Trump would be willing to remove Bannon from National Security Council

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that if President Donald Trump’s newly appointed national security adviser wanted to remove chief strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council’s principals committee, the president would “take that under serious consideration.”
“The president has made clear to him he’s got full authority to structure the national security team the way he wants,” Mr. Spicer said of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, whom Mr. Trump appointed Monday as his new national security adviser. Mr. Spicer made the remarks in the daily White House press briefing.
When asked if Gen. McMaster’s control over his team would extend to control of the principals committee and the potential removal of the chief strategist, Mr. Spicer said that Gen. McMaster “would come to the president and make that recommendation, but the president would take that under high—you know, serious consideration.”
Mr. Spicer added that in meetings with people for the position of national security adviser over the weekend, “The president made it very clear with [Gen. McMaster] and the other candidates that they had 100% control and authority over the national security committee.”
Gen. McMaster hasn’t indicated any changes he would like to make regarding the National Security Council.
Mr. Spicer said that Gen. McMaster, currently a three-star lieutenant general, would remain on active duty while serving as national security adviser. As such, if he retains his three-star rank, his appointment would be subject to Senate confirmation, according to a statement from a Senate Armed Services Committee aide. If he moves down a notch to a two-star major general, he wouldn’t be subject to Senate confirmation, the aide said.
Mr. Trump last month took the unusual step of adding Mr. Bannon, a former media and financial executive who was an architect of the president’s campaign strategy, to the National Security Council’s principals committee while downgrading the status of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The move—which meant Mr. Bannon would be invited to all council meetings—drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, who questioned whether Mr. Bannon’s addition would insert domestic politics into national-security decision-making.

DHS secretary orders immigration agent hiring surge, end to 'catch-and-release'

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly moved Tuesday to implement a host of immigration enforcement changes ordered by President Trump, directing agency heads to hire thousands more officers, end so-called “catch-and-release” policies and begin work on the president’s promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.
“It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security,” Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.
The memos follow up on Trump’s related executive actions from January and, at their heart, aim to toughen enforcement by expanding the categories of illegal immigrants targeted for deportation.
The changes would spare so-called "dreamers." On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014. But outside those exemptions, Kelly wrote that DHS “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”
A DHS official said the agencies are “going back to our traditional roots” on enforcement. 
The memos cover a sprawling set of initiatives including:

• Prioritizing criminal illegal immigrants and others for deportation, including those convicted or charged with “any criminal offense,” or who have “abused” any public welfare program 
• Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration
• Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall
• Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers
• Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents  
• Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

It’s unclear what timelines the secretary is setting for some of these objectives, and what budgetary and other constraints the department and its myriad agencies will face. In pursuing an end to “catch-and-release,” one memo called for a plan with the Justice Department to “surge” immigration judges and asylum officers to handle additional cases.
While congressional Republicans have vowed to work with Trump to fund the front-end costs associated with his promised border wall, the same memo also hints at future efforts to potentially use money otherwise meant for Mexico – following on Trump’s repeated campaign vow to make Mexico pay for the wall. The secretary called for “identifying and quantifying” sources of aid to Mexico, without saying in the memo how that information might be used.
Mexican officials repeatedly have said they will not pay for a border barrier. DHS said it has identified initial locations to build a wall where current fencing is not effective, near El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and El Centro, Calif.
The DHS directives come as the Trump White House continues to work on rewriting its controversial executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program as well as travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. The order was put on hold by a federal court, and Trump’s team is said to be working on a new measure.
The directives also come as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups for recent ICE raids of illegal immigrants.
DHS officials on Tuesday’s conference call stressed that they are operating under existing law and once again shot down an apparently erroneous news report from last week claiming National Guard troops could be utilized to round up illegal immigrants. That will not happen, an official said.
“We’re going to treat everyone humanely and with dignity, but we are going to execute the laws of the United States,” a DHS official said on the conference call.

Trump administration working on new transgender bathroom directive

The Trump administration is working to undo an Obama-era directive that allows students to use school restrooms that corresponds with their gender identity, the White House said Tuesday.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer did not go into specifics on the new set of guidelines being prepared by the Justice Department, but said Trump has long held that such matters should be left to the states-- not the federal government-- to decide.
“I think that all you have to do is look at what the president's view has been for a long time, that this is not something the federal government should be involved in, this is a states' rights issue," Spicer said.
The Washington Post obtained a draft of the letter to the nation’s schools, which is planned to be released Wednesday.
The White House plans to say that they are rolling back the directive allowing transgender students access to restrooms and participate in school athletics according to their gender identity and not their gender at birth.
The letter also states that the directive “has given rise to significant litigation” and administrators, parents and students “struggled” to understand and implement the Obama administration’s guidance.
The White House will insist that schools must protect all students and the undoing of the directive “does not diminish the protections" available to all students.
Trump was a vocal critic about the Obama administration’s guidance during the 2016 campaign.
Trump said in a phone interview on “Fox & Friends” in May 2016 that the directive was becoming a “massive story” despite it only affecting a “tiny, tiny” percentage of the population.
"It's a new issue and right now, I just don't have an opinion. I’d like to see the states make that decision," Trump said at the time.
Trump was also outspoken about North Carolina passing a law on bathroom use by transgender people.
"I love North Carolina, and they have a law, and it's a law that, you know, unfortunately is causing them some problems," Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an April 2016 interview. "And I fully understand that they want to go through, but they are losing business, and they are having people come out against."
"I think that local communities and states should make the decision," he went on to say. "And I feel very strongly about that. The federal government should not be involved."
Fifteen states have explicit protections for transgender students, and many individual school districts have adopted policies that recognize students on the basis of their gender identity, said Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign.
Only one state-- North Carolina-- has enacted a law restricting students' bathroom access to their sex at birth. Other states are considering following suit.
Vanita Gupta, who was head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division under Obama, blasted the Trump administration's attempt to alter the guidelines.
"To cloak this in federalism ignores the vital and historic role that federal law plays in ensuring that all children, (including LGBT students) are able to attend school free from discrimination," Gupta said in a statement.
Even without Obama's guidelines, federal law — called Title IX — would still prohibit discrimination against students based on their gender or sexual orientation, the National Center for Transgender Equality said. Rescinding those directives would put children in harm's way, the group said.
"Such clear action directed at children would be a brazen and shameless attack on hundreds of thousands of young Americans who must already defend themselves against schoolyard bullies, but are ill-equipped to fight bullies on the floors of their state legislatures and in the White House," NCTE said in a statement.
But Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said students, parents and teachers should work out "win-win" solutions at the local level, such as equipping schools with single-occupancy restrooms or locker rooms or allowing students to access the faculty lounge.
"We can find a way in which the privacy and safety of transgender students is respected while also respecting the privacy and safety of all other students," Anderson said.

Muslim American Cartoons

Is Le Pen mightier than the sword?

France will choose a new president this spring, in a two-stage election process that for decades has come down to a choice between left-leaning Socialists and a right-of-center party that recently changed its name to Les Républicains.
This year, however, a third candidate has put the direction of the country very much in doubt. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, is campaigning on an anti-illegal immigrant, anti-European Union, unabashedly populist platform. And yes, except for being a woman and not a billionaire, she could easily be called France’s Donald Trump.
Not coincidentally, Le Pen calls her followers the “forgotten” French and promises to restore jobs and prosperity. Wonder where she got that?
Her chances of actually winning are considered slim, just as Trump’s were. Her rhetoric is heated and offensive to many, like Trump’s. She has no regard for traditional rules of political conduct. Her fans are rabid, her enemies legion and vicious in their appraisal of her. She is loathed by the press that covers her just like . . .  go ahead, fill in the blank.
Yet for all her polarizing positions and unorthodox style, Le Pen is leading in some national polls before the April 23 first round of elections. If she comes in first or second, she would proceed to a run-off in May against either a Socialist or a Republican rival, either of whom, polls suggest, would defeat her.
Why the second-round cliff-fall? A majority of French voters who were polled said they dislike Le Pen and would never vote for her. However, her self-declared supporters -- most of them blue-collar working class or unemployed -- say they will vote for only Le Pen or not at all. Much of her support comes for her non-stop call to halt immigrants from flooding into France as they have since the European Union opened its doors to displaced refugees from the Middle East and Africa.
That open-arms policy is deeply unpopular in France. Le Pen vows to end it. She also questions the value of French membership in the EU, but has stopped short of saying she would lead a “Frexit” movement, like the one that will soon wall off England economically from the European continent.
Right now, the carnivorous French press are honing their swords over unproven allegations that Le Pen, who is also an elected member of the European Parliament, paid her personal bodyguard with funds earmarked for parliamentary purposes. Le Pen denies wrongdoing, but it is the talk of Paris, galvanizing her many detractors in the capital.
Le Pen’s very name is enough to make many Frenchmen cringe. Her late father, from whom she inherited leadership of the National Front, was a racist and a Holocaust denier. Le Pen rejects her father’s extremism, but has carried on his mantra that France should be for the French.
Le Pen visited Trump Tower in New York last month, but only to visit a friend who lives there. Both she and the American president say they never met.
Le Pen may be the political equivalent of the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl this year -- holding the lead at halftime, only to see it slip away as the clock runs out.
On the other hand, most political polls last November gave Trump no chance of winning the White House. Crow tastes better when it’s marinated in a good French wine, don’t you think?  

Ami Horowitz defends Sweden refugee claims from backlash over Trump remark

Filmmaker Ami Horowitz defended his investigation of refugees in Sweden Monday night amid a blacklash after President Donald Trump cited his work during a campaign speech over the weekend. 
"Between 2012 and 2016 the murder rate [in Sweden] is up almost 70 percent," Horowitz told "Tucker Carlson Tonight," citing the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. "Rape between 2007 and 2015 is up a similar number, almost 70 percent. These are their statistics, not my statistics."
TRUMP MAY HAVE BEEN UNCLEAR, BUT SWEDEN EXPERIENCING A MIGRANT CRIME WAVE
At the Florida event Saturday, Trump said Sweden "took in large numbers" of refugees and was "having problems like they never thought possible." Trump later specified on Twitter that he was referring to Carlson's original segment with Horowitz, which aired Friday night. 
Trump's remarks, which implied that a terror attack had hit Sweden Friday night, was roundly criticized by Swedish officials and mainstream media outlets. A pair of policemen Horowitz interviewed for his film also took issue, with one referring to him as a "madman."
"Can you imagine the amount of pressure that must be on them from their bosses because of this maelstrom that they’ve kind of found themselves in?" Horowitz asked. "They’re the ones who discussed [how] they didn’t want to be considered racist. They’re the ones who used the words ‘no-go zones’ in describing these Islamic enclaves [in Swedish cities], not me."
Horowitz also denied he had deceived the policemen with a general discussion of crime in Sweden rather than crimes committed by refugees and migrants.
"I’ve never had a subject claim, and certainly not prove, that I ever misled them or ever doctored the footage," Horowitz said. "It’s never happened before. So, my record stands for itself, and what you saw on that video clear as day stands for itself."

Trump selects Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as national security adviser

President Trump on Monday tapped Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a warrior-scholar deemed an expert in counter insurgency, to be the director of the White House's National Security Council.
The 54-year-old McMaster replaces retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as the president’s national security adviser. Flynn was forced to resign after lying about talking to Russia, before he officially took the NSA post, about recently imposed sanctions.
“He is a man of tremendous talent and experience,” Trump said in announcing McMaster’s appointment. “He’s highly respected in the military, and we're lucky to have him.”
Trump also announced that Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg will remain as the NSC’s chief of staff.
“I’m proud to continue my service to the nation,” said McMaster, sitting next to Trump inside the president’s Florida resort home Mar-a-Lago.
Trump on Sunday interviewed several NSC candidates, in an attempt to solidify the intelligence team, days after calling for Flynn’s resignation.
McMaster is a Philadelphia native and West Point graduate who fought in the Persian Gulf War and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This is a great team,” Trump said. “The country is honored to have two people like this, and after having met so many people in the military, we're lucky to have all of them.”
Said Kellogg: "I'm honored and privileged to serve alongside Gen. McMaster. He's a great statesman."
Trump also thanked the others he interviewed this past weekend including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
The president said Bolton has “a good number of ideas that I agree with very much" and that he will work for him in a “different capacity.”
McMaster is currently director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. He joined the Army in 1984 and distinguished himself seven years later during the Gulf War in what would become known as the Battle of 73 Easting.
As captain of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's Eagle Troop, McMaster led a force of just nine tanks that took out more than 80 Iraqi Republican Guard tanks and armored vehicles.
He is the author of the 1997 book, "Dereliction of Duty," which criticized the U.S. government's handling of the Vietnam War.
In his latest role, McMaster was tasked with gauging the U.S, military capability against future threats. When he addressed lawmakers in April of last year, he warned that years of military cuts have left the U.S. vulnerable.
“We are outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries,” McMaster said. “[And] our army in the future risks being too small to secure the nation.”

Lewandowski slams Trump senior staff for recent missteps on immigration

Lewandowski slams rhetoric used against President Trump

President Trump’s former campaign manager on Monday took a swipe at the president’s inner circle, blaming their inexperience for some of Trump’s most recent public missteps.
“The staff has probably not prepared him as well as they could have or should have as it related to some of those executive orders and the implementation and what that would mean,” Corey Lewandowski said in an interview on David Axelrod’s “The Axe Files.”
Lewandowski took aim at the rocky rollout of Trump’s controversial immigration executive order, which wound up in federal court.
“You have a president who wants to move very quickly, who has a grand vision of what he wants to accomplish and is leaving the details to the staff to implement and (hoping) that the staff understands what that means,” Lewandowski said.
Much of the miscommunication lies with Trump’s closest comrades, he claimed.
 “As I look at the totality of senior staff – and if that’s Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner - the senior staff inside of the building, none of them have ever worked inside the government and I think it’s both a plus and a minus,” Lewandowski said. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Lewandowski spent 18 months as Trump’s campaign manager. He was key in helping score multiple primary wins but was fired in June after a protracted turf war.
“Enough people had told him that I didn’t have the core competency or capability to get him any further than I had gotten him, which at that point was the Republican nomination,” Lewandowski said. “They believed that they needed a more seasoned professional who was going to come in and run the campaign and at that juncture they believed that Paul Manafort - who candidly had never run a campaign in his life – has been a delegate counter – was that person.”
It’s no secret that Manafort and Lewandowski at times have been at odds with one another. They were both considered rival powerhouses jockeying for Trump’s attention during the campaign. Manafort took over operational control after Lewandowski left. Manafort resigned two months later after stories surfaced about his ties in Ukraine.
Despite his lack of confidence in Trump’s inner circle, Lewandowski says he’s remained friendly with Trump and continues to support his former boss’s broad outlook for the country. He also says the Trump White House can reset and move past its first unsteady month.
“What I think you’ll see moving forward hopefully is a measured approach,” Lewandowski said.  “Not to scale back on fulfilling the promises of the campaign but making sure that you have vetted it properly not only with the right legal entities but also giving a head’s up to those people in congress so you don’t have backlash from your own party.”
Trump has been dealing with the roughest stretch of his young presidency so far.
During a press conference where he was supposed to nominate former federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta for labor secretary after his first nominee, fast food chain CEO Andrew Puzder bowed out, Trump unleashed a battery of accusations against the media.
His lengthy presser came on the heels of Michael Flynn resigning as national security adviser over a controversy regarding his past contact with Russia’s ambassador.
At the press conference, Trump staunchly defended his administration’s work on everything from the economy to security.
“This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine,” Trump said.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.