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

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

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

Growing Economy

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

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

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

Education Choice

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

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

Criminal Justice Reform

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

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

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Newsweek Editor Admits He Faked News on Fox

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

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

“Any regrets about that?” Stephanopoulos asked.

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

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

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The Left’s Plans to Disrupt the Presidential Inauguration

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

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

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

Shut Down the Inauguration

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

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

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

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

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

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‘Islamist Terrorists Continually Slaughter Christians’: Trump Says What Obama Refused to Say

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For eight years, we have watched Islamic terrorist attacks take place around the world and on our own shores, with the bloody, gory death toll rising by the day (roughly 30,000 attacks since 9/11). And for eight years, we have listened carefully as our president addressed these horrific acts, studiously avoiding the words that so needed to be spoken: “Islamic terror” or “radical Islam.”

Instead, President Obama and his surrogates spoke of “extremism” or “terrorism” — without any reference to Islam — or, worse still, of “workplace violence.”

Mr. Obama and his team would not even identify Nidal Malik Hasan, the 2009 Fort Hood mass murderer, as an Islamic terrorist, despite the fact that he identifies as a Soldier of Allah, was mentored by a Muslim terrorist (Anwar Al-Alaki, whom we killed in a drone strike in Yemen), and slaughtered our soldiers in cold blood while shouting out Allah’s name. No, this was an instance of workplace violence. (It was not until 2015 that Obama referenced the attack as “terrorist,” but still refused to mention the word “Islamic.”)

This is not just perverse, it is utterly irresponsible, since it fails to acknowledge that we are not just combatting people, we are combatting an ideology, and if we cannot even name that ideology, let alone describe it, we certainly cannot fight it.

And so yesterday, in the aftermath of the horrific truck attack at the Christmas market in Germany, the Obama administration (not the president himself, who is apparently on his final Christmas break) issued a statement, saying, “The United States condemns in the strongest terms what appears to have been a terrorist attack on a Christmas Market in Berlin, Germany, which has killed and wounded dozens.”

In stark contrast, President-elect Trump stated:

Our hearts and prayers are with the loved ones of the victims of today’s horrifying terror attack in Berlin. Innocent civilians were murdered in the streets as they prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday. ISIS and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad. These terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the earth, a mission we will carry out with all freedom-loving partners.

In one short statement, Trump has done what Obama failed to do in eight years.

1) He identified “Islamist terrorists” by name, directly associating them with ISIS.

2) He specified that their victims have often been Christians, here during the Christmas season, and at other times, in their places of worship.

3) He declared war on these terrorists, asking “all freedom-loving partners” to join him in the battle, thereby opening the door to so-called moderate Islamic nations to join us in the battle. (Would Saudi Arabia fit in this category? How about Pakistan? Yemen? Syria? Libya?)

4) He used the term “global jihad,” again with specific reference to Islamic terror.

The significance of this can hardly be exaggerated.

The UK Mirror reminds us that “Europe was warned that ISIS planned terror attacks at Christmas markets 25 days before the Berlin atrocity.”

Yes, “The attack came after intelligence agencies warned in November that terrorists are planning a wave of Christmas attacks throughout Europe, targeting shopping areas and crowded market-places to maximise casualties. The main groups plotting Yuletide blood-letting are Islamic State and al-Qaeda and UK intelligence agencies and counter-terror police are on high-alert.”

ISIS has now claimed responsibility for the Berlin massacre, which means that we have: 1) Islamic terrorists stating that they will launch Christmas attacks against Christians in Europe; 2) a terror attack taking place against Christians at a Christmas market in Germany; and 3) ISIS taking responsibility for that attack.

Yet it is Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, who has connected the dots (really, these dots are all but connected for anyone with eyes to see), which is one reason that many Americans said No to four (or eight) more years of Obama policies (in the person of Hillary Clinton) and Yes to dramatic change in the person of Donald Trump.

It is true that his tweets can be reckless and unpresidential and that not all his saber-rattling is helpful. But it is also true that the world needs leaders like Trump who will call out Islamic terror by name, which is why right-leaning, populist movements are growing around the world — and it is not because Americans and Europeans and others are suddenly becoming “Islamophobic.”

No, the problem lies with radical, murderous, terroristic Islam and the failure of these governments to address it head on, as the leaders appear to be more concerned with offending “moderate Muslims” than with protecting their own citizens — including unarmed children, women, and men.

The time for that is over. (For more from the author of “‘Islamist Terrorists Continually Slaughter Christians’: Trump Says What Obama Refused to Say” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Condemns ‘Radical Islamic Terrorist’ Who Assassinated Russian Ambassador

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President-elect Donald Trump called for the “universal condemnation” of the “radical Islamic terrorist” who assassinated Russia’s ambassador to Turkey on Monday.

“Today we offer our condolences to the family and loved ones of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov, who was assassinated by a radical Islamic terrorist,” Trump said in a short statement.

“The murder of an ambassador is a violation of all rules of civilized order and must be universally condemned,” the president-elect added.

The White House also issued a statement condemning the violence, but it refrained from connecting the shooting to radical Islam.

“This heinous attack on a member of the diplomatic corps is unacceptable, and we stand united with Russia and Turkey in our determination to confront terrorism in all of its forms,” the White House said.

Trump has long criticized President Obama for refraining from using the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”

A Turkish police officer fatally shot Karlov in front of an audience at a photo exhibit in Ankara. The assailant, identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas, was later killed in a shootout with police.

Altintas, a member of Ankara’s riot police squad, walked into the room during the middle of Karlov’s speech shouting “Allahu akbar,” according to an Associated Press photographer who witnessed the incident.

The terrorist then shot the diplomat dead in front of a room of frightened spectators, angrily denounced the bloodshed in Syria and reportedly shouted, “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad.”

He also shouted, “Don’t forget about Syria, don’t forget about Aleppo,” according to Reuters.

Footage of the assassination was captured and immediately shared around the world. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it considered the shooting to be a terrorist attack.

Three other people were wounded in the shooting, authorities said. (For more from the author of “Trump Condemns ‘Radical Islamic Terrorist’ Who Assassinated Russian Ambassador” please click HERE)

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Why Donald Trump Is Catching Heat for Planning on Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem

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There is no controversy like the controversy that surrounds the city of Jerusalem, the most divided city on the earth and the most coveted city on the earth. The Bible predicted this more than 2,500 years ago, describing the day when Jerusalem would be a “a cup that brings dizziness to all the surrounding nations” (Zech. 12:2, NET), even declaring that one day, the whole world would be in uproar over Jerusalem.

Stop and think about it for a moment.

Why does the whole world get so exercised over Jerusalem? Is there any other city on the planet that evokes such intense emotions and polar views?

And why does every nation put its embassies in the city that the host country identifies as its capital, except for the city of Jerusalem, identified as Israel’s capital in 1950? Why do virtually all embassies remain in Tel Aviv?

There is something of spiritual significance to this ancient city that simply cannot be denied.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, “passed by overwhelming bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate,” states that “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.”

Then why didn’t presidents Bush or Obama move the embassy? As explained by Rabbi Shraga Simmons, “since the congressional act allows the President to implement a waiver at six-month intervals, that’s exactly what has happened every six months since 1995.”

Now that Donald Trump has insisted that he will, in fact, relocate our embassy — in accordance with the 1995 act — the controversy is hitting the fan. In the words of Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, imam of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, moving the embassy would be as good as a “declaration of war.”

Trump’s Pick for Ambassador to Israel

Consider the opposition to Trump’s appointee for Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a strong supporter of Israel who speaks of our embassy’s imminent relocation. As he said openly and proudly after his nomination, “I intend to work tirelessly to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries and advance the cause of peace within the region, and look forward to doing this from the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

According to a December 16 email from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, known as “America’s rabbi,” Friedman is a “brilliant choice for Ambassador to Israel. One of America’s most respected and accomplished attorneys, David is regarded in the highest esteem by the New York Jewish community as an exemplar of the American and Jewish virtues of education, erudition, philanthropy, and communal commitment.”

He continued, “David has vast exposure to, and knowledge of, the Jewish State and its history and enjoys the confidence and respect of Israel’s leaders. A man of humility and openness, he has a gift for listening, showing respect and deference to all whom he meets.”

In sharp contrast, as noted on the Elder of Ziyon website, last Friday’s New York Times “had four articles against Donald Trump’s choice to be the US ambassador to Israel.

“Yes — four articles in one day. Two ‘news’ articles, one editorial, and one op-ed.”

As Noah Pollack reported on The Washington Free Beacon, “The NYT Is Having a Meltdown Over Trump’s Israel Nominee.”

Pollack writes, “David Friedman is a prominent and successful attorney in New York who has spent 20 years representing Donald Trump, among other clients. He is also a proud Jew who holds unapologetic pro-Israel views that are heretical in Times-world, and he has also expressed acid disdain for the kind of Jewish anti-Israel activism regularly glorified in the pages of the Times.

“So he must be destroyed — and to destroy him he must be lied about. Which is what the Times did.”

Pollack does not specifically mention Friedman’s strong support for relocating our embassy, since there are other, controversial pro-Israel positions that Friedman supports, including the building of settlements in territories under Palestinian control and skepticism about a two-state solution. But you can be assured that a big part of the ruckus over Friedman’s appointment is his affirmation that the American embassy will be moved.

The Ruckus Over Moving the Embassy

That’s why a headline on the Independent discussing Friedman’s nomination focused on this issue alone, noting that, “Moving US embassy to Jerusalem would be ‘declaration of war’.”

And that’s why New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman stated to Chris Cuomo on CNN that “moving the American embassy — and this is an evergreen, everyone running for President tosses this out, no one actually does it — moving the embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, in the absence of an agreed upon solution between Israelis and Palestinians, I would call that the ‘Full Employment for Iran Act.’”

Yes, according to Friedman, it would also alienate the Sunni Arab regimes, meaning that this move would provoke the Shiite Muslims in Iran and the Sunni Muslims in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Jerusalem, the city of controversy indeed!

Thomas Friedman then reiterated to Cuomo and co-host Alisyn Camerota: “This is such madness that it’s — it’s just — I can’t believe we’re talking about it.”

Yet Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior adviser, has reiterated that the incoming president really does plan to make this move, calling it a “big priority” for him. And how revealing that Thomas Friedman noted that “everyone running for President tosses this out” but “no one actually does it,” whereas Trump is threatening actually to do it. This is the very reason many people voted for him: They expect him to be a doer, not just a talker.

Should President Trump succeed in relocating our embassy to Jerusalem, I predict three things: 1) all hell will break loose against him (expect it in the most shrill tones), with constant, worldwide controversy over the move); 2) God will bless our president for doing it; and 3) God will bless America for doing it.

There’s just something about Jerusalem. Watch and see. (And to think that as recently as last month, an article in the Washington Post claimed that, “Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody.” The irony is exquisite.) (For more from the author of “Why Donald Trump Is Catching Heat for Planning on Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem” please click HERE)

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Smug, Arrogant, Elitist Liberals STILL Refuse to Fathom President Trump

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The question is not “is anyone surprised?”

No one who has observed liberalism at work for decades could be surprised that after a campaign in which they routinely attacked Donald Trump for supposedly being unwilling to accept the election results, the scolders themselves do precisely that.

The stories pour forth. Hillary Clinton lost because the Russians hacked. There have to be recounts in key states because it could change the results. Electors need to step up to the plate and overturn the voters. And on it goes. “It” being the attempt to delegitimize the Trump election and his presidency that will follow.

But why is this? Why this absolutely bizarre notion that, knowing the rules full well — rules for a presidential election in force since the founding of the country — there is this abrupt unwillingness by Clinton and company to accept defeat?

The answer surely can be tied to the longtime sense of moral superiority that has become a standard feature of modern liberalism. Let’s recall that instantly infamous statement of Clinton’s during the campaign. Note well the quote which appeared in the New York Times exactly as written below:

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” she said to applause and laughter. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

Catch that descriptive line added by the Times? This one, inserted in the middle of the quote, that says “she said to applause and laughter.” This event, again no accident, was a fundraiser held with the elites of Manhattan in Manhattan.
And right there is exactly the real reason this election was lost to Clinton and proved a disaster for her party. The hard fact is that many liberal elites really do look down their noses at their fellow citizens who reside between Manhattan and Beverly Hills. And in this election this translated into an assumption that of course Hillary Clinton was going to win. How could it be any other way?

Take a good look at this Politico story from October 20, written in the aftermath of the third and last debate between Clinton and Trump. The headline?

The final debate was Trump’s chance to stop the bleeding. 16 political watchers tell us whether he succeeded.

The story opens with a brief recounting of the debate, then says this:

It was all pretty much routine in a campaign marked more by put-downs than policy discussion—or at least it was until Trump broke with centuries of tradition and told the audience that he wasn’t sure whether he would accept the voting results on Election Day. It was an admission that shocked—but also one not likely to be uttered by a candidate who’s confident, or even halfway confident, of a win on November 8.Indeed, over the past week and a half, as more than 10 women have accused Trump of sexual assault, he has been sliding in the polls, and election forecasters were giving Clinton around an 85 percent of victory.

And that unconfident candidate was, of course — Donald Trump. Among the sentiments of these sixteen “political watchers” were the following:

‘Trump surrendered whatever shreds remained of his credibility. Unlike Donald Trump, I won’t keep you in suspense. He didn’t lose the election Wednesday night; he forfeited it. Bigly.” – Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest

But this will be remembered as one of the very few presidential elections in which the losing candidate mattered more than the candidate who actually won. Trump’s 18-month performance in a self-written piece he should have called “Make America Hate Again” repelled far more Americans than it attracted. Yet even before the final curtain goes down, we are wondering—no we are shuddering to find out—what crazy, destructive things he and his adoring followers will say and do next. – Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University and editor of Dissent

“But the matter of his win or loss will matter less if he takes our democratic institutions out with him—and that was all that mattered at the debate. … One moment crystallized precisely what the 2016 election is about. When asked whether he would respect the election results, Trump shrugged. “I will look at it at the time,” he told moderator, Chris Wallace. “I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?” No, not OK. Not at all. This isn’t the build-up to the season finale of a reality show. This is the basis of our representative democracy. Americans are not supposed to be waiting to hear Trump’s verdict on election night; he is supposed to be waiting to hear ours.” – Nicole Hemmer, assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, co-host of the Past Present podcast and author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics

“This cake is baked. Any hope that Donald Trump could deliver a game-changing last-ditch final debate performance was dashed when he refused to accept the Election Day results. Everyone except for the most delusional Trump supporter knows that Hillary Clinton will be the next president. … But the truth is Trump lost this race the day he entered it, when he smeared Latino immigrants as rapists and criminals. He has never led in poll averages against Clinton, save for a brief convention bounce, because he never stopped being a candidate of white right-wing rage in a multicultural center-left nation.” – Bill Scher, senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future, co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ” and Politico Magazine contributing editor

“Trump is on track to be the biggest loser in a national campaign since Walter Mondale.” – Katie Packer, a Republican consultant, adjunct professor at George Washington University and founder of the anti-Donald Trump super PAC Our Principles PACKatie Packer, a Republican consultant, adjunct professor at George Washington University and founder of the anti-Donald Trump super PAC Our Principles PAC

One could go on here. And on and on.

But without question the smug sense of elitist moral superiority over those vulgar, common people who supported Trump was unmistakeable. Is it any wonder that, dumbfounded at having so grossly misjudged the election, the elites would do anything other than exactly what they so vehemently accused Trump of being willing to do? Which is to say, not accept the election results.

No. Of course not. As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, it is a huge mistake to think that this flat-out refusal to accept the election results will simply fade once Trump is sworn in. This is going to be the modus operandi of the Left for the entire Trump term or terms. The subject will change — the underlying theme and tactics will not. Already former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is pitching the idea that rich, liberal entertainers like Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z, Madonna and more do a counter-inauguration concert. Presumably to detract from the Trump inauguration and the traditional concerts and balls that have become staples of a modern inauguration.

It never occurs to any of these people that the reason Hillary Clinton is not going to be president of the United States isn’t because of Russian hackers or anything else. Simply put she lost because she — and many of her supporters — were too smug, too elitist, too arrogant and too condescending to voters.

And surprise, surprise those voters did not take kindly to it. (For more from the author of “Smug, Arrogant, Elitist Liberals STILL Refuse to Fathom President Trump” please click HERE)

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4 Ways Congress Sought to Change or Scrap the Electoral College

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On Monday, 538 presidential electors selected by voters on Nov. 8 will choose a president when the Electoral College votes in states across the country.

This year marks the fifth time in history the popular vote winner lost the presidency. The other elections were in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.

Though Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232, it may not be over yet. Several activist groups are demanding electors reject their state’s voters and cast a vote for someone other than Trump.

More than 50 of the 232 Democratic electors, and one Republican elector, have even asked for a national security briefing on the potential Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee emails before casting a vote.

President Barack Obama opted against weighing in on what electors should do, but spoke during his Friday press conference more generally about the Electoral College. Obama said:

The Electoral College is a vestige of an earlier vision of how our federal government was going to work that put a lot of premium on states. It used to be that the Senate was not elected directly, it was just decided by state legislatures. It’s the same type of thinking that gives Wyoming two senators with about half a million people and California with 32 million get the same two. There are some structures in our political system that disadvantage Democrats. But the truth of the matter is, if we have a strong message, if we are speaking to the issues the American people care about, typically the popular vote and the Electoral College vote will align.

Congress has considered 850 separate proposals to amend the Constitution to change the way a president is elected, said Christine Blackerby, co-curator of the “Amending America” exhibit at the National Archives Museum.

Here is a look at a few of those efforts.

12th Amendment

The first major proposed change to the Electoral College was the only successful reform, coming in response to a glitch exposed in the 1800 election.

Presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson and his vice presidential running mate Aaron Burr got the same number of Electoral College votes, 73 each. The problem was, in those days, the second place finisher in a presidential race was the vice president. The House of Representatives voted 35 times before finally electing Jefferson president.

Congress passed the amendment on Dec. 9, 1803, and it was ratified on June 15, 1804, putting the president and vice president on a ticket for electors to choose.

Lottery President

In 1846, a proposal was floated in Congress to replace the Electoral College with a lottery system.

Under this proposal, each state would have its own election. The winners of each of those elections would then be chosen by lot in Washington. Balls with names of candidates would be placed in a bowl, similar to lottery drawings seen today on TV. The first name drawn would be president, the second name drawn would be the vice president, Blackerby explained.

The proposal, House Joint Resolution 8, introduced on Jan. 13, 1846, never came to a vote.

Still, the “Amending America” exhibit allows visitors to see the most popular person from each state based on Google searches, then entered into a random drawing, to see who could be president today if this system had been enacted.

Executive Committees

Although the biggest complaint against the Electoral College is typically that it’s undemocratic, the exhibit lists two occasions that Congress considered taking matters entirely out of voters’ hands.

In 1808, a constitutional amendment was introduced in Congress to scrap the Electoral College and replace it with a special committee of retired U.S. senators to choose the next president.

Congress introduced a similar proposal in 1860, just before the Civil War broke out. In this case, Congress and the executive branch would appoint a three-person committee that would choose the president every four years.

Direct Popular Vote

Of the hundreds of proposed changes to electing a president, a popular vote was far and away the most common. Similar bills have been introduced in nearly every session of Congress, but in most cases they were never debated nor acted upon.

The most recent examples where a popular vote proposal nearly passed were in 1969 and 1975, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

After the 1968 presidential election, third-party candidate George Wallace won 46 electoral votes. This prompted enough concern about third parties that Rep. Emanuel Celler, D-N.Y., proposed a resolution abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a popular election, in which the winner would have to win at least 40 percent of the vote. The resolution passed the House by a 338-70 vote, but it was blocked by a filibuster in the Senate.

After the close 1976 election, Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., proposed a bill to amend the Constitution and switch to a direct popular vote. The bill failed by a close 51-48 vote

In other examples of action on the proposal to move to a popular vote, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the proposal in 1947, 1949, 1951, and 1969. The Senate subcommittee on constitutional amendments held hearings in 1948, 1953, 1955, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1967, and 1969. (For more from the author of “4 Ways Congress Sought to Change or Scrap the Electoral College” please click HERE)

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What to Know About the Fiscal Hawk Trump Chose as Budget Director

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President-elect Donald Trump chose one of the most outspoken fiscal conservatives in Congress, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, to be director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Mulvaney, a South Carolina Republican, is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, the most conservative group in Congress. He has pushed to cut both domestic and defense spending since being elected to the House in 2010 as part of the tea party wave.

“It is a great honor to be appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Mulvaney said in a statement. “The Trump administration will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington after eight years of an out-of-control, tax-and-spend financial agenda, and will work with Congress to create policies that will be friendly to American workers and businesses.”

If the Senate confirms Mulvaney, 49, as budget director, he will help shepherd Trump’s agenda through Congress, including drafting the president’s first budget, guiding repeal of Obamacare, enacting tax reform, and potentially, passing a major infrastructure spending package.

“We are going to do great things for the American people with Mick Mulvaney leading the Office of Management and Budget,” Trump said in a statement. “Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink.”

Here are four things to know about Mulvaney.

1. Not Afraid to Fight the Establishment

In 2011, as the U.S. was on the brink of default, Mulvaney voted against raising the debt ceiling, insisting that its passage be paired with “Cut, Cap and Balance,” a measure that would have slashed spending and imposed a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

He also helped lead an effort to defund Obamacare that resulted in a 16-day government shutdown in 2013.

At the start of his second term in 2013, Mulvaney declined to support the re-election of then-House Speaker John Boehner, abstaining from the vote in protest.

2. Founder of the Freedom Caucus

After he lost his campaign in 2014 to become chairman of the Republican Study Committee—the largest group of House Republicans—Mulvaney helped organize a splinter group, the Freedom Caucus, to push the chamber further to the right.

The Freedom Caucus attracted national attention in 2015 when it pushed Boehner into early retirement.

As budget director, Mulvaney will be a key figure in repealing federal regulations implemented by the Obama administration.

Recently, the Freedom Caucus released a list of 232 regulations that it wants Trump to repeal, including ones dealing with climate change, nutrition, immigration, labor, and energy.

3. Willingness to Work With Leadership, Democrats

Mulvaney has allied with Republican leaders and Democrats on some issues.

On defense issues, he has opposed the use of a separate war funding account known as overseas contingency operations, a budgetary maneuver used to avoid spending caps to fund military and anti-terror operations abroad, such as the military campaign against ISIS.

He’s called the account a “slush fund.” Trump, meanwhile, has promised to invest more in the military and escalate the fight against ISIS.

Mulvaney, who speaks Spanish, has also worked on immigration reform, and he said that he supports legal status for some of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

He’s friendly with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and was among three members who gave nominating speeches for Ryan in the House GOP leadership election last month.

During his run for Republican Study Committee chairman, Mulvaney told The Daily Signal how he balances his rabble-rousing instincts with dealmaking on issues he cares about.

“I don’t think it’s the role of the RSC chair to be a shill for leadership,” Mulvaney said. “This is not a leadership position. This is separate and apart from that. So I think it’s incumbent upon the chairman to walk that fine line between working with leadership sometimes and pushing back at them at others. And I think I’ve shown the ability to do that. You have to have that credibility. What’s the best way to move the larger conference to the right?”

4. Personal, Professional Background

Mulvaney serves on the Financial Services Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He first entered politics in 2006, when he was elected to the South Carolina House. Before that, he was a private-practice lawyer and businessman, working in his family’s home-building business, and helping run a regional restaurant chain.

Mulvaney has a degree in international economics from Georgetown University and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He was born in Alexandria, Virginia, but grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, before moving to South Carolina.

His House office is decorated with South Carolina sports memorabilia. Mulvaney is Roman Catholic. He is married with three children, a set of triplets. (For more from the author of “What to Know About the Fiscal Hawk Trump Chose as Budget Director” please click HERE)

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The Most Important Cabinet Member You’re Not Paying Attention To

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President-elect Trump is nearly finished filling out his Cabinet. One of the remaining spots — and in my opinion, the most important — remains undecided. The position in question? The director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The individuals who serve in Trump’s Cabinet will get the opportunity to oversee the agency or department within their specialized domains, like, for example, the Department of Defense, or the Environmental Protection Agency. But unlike those positions, the director of OMB gets the opportunity to keep tabs on each individual government agency.

That’s because OMB is specifically tasked with allocating the federal budget to the various agencies, as well as monitoring agency performance and providing financial management. OMB is also required to, “coordinate and review all significant Federal regulations by executive agencies,” — no easy task for a government that loves to spend money and promulgate never-ending regulations.

Since OMB is also responsible for drafting and formatting the President’s budget, this also allows this office to be intimately involved in all the policy and spending priorities for the entire federal government.

Although the director of OMB is not treated with the same eminence as those who run the State Department or the Department of Defense, few Cabinet positions are as important as the individual in charge of the budget office for these very reasons.

Some of the individuals chosen to join Trump’s Cabinet are controversial. For example, Trump’s choice for the deputy secretary of state postition, John Bolton, has been met with consternation by many in the liberty movement, such as Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%) for his stance on issues like bombing Iran and supporting the Iraq war.

Still, conservatives and small-government Republicans should be optimistic about the names currently being floated for director of OMB. The first name floated was former Senator Tom Coburn. Coburn was an astute study of the budget during his days in the Senate, and was referred to by CNN as “a former US Senator from Oklahoma, who turned his Senate career into a crusade against government spending.”

He was also the champion of eliminating government waste, even in programs considered sacrosanct, like the military; he was a long-time advocate of fixing the Pentagon’s broken budget by demanding an audit. But Coburn also made that his mission government-wide, and was well known for publishing detailed reports on government waste.

Another promising name, and small government warrior, that has been mentioned is Congressman Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C. (A, 94%). One of the more conservative members of Congress, he is a member of the Freedom Caucus.

This often means that Mulvaney stands on principle against his own party. For example, when Republican leaders proposed the Bipartisan Budget Act — a bill to hamstring spending restraints by $63 billion — it was Mulvaney that spearheaded opposition to the deal.

In addition, Mulvaney has long advocated for a balanced budget, lower taxes, and eliminating corporate cronyism, like the Export-Import bank.

Among some of the other promising names that have been mentioned is David Malpass, a strong conservative economist by training, and a former high-ranking Reagan and George H.W. Bush official. Malpass also shares the list of names with Eric Ueland, a long-time budget staffer on the Senate Budget Committee.

The current list of conservative individuals under consideration for this position deserves more attention than perhaps any time since President Truman took office. That’s because this OMB director will have a daunting challenge in controlling government spending and debt, more than ever before. Consider the article by the Committee for a Responsible Federal budget, titled, “Trump Will Face Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratio of Any New President Since Truman.”

By our estimates, the national debt will total about 77 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) when Trump takes office, compared to 103 percent when Truman took office at the end of World War II, 58 percent when Eisenhower took office, and 46 percent when Clinton took office.

And yet, it’s not even fair to compare the debt under Truman with that of Obama. The debt that materialized under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman was almost solely related to the one-time expenses of fighting World War II. As you can see in the graph, once the war was over, the debts were quickly whittled away. That’s not the case today. Instead, our debts are becoming increasingly structural; the result of promised entitlement spending like Social Security and Medicare.

So really, the task that confronts today’s budget head will be far more daunting than anything that faced Truman. Consider this; by 2021, Social Security and Medicare alone will consume half of every dollar the government brings in. Whereas Truman could allocate surplus dollars to paying down the debt instead of buying tanks, post WWII, the budget director under Trump must decide between taking on more debt and tackling the acrimonious challenge of entitlement reform.

Still, conservatives deserved a good list of names to run what may become the most important office in the White House, and Trump has made a wise selection so far. This is what conservatives fought for. This is where we can make the government small again, and scale back Obama’s absurd regulations. (For more from the author of “The Most Important Cabinet Member You’re Not Paying Attention To” please click HERE)

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