Category: Republican Reality

GOP-led Congress starting to worry about its role in the Trump era

The following article by Lisa Mascaro was posted on the L.A> Times website January 30, 2017:

President Trump speaks as Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listens at a Republican retreat on Thursday in Philadelphia. (Pool)

It’s what congressional Republicans had long dreamed about: a majority in both chambers to advance conservative policies and a president from the same party to sign them into law.

But the Trump White House isn’t turning out exactly the way they envisioned.

The GOP establishment is experiencing whiplash after a week of President Trump bulldozing through the norms of policy and protocol — dashing off executive orders without warning, escalating a diplomatic crisis with the country’s closest southern neighbor, triggering global confusion with a new refugee policy and generally hijacking party leaders’ agenda and replacing it with his own.  Continue reading “GOP-led Congress starting to worry about its role in the Trump era”

5 Reasons It’s So Hard Not To Help Donald Trump

The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website January 30, 2017:

You probably hate using the words “President Trump” as much as I do.

Even if you do not invest the office of the presidency with mystical properties, you still recognize its extraordinary power to do good, or to strand thousands of people who are in the process of becoming permanent residents of the United States in countries and airports around the world.

“I am the President of the United States, clothed with immense power!” Tony Kushner has Abraham Lincoln say in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Continue reading “5 Reasons It’s So Hard Not To Help Donald Trump”

We Conservatives Warned You, Trump Will Not Get Better. Here’s What You Can Do.

The following article by Elliot A. Cohen of the Atlantic was posted on the DefenseOne.com website January 29, 2017:

President Trump, accompanied by Vice President Pence, center, shakes hands with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday at a Republican congressional retreat. (Matt Rourke/AP)

To my friends thinking of serving this administration, either you stand up for your principles and decent behavior, or you go down as a coward or opportunist.

I am not surprised by President Donald Trump’s antics this week. Not by the big splashy pronouncements such as announcing a wall that he would force Mexico to pay for, even as the Mexican foreign minister held talks with American officials in Washington. Not by the quiet, but no less dangerous bureaucratic orders, such as kicking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of meetings of the Principals’ Committee, the senior foreign-policy decision-making group below the president, while inserting his chief ideologist, Steve Bannon, into them. Many conservative foreign-policy and national-security experts saw the dangers last spring and summer, which is why we signed letters denouncing not Trump’s policies but his temperament; not his program but his character. Continue reading “We Conservatives Warned You, Trump Will Not Get Better. Here’s What You Can Do.”

Durbin Accuses Republicans of Trying to Keep Election Hacking Investigation Secret

The following article by Joseph Marks was posted on the NextGov.com website January 24, 2017:

Senate Republicans want to keep an investigation into Russian tampering in the 2016 election under tight wraps for fear of embarrassing the new President Donald Trump or the Republican party, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat charged Tuesday.

That accusation, leveled on Trump’s fourth full day in office, helps ensure cybersecurity and Russia’s role in the election will remain highly charged and highly partisan this year.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., described Russian government-backed hacks of Democratic political organizations as an “act of cyberwar” and “a day that will live in cyber infamy,” during an address at the Center for American Progress, echoing President Franklin Roosevelt’s description of Pearl Harbor. Continue reading “Durbin Accuses Republicans of Trying to Keep Election Hacking Investigation Secret”

Border Officers: Real Security is More Complicated than Building a Wall

The following article by Patrick Tucker was posted on the NextGov.com website January 26, 2017:

U.S. Border Wall Already in Place

President Donald Trump’s new executive orders to extend walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and deport undocumented individuals may have a popular appeal, but achieving real border security will likely take longer than many Trump supporters hope.

“We’re not ready to do it yet,” said one U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told Defense One on condition of anonymity at the 11th annual Biometrics for Government and Law Enforcement Summitt in Arlington, Virginia. “I think it will take years.”

Even CBP officials who spoke on the record said challenges to fully securing the border and identifying undocumented aliens will extend well beyond the construction of a wall, Right now, CBP catches 85 to 95 percent of undocumented people crossing the border, according to Antonio Trindad, CBP’s director of enforcement systems. Continue reading “Border Officers: Real Security is More Complicated than Building a Wall”

Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration

The following article by Karen DeYoung was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2017:

President Trump’s elevation of his chief political strategist to a major role in national security policy, and a White House order banning refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries from U.S. entry, appeared to come together as cause and effect over the weekend.

Stephen K. Bannon — whose nationalist convictions and hard-line oppositional view of globalism have long guided Trump — was directly involved in shaping the controversial immigration mandate, according to several people familiar with the drafting who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Continue reading “Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration”

Jihadist groups hail Trump’s travel ban as a victory

The following article by Joby Warrick was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2017:

President Trump signs an executive order Friday at the Pentagon that temporarily bans people from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Jihadist groups on Sunday celebrated the Trump administration’s ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, saying the new policy validates their claim that the United States is at war with Islam.

Comments posted to pro-Islamic State social media accounts predicted that President Trump’s executive order would persuade American Muslims to side with the extremists. One posting hailed the U.S. president as “the best caller to Islam,” while others predicted that Trump would soon launch a new war in the Middle East. Continue reading “Jihadist groups hail Trump’s travel ban as a victory”

Officials worry that U.S counterterrorism defenses will be weakened by Trump actions

The following article by Greg Miller and Missy Ryan was posted on the Washington Post website January 29, 2017:

President Trump signs an executive order Friday at the Pentagon that temporarily bans people from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Though cast as measures meant to make the country safe, the Trump administration’s moves during its first week in office are more likely to weaken the counterterrorism defenses the United States has erected over the past 16 years, several current and former U.S. officials said.

Through inflammatory rhetoric and hastily drawn executive orders, the administration has alienated allies, including Iraq, provided propaganda fodder to terrorist networks that frequently portray U.S. involvement in the Middle East as a religious crusade, and endangered critical cooperation from often-hidden U.S. partners — whether the leader of a mosque in an American suburb or the head of a Middle East intelligence service. Continue reading “Officials worry that U.S counterterrorism defenses will be weakened by Trump actions”

‘I Can’t Get Out Fast Enough’: Meet the Feds Who Say They’re Leaving Under Trump

The following article by Eric Katz was posted on the Government Executive website January 27, 2017:

“Most people are pretty somber,” says Antoinette Henry, a long-time employee at the Housing and Urban Development Department. “They’re either quiet or manic.”

Henry has worked as a career civil servant for 33 years. She had planned to stay at the department and apply for a promotion, as her boss recently left federal service. When President Trump took office, however, those plans changed.

“I think I’m going to go,” she said. “There’s too much uncertainty.” Continue reading “‘I Can’t Get Out Fast Enough’: Meet the Feds Who Say They’re Leaving Under Trump”

David Ingram and Mica Rosenberg Former U.S. Army Interpreter Sues Trump Over Immigration Order

An article with the above title by David Ingram and Mica Rosenberg of Reuters was posted on the National Memo website January 28, 2017:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An initial volley in a potential barrage of legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s new restrictions on immigration came on Saturday on behalf of two Iraqis with ties to U.S. security forces who were detained at New York’s JFK Airport.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, the men are challenging the directive on constitutional grounds. The suit says that their connections to the American forces made them targets in their home country, and the pair had valid visas to enter the United States. Continue reading “David Ingram and Mica Rosenberg Former U.S. Army Interpreter Sues Trump Over Immigration Order”