroit. What Trump sees, as most other Republicans didn’t, is that the transitions which economic reality has imposed on many less-connected Americans have been bumpy, painful, and sometimes destructive.

Wall Street gamblers were able to threaten an economic meltdown in 2008, to gain a golden parachute from the government. The election of Donald Trump is a fitting rebuke to elites in both parties who allowed that injustice to happen.

Trump tapped into the populist current that now runs through most Western countries, a wholesome rebellion against the cozy backroom deals and policy tweaks customized to serve the self-styled “cognitive elite,” the people who sail from elite colleges to corner offices, who use the rhetoric of “justice” and “inclusion” to rise to unaccountable power in U.S. federal agencies and European Union commissions. He spoke in brash and divisive terms of an open split between the interests of these elites and the people they claim to represent. It was bracing to hear him state matters so bluntly.

Restoring the Balance in American Politics

No, Donald Trump will not create a Peronist regime, which wrecks the U.S. economy in pursuit of some ill-conceived “social justice.” He will not embark us on wars of naked aggression and foreign conquest. He will not seed our cities with racial hatred, nor blacklist Hollywood actors.

What he will do is repair the grave imbalances in our politics that has emerged in recent decades. For too long we have allowed those who can master phrases and administer people to thrive, while those who work with their hands are shunted aside — and often replaced by compliant foreigners. Too many policy debates are dominated by a battle of empty abstractions, as taxes rise, budgets burst and real-world communities wither.

In an age when European governments react to the crime waves inflicted by a massive influx of Muslims with Third World skill sets and a 7th century worldview by censoring the news so citizens won’t rebel, it is more than simply refreshing to have a president like Trump, who is impervious to happy talk and in touch with ordinary people. It might even prove redemptive. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Inauguration Speech: Two Feet Firmly Planted on Our Fallen Earth” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Supporters in Their Own Words

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Thousands of voters traveled to the nation’s capital Friday to witness the inauguration of President Donald Trump. But have their voices been accurately reflected over the past few months? The Daily Signal spoke with Trump supporters about who they are, why they came out to support the nation’s 45th president, and whether they think the media’s narrative is fair. Watch the video to hear their responses.

(For more from the author of “Trump Supporters in Their Own Words” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Signs Executive Order Curbing Obamacare

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Hours after taking the oath of office, President Donald Trump followed up on his campaign pledge to try to start chipping away at Obamacare, and curb federal regulations.

Trump signed an executive order on Friday evening from the Oval Office “to ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition to repeal and replace,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Friday.

The new president’s goal is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which will require congressional actions.

“Potentially the biggest effect of this order could be widespread waivers from the individual mandate,” Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told The Washington Post. Currently, individuals who do not have health insurance and do not qualify for an exemption must pay a $695 annual fee or up to 2.5 percent of annual household income.

“They’re very aware of the fact that the first job is to prevent the Affordable Care Act from doing more damage than it’s already done,” says Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health care policy at The Heritage Foundation. “As we saw with the premium increases in the fall, people who are buying individual or small employer coverage without a subsidy are getting hammered.”

Haislmaier cautioned, however, that the executive order is “the beginning of the process.” The order states that it’s the goal of the administration to repeal the law, but:

In the meantime, pending such repeal, it is imperative for the executive branch to ensure that the law is being efficiently implemented, take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.

The order mentions several times, “To the maximum extent permitted by law,” and continues:

[T]he heads of all other executive departments and agencies … with authorities and responsibilities under the act shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the act that would impose a fiscal burden on any state or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of healthcare services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products, or medications.

Democrats have argued that gutting the law that mandates individuals buy health insurance and employers provide it would leave millions uninsured. Republicans say the mandate has been overly burdensome.

Obamacare has seen an increase of about 14 million insured, based largely on Medicaid expansion. The law requires individuals to buy insurance and employers to provide it.

However, the Obama administration admitted that health care premiums increased by an average of 25 percent across 39 states in October. Further, 33 states have fewer insurers offering coverage on Obamacare in 2017 than in 2016. Only one state, Virginia, gained insurers. Five states have one insurer, while 13 have just two. One-third of all U.S. counties will have just one insurer.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus sent a memo titled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” to block all pending regulations under review but not yet in the Federal Register. (For more from the author of “Trump Signs Executive Order Curbing Obamacare” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Inauguration Protesters Dishonor Long-Held Principle

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More than any other political act, the orderly transfer of power from one administration to another at a presidential inauguration demonstrates convincingly that we are a nation of laws and not of men.

Even with the closest of outcomes and the losing side’s understandable disappointment — and even anger — victor and vanquished normally pledge to work together for the common good.

Unfortunately, a coalition of left-wing radicals has now pledged to do all that it can to disrupt Donald Trump’s inauguration, including blocking streets and perhaps bridges, preventing people from assembling along the parade route, spreading false “news” about the ceremony’s participants and their remarks, and pledging a “permanent opposition” to the Trump presidency.

One newspaper referred to the left’s “post-election frenzy of fundraising, war rooms, protests and social media hysteria.”

This radical left has ignored the example set by past presidential losers such as former Vice President Al Gore and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who after suffering defeat demonstrated their respect for the Constitution and the rule of law.

In 2000, George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Gore by a little more than half a million votes (out of 101.4 million cast) but won the electoral vote by the slimmest of margins — 271 to 266, one vote more than the 270 needed.

Gore could have refused to accept the Supreme Court’s decision putting a stop to ballot counting in Florida, but instead, he said that “for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”

Gore quoted Stephen Douglas’ comments to Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency: “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.” With his concession remarks, Gore provided an example of high statesmanship rather than low partisanship.

A little more than two months ago, Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes out of 129 million cast, but won the electoral vote decisively by 306 to 232 votes.

Many Clinton supporters remain in deep denial, lending their support to the disaffected and the disgruntled who have promised to protest at the inauguration of Trump.

To her credit, Clinton has not encouraged the protests, but has rather stood by what she said at her concession speech on election night: “I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.”

Endeavoring to put politics behind her, Clinton said that “we owe [Trump] an open mind and a chance to lead” and acknowledged the importance of “the peaceful transfer of power.”

We do not know what Trump, ever unpredictable, will say in his speech after he has taken the oath of office to become our 45th president. But we have reason to believe that his inaugural address will be, at least in part, Reaganesque — optimistic and confident.

Speaking of Ronald Reagan, I think (as I wrote in National Affairs) that 2017 resembles 1981 in several significant ways.

Republicans have accumulated a vast backlog of conservative ideas over the past eight years that were blocked by President Barack Obama and are now available to Trump.

Similarly, The Heritage Foundation’s 1980 Mandate for Leadership contained a mountain of conservative policy reforms going back decades that helped Reagan move the federal government in a conservative direction.

Even so, Heritage has now offered the Trump administration a similarly comprehensive blueprint for conservative policies in every federal department and agency.

These include repeal of Obamacare and the creation of a free-market health care program; the repeal of Dodd-Frank and the shutting down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; restoration of the work requirements for federal welfare; a flat tax rate on personal income; a commitment to traditional marriage; and the strengthening of our armed forces so that they are second to none.

The 2016 election returns have given conservatives a golden opportunity. The conservative agenda has proven solutions to many of the problems that led so many Americans — more than 61 million — to vote for the change that Trump promised.

It is now up to conservatives to convince policymakers from the White House to the statehouses to pursue the right path, to preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ourselves and those we love. (For more from the author of “Trump Inauguration Protesters Dishonor Long-Held Principle” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Keeping 50 Obama Administration Officials

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President-elect Donald Trump has asked roughly 50 senior Obama administration officials to remain in their roles in order to “ensure the continuity of government,” spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday.

The decision comes as Trump is reportedly struggling to fill important posts in his new administration.

Among the Obama holdovers are key national security officials, including Brett McGurk, special envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The move is somewhat surprising, given Trump’s repeated criticism of Obama’s effort to combat the terrorist group. He called the president “the founder of ISIS” during a campaign event last April.

McGurk, however, does have bipartisan credentials. He served as an adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan under President George W. Bush. (Read more from “Trump Keeping 50 Obama Administration Officials” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Betsy DeVos Is Scarier Than the KKK, Says DC Teachers Union Head

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Speaking at an event organized to oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington, D.C. Thursday, American Federation of Teachers President Elizabeth “Liz” Davis said that Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, is more frightening than the Ku Klux Klan.

“Of course, you know that there are some scarier things that are coming up … one of them is Betsy DeVos,” Davis said. “That frightens me more than the Klan, because Betsy DeVos is a multi-mega millionaire who has managed to buy her way to a position of influence that could actually change the face of what we know public education to be, and what we want it to be in this country.”

Watch:

Betsy DeVos is scarier than the KKK?

That is not jumping the shark. That is jumping a team of sharks with a flaming motorcycle, naked, irrationally screaming as the train-wreck of your pathetic liberal hysteria reaches the point where the American people cannot take your argument seriously because you think a kindly mid-western woman who supports school choice is worse than the Ku Klux Klan.

The real insult here is that as a representative for teachers, as an educator, Ms. Davis should know full well the KKK’s evil history and the atrocities committed by that wicked hate group. This is a woman responsible for teaching American children. For Davis to say that Betsy DeVos is scarier than the Ku Klux Klan, that is beyond slander.

She should be ashamed of herself. (For more from the author of “Betsy DeVos Is Scarier Than the KKK, Says DC Teachers Union Head” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.