CPAC: Pence says 'America's ObamaCare nightmare is about to end'

Vice President Mike Pence sought to rally conservatives for the fight to repeal and replace ObamaCare Thursday, telling a fired-up CPAC audience that the health care law "has failed" and "must go."
"Let me assure you," Pence told the cheering crowd. "America’s ObamaCare nightmare is about to end."
"This failed law is crippling the American economy and crushing the American people," added Pence, who called promises made by liberals about former president Obama's health reform "fake news."
"Now we all know the truth," the vice president said. "Higher costs, fewer choices, worse care. That's ObamaCare."
CPAC LEADER BLASTS 'ALT-RIGHT' AS CONSERVATIVES DEFINE AGENDA UNDER TRUMP
Pence vowed that ObamaCare would be replaced with "something that actually works, something that's built on freedom and individual responsibility." He promised "an orderly transition to a better health care system" and repeated Trump's campaign vow that any new healthcare law would allow the purchase of insurance across state lines and ensure that customers with pre-existing conditions would be covered.
Pence did not offer a timetable for any new legislation. Another CPAC speaker, former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, called earlier Thursday for the immediate dismantling of the 2010 health care law, saying the argument that a replacement plan must also be in place is “ludicrous.”
Pence's speech capped the first day of the annual conference, during which President Donald Trump's top aides warned activists not to waste GOP control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
"We as conservatives have an opportunity that only comes around every few generations, or maybe just once in a lifetime," Pence said. "My friends, this is our time."
HALFTIME REPORT: WHAT TRUMP SHOULD SAY ON TUESDAY
Referencing the turbulent town halls that have greeted Republican lawmakers during the congressional recess, Pence urged CPAC attendees to "rise to the challenge before us."
"The other side is not sitting idle," the vice president warned before telling his audience to "mobilize" and "march foward" to defend Trump's agenda.
"Our fight didn’t end on [Election Day]," Pence said. "We won the day, but make no mistake about it. The harder work, the most important work, now lies ahead."

Trump set to take center stage at CPAC as theme appears to be now or never

Ted Cruz on how conservatives are viewing President Trump

When President Trump takes the stage at CPAC on Friday at 10 a.m. ET, there will likely be as many optimistic conservatives inside the Maryland convention center as there are suspicious.
But no matter how you define Trump's conservative bonafides, it appears to be the first time in decades for a Republican president-- whose party controls both chambers of Congress-- can implement a largely conservative agenda.
"We conservatives have an opportunity that only comes around every few generations,” Vice President Pence told CPAC on Thursday. “My friends, this is our time.”
VIDEO: BANNON ATTACKS 'OPPOSITION PARTY' MEDIA AT CPAC
There are some conservatives who will never embrace the former Democrat who, according to the Associated Press, once elicited boos at the conference held annually at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in suburban Maryland.
Trump addressed CPAC in 2011 and was booed when he said crowd-favorite Sen. Ron Paul “can not get elected.” Paul and his son Sen. Rand Paul usually dominate the conference’s straw poll. Sen. Ted Cruz won last year’s poll and Trump came in a modest third.
VIDEO: KRAUTHAMMER: BANNON SHOWS HE WAS THE BRAINS OF OPERATION
Trump skipped last year’s event during the presidential primary and the group, in response, said the decision “sends a clear message to conservatives.”
The Guardian newspaper wrote, “As the real estate developer said of Ron Paul in 2011, “I think he’s a good guy but honestly he has zero chance of being elected. You have to win an election.” Trump won that election, and this will be first time that the conservative movement under Trump will be on full display.”
Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump told CPAC that “tomorrow it will be TPAC when he’s here."
One of Trump's top issues is how he will approach his call to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Trump has recently said that his administration will release a plan in the upcoming weeks, but the issue has been a hot topic for conservatives who want to see the law repealed.
VIDEO: TED CRUZ ON HOW CONSERVATIVES VIEW TRUMP
Despite some differences, Trump appears to be gaining support from top conservative leaders.
Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union, which holds the event, said Trump has been “pitch-perfect with conservatives as he starts his administration.” He complemented Trump’s Cabinet selections and his choice to replace Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court.
Schlapp told NBC News that Trump managed to marry “conservative instincts” to a populist tone.
Grover Norquist, another CPAC faithful, mentioned Trump’s tax plan and said, “Damn near the entire conservative wish list on tax policy is in his tax reforms.”
White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon told the CPAC crowd on Thursday that “appreciation” will largely be the theme for Trump during his speech.
LIST OF CPAC SPEAKERS
Bannon appeared on stage with White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to, according to some reports, show a united front after speculation that Trump’s inner circle is divided.
“Trump may either accomplish more than Republican presidents did in terms of a conservative agenda, despite all the chaos and drama…or he will redefine conservatism,” Rick Tyler, a GOP strategist and former spokesman for Cruz’s presidential campaign, told NPR. “The movement is at a crossroads, and it remains a known unknown where it is going.”
Ben Howe, a contributing editor at Red State and critic of Trump, told NBC that the conservative wing of the party was divided last year, but this year it is “going to be the ‘Make America Great Again’ CPAC, which is going to be a very different makeup then what I’m accustomed to.”

Cry Baby Democrat Cartoons

Civil Rights Activist: Illegal Immigration Hurts Job Prospects for Black Men

Tucker Carlson was joined tonight by a civil rights leader who says that black males are disproportionately hurt by illegal immigration.
Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, explained that black males are more likely to experience competition from illegal immigrants.
"It's Econ 101, Tucker. When you have an oversupply of labor, the price of labor is going to be depressed," Kirsanow said, adding that there's a striking oversupply of low-skill labor.
He noted that this doesn't effect just black males, but all low-skilled American workers.
He said that black males, however, are disproportionately concentrated in low-skill labor markets, which is also where the bulk of legal and illegal immigrants over the past 20 years are concentrated.
"We're talking about, at the very low end, hundreds of thousands of blacks losing jobs, probably if you do the math, up to 1.2 million blacks losing jobs," Kirsanow said. "This has significant, obviously, impacts on the black community."
He lamented that many on the left and many black congressional leaders have embraced the "open borders philosophy" that's done such damage to black employment prospects.

Conservatives flock to CPAC to chart agenda under Trump

Byron York on significance of Trump's scheduled trip to CPAC

For the last eight years, conservatives used their signature annual gathering to blast the Obama administration and plot a Republican takeover. Now, the GOP is in charge -- and this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference is the movement’s first big chance since President Trump’s victory to hone their agenda.
“The conservative movement has elected a Republican president,” American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp said Wednesday, at the start of the annual conference, which his group sponsors. “It’s not so much now about complaining about President Obama’s agenda as it is about what we’ll do with political power and the responsibility to get the economy moving.”
Leaders are hoping to use the conference to strategize about what they can accomplish now that Republicans control Capitol Hill and the White House and to work to better articulate their values at a time when the very definition of conservatism has seemed to waver.
The conference at National Harbor, just outside Washington, D.C., will feature a host of lawmakers and officials -- starting with top White House advisers on Thursday afternoon, followed by Vice President Pence on Thursday evening and President Trump on Friday morning.
But much of the buzz around the four-day event has centered on CPAC organizers pulling the speaking slot of “alt-right” provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, after the release of an audio tape in which he made what Schlapp called “disgusting” comments.
Yiannopoulos seems on the year-old tape to defend adults having sex with minors. Yiannopoulos apologized this week for the comments and said he had been sexually abused as a teen.
Schlapp said Wednesday that CPAC invited Yiannopoulos because the backlash he faced for his college talks were part of a large, chilling effect regarding free speech on campus.
“We understand the alt-right, but it has no voice in conservativism,” Schlapp said. “Bigotry has no voice in conservativism.”
The flap highlighted tensions between traditional conservatives and the alt-right, which helped boost Trump’s bid.
The Republican president, with his threats to void or renegotiate international trade deals and his interest in a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure package, is not exactly a prototype conservative.
But Schlapp said conservatives hope to hear him say, “I know you all did a lot to get me elected,” and perhaps after the four-day event better understand “what they care about.”
The attendance of Trump, the first president since Ronald Reagan to visit CPAC in a first term, has indeed brought some energy to the 44-year-old event.
But other scheduled speakers and events -- including the speech by Pence and a one-on-one Thursday between White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Trump strategist Steve Bannon -- are also attracting a lot of interest.
Bannon and Priebus are reportedly involved in a White House power struggle but say they get along.
Yiannopoulos had worked for Bannon at Breitbart News before Bannon stepped down and Yiannopoulos resigned in the wake of the scandal.
The event concludes Saturday with the annual CPAC straw poll, an early indication of which potential White House candidates have  conservative support.

Revised 'extreme vetting' order drops language rejecting Syrian refugees, official says

President Donald Trump's revised immigration executive order will drop language indefinitely suspending acceptance of Syrian refugees by U.S. authorities, a senior administration official told Fox News Wendesday.
The new order, which Trump is expected to sign next week, will also add language exempting legal permanent residents, or green-card holders, from a travel ban in a move the administration hopes will remove any reasonable grounds for a legal challenge.

Trump's prior "extreme vetting" order temporarily suspended all travel to the U.S. for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. A federal judge in Washington state halted enforcement of the order and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate it.
The official said that new language in the revised order will make clear that the intent of the action is to "temporarily block the admission of people with no prior status in the U.S. who are currently overseas until a program of extreme vetting can be put in place."
The White House believes that new order will satisy the courts because it is "grounded in existing security determinations," the official said.
The official told Fox News that it is likely that certain classes of visa holders currently in the U.S. or who have been in the U.S. but are currently abroad will be exempted as well. This could include certain student or other education-related visas as well as work permits.
The new order would direct a temporary suspension of admission of all refugees while revised screening meansures are put into place, the official added.
The new order does implement a temporary visa ban for travelers from the same seven countries as the previous executive order: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
The revised order will also mandate a 50 percent reduction in refugee admissions for 2017 to just 50,000.  According to the White House, approximately 35,000 refugees have already been allowed into the country this year, leaving only about 15,000 slots left for the remainder of the year once the refugee admission program resumes.

Voters' support of ObamaCare rising, despite Republican push

A new poll released Wednesday adds a new element for congressional Republicans to consider about their repeal-and-replace approach to former-President Obama’s cornerstone legislation: more American voters appear to be support the law.
According to a Politico/Morning Consult poll, there is an even split between registered voters who support the law and those who oppose it. Currently, 45 percent approve of the legislation compared to a poll back in January—before President Trump took office—that showed 41 percent of voters approved of the bill.
VIDEO: UPROAR AT TOWN HALLS AIMED AT REPUBLICANS OVER OBAMACARE
Kyle Dropp, the co-founder of Morning Consult, told Politico that the closer ObamaCare comes to the chopping block, its weekly poll “has shown an uptick in the law’s popularity.”
The only item in the poll that remained unpopular was the individual mandate.
Trump, who said during his campaign that he will replace the law with “something far better,” has tried to calm critics who say Republicans are divided on the issue.
Trump has been edging away from the promise to quickly eliminate the entire law. Still, annulling its taxes would be a partial victory and is irresistible for many GOP lawmakers and the conservative voters at the core of their support.
"We should do full repeal," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leading House conservative. "And full repeal means not taking the taxes" from people.
DR. MARC SIEGEL'S ADVICE FOR THE OBAMACARE TRANSITION
Despite the law’s apparent increase in popularity, just last week the CEO of Aetna said in an interview that the law is in a “death spiral” because younger, healthier people have dropped out while premiums continue to climb.
Under the 2010 law, people are required to have health coverage or risk fines from the IRS -- a penalty usually deducted from a taxpayer's refund. That underlying requirement remains on the books, and taxpayers are still legally obligated to comply, the IRS said.
But the agency is changing its approach to enforcement. Originally, the IRS had planned to start rejecting returns this year if a taxpayer failed to indicate whether he or she had coverage. Now the IRS says it will keep processing such returns, as it has in the past.
Many of the law's supporters consider the coverage requirement essential for nudging younger, healthy people into the insurance pool to keep premiums in check.

Fake News Cartoons

Sean Hannity: Trump frustrates 'fake news' media at every turn

President Trump is once again showing he is no longer going to put up with the out-of-control left-wing media bias. And this weekend in Florida, the president once again took direct aim at these corrupt news organizations.
“The dishonest media, which has published one false story after another with no sources, even though they pretend they have them, they make them up in many cases,” Trump said over the weekend. “And they've been calling us wrong now for two years. They don't get it, but they're starting to get it, I can tell you that. They've become a big part of the problem. They are part of the corrupt system.
Trump’s broadside continued as he labeled the press an “enemy of the people” and rallied his supporters directly – instead of allowing his words to be filtered through the abusively biased media.
“We are not going to let the fake news tell us what to do, how to live or what to believe,” he said to thunderous applause. “We are free and independent people, and we will make our own choices.”
The alt-left propaganda media responded in a pathetically predictable fashion.
“Trump's attacks on the American press as enemies of the American people are more treacherous than Richard Nixon's attacks on the press,” journalist and author Carl Bernstein told CNN. “Nixon's attacks on the press were largely in private. There's a history of what ‘enemy of the people’ … means as used by dictators and authoritarians, including Stalin, including Hitler. And I'm not about to say anything about comparing Hitler and Trump, but it's a demagogue's statement.”
See what he did there? And CNN’s Chris Cuomo had an ominous warning about the possible consequences of Trump calling out the media.
“Somebody's going to get hurt,” Cuomo said. “It's just a question of time, because just like in every other dynamic in life, if you take somebody's who's got a legitimate reason to be upset in the first place, and you pump them up and it starts to become a call to action ... somebody's going to get hurt.”
Finally, ABC’s White House correspondent Jonathan Karl tried to wrap the abusively biased alt-left propaganda media in the Constitution.
“As long as American democracy remains healthy, there will be reporters willing to pursue the truth, even if that means incurring the wrath of the most powerful person in the world,” Karl said. “A free press isn't the enemy of America, it's a big part of what makes America great.”
We’re all for a free press, but how about an honest one that covers President Trump fairly? Remember how WikiLeaks exposed the rampant, rampant collusion between the press and the Clinton campaign? Allowing Democratic Party officials to edit their stories and giving Hillary Clinton debate questions in advance?  They had a literal stake in the election.
These left-wing news outlets thought they'd be able to stop Donald Trump from becoming president but now, instead of admitting they were wrong, they have now doubled down on their attacks against President Trump.
On election night, as the realization crept in that Donald Trump would be the next president, it was like a funeral at every one of these networks. ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who hosted a debate, actually cried.
According to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, it wasn’t just Raddatz who was reduced to tears by the results of a free and fair election.
“America is crying tonight,” he said. “I'm not sure how much of America, but a very, very significant portion. And I mean literally crying. I've gotten texts from a college campus about a dorm that's just in tears.”
Fast-forward to today and the abusively biased media has not changed and has not learned anything. They have not apologized for their collusion or for their dishonest reporting. Even worse, they are ignoring President Trump's accomplishments in just 30 days. They are never going to tell the American people the truth.
So far, President Trump has ordered federal agencies to ease the burden of ObamaCare, withdrawn the U.S. from the flawed Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, implemented a government hiring freeze and banned aid that helped foreign countries provide abortions. He has issued five executive actions advancing the Keystone and the Dakota Access pipelines, which will create jobs and lead to energy independence. He has announced construction of a border wall, ordered federal funding stripped from sanctuary cities, issued executive actions on extreme vetting and ordered rebuilding of our military.
Trump has ordered up a plan to defeat ISIS, instituted a five-year lobbying ban for administration officials and nominated an originalist to the Supreme Court in Judge Neil Gorsuch. He signed a House joint resolution to help the coal industry get back into business, sanctioned Iran over its ballistic missile program, negotiated lower prices on F-35 fighter jets and Air Force One and met with top CEOs to incentivize them to create jobs here.
President Trump signed executive orders to protect police officers and target drug cartels. He launched a council for the advancement of women entrepreneurs. He has called or met with more than 30 foreign leaders so far and put together a first-class cabinet.
The news media are at war with the president because their little egos are bruised, and they have been exposed. And they're waging this battle by focusing in on superfluous issues, citing unnamed sources. They are basically throwing around allegations in the hope something may stick one day, and they go out there and report breathlessly about whatever the tweet is of the day.
The mainstream media's audience is not you, the American people. They are not the forgotten men and women in poverty, on food stamps, out of the labor force, who can't buy a house and struggle to put food on the table and send their children to good schools. Out-of-touch liberals know nothing about you, nothing about your problems, don't seem to care about the millions more in poverty, on food stamps and out of work, the people that are struggling.
That's why they didn't think that Donald Trump could win. It's why they can't for the life of them understand why he is connecting with the American people.  And it is why President Trump calls them for what they are: Purveyors of fake news.
Adapted from Sean Hannity's monologue on "Hannity," Feb. 20, 2017

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.

Illegal Alien Worker Cartoons

Dozens of workers lose their jobs for participating in Day Without Immigrants protest

Dumb Asses

The Day Without Immigrants protest shut down businesses nationwide last week, but it didn’t come without some consequences for a handful of workers who decided to take part in the demonstrations.
Dozens of workers said they lost their jobs after taking part in Thursday’s protest. The boycott was aimed squarely at President Trump's efforts to step up deportations, build a wall at the Mexican border and close the nation's doors to many travelers. It was unclear how many participated.
Twelve Latino employees from the I Don’t Care Bar and Grill in Tulsa, Okla. told Fox 23 News they were fired over text message because they didn’t show up for their shift and failed to let their employers know about their absence. The employees told the station they expected to be reprimanded, but not dismissed.
The firings led to an outcry in the community.
“If you have 12 people who feel strongly and want to make a stand, I think management should have taken a look at that and at least stood by them or give them some time,” Catherine Bishop, of Broken Arrow, told Fox 23 News.
The restaurant had already posted on Facebook seeking employees for its open positions.
Meanwhile, Carmen Guerrero, an immigration activist told the Philadelphia Inquirer that six people were fired from their jobs at a Bahama Breeze in King of Prussia for taking part in the protest. Guerrero said when the workers heard of the protest, they decided to join in and when they showed up Friday for work they allegedly were told they couldn’t enter the building.
Bahama Breeze spokesman Rich Jeffers told the paper that “no one was ever fired.” Guerrero said the workers told her that they were all rehired “to make it look like nothing happened.”
According to News Channel 5, 18 workers from Bradley Coatings Inc. were let go. The workers told the station they told their employer they would be joining in the nationwide protest on Wednesday and when they returned to work Thursday they were informed they had been fired.
"We are the team leaders directly under the supervisors and they informed us last night that we could not go back to work and the boss said we were fired," one employee told the station.
An attorney for Bradley Coatings said in a statement that the employees were told they would “need to show up for work (on Thursday) or they would be terminated” because of the “time-sensitive” job they were assigned to. The statement contended that the firings had nothing to do with politics.
Encore Boat Builders LLC, based out of Lexington, S.C., had 21 workers who didn’t show up for work Thursday. WLTX-TV reported they were told not to participate in the demonstrations or face termination and when they failed to show up, the company followed through on its threat.
Six staff members at a Bonita Springs, Fla. daycare quit, Rev. Jeremy Walker, who runs the day care, told NBC 2. However, two workers said they were fired for wanting to join the protest, while four others claim they resigned after the others two were fired.
Several students also participated in Thursday’s protest. There were no immediate estimates of how many students stayed home in many cities. Many student absences may not be excused, and some people who skipped work will lose a day's pay or perhaps even their jobs. But organizers and participants argued the cause was worth it.
Marcela Ardaya-Vargas, who is from Bolivia and now lives in Falls Church, Virginia, pulled her son out of school to take him to a march in Washington.
"When he asked why he wasn't going to school, I told him because today he was going to learn about immigration," she said, adding: "Our job as citizens is to unite with our brothers and sisters."
Carmen Solis, a Mexico-born U.S. citizen, took the day off from work as a project manager and brought her two children to a rally in Chicago.
"I feel like our community is going to be racially profiled and harassed," she said of Trump's immigration policies. "It's very upsetting. People like to take out their anger on the immigrants, but employers are making profits off of them. "

Priebus says US intel officials call campaign-Russia story 'garbage,' tries to end controversy

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Sunday that top U.S. intelligence officials have told him that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign did not collude with Russia -- attempting to end widespread new reports about potentially compromising, illegal talks with the former Cold War enemy.
“I can assure you, the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that [the allegation] is not only grossly overstated, but also wrong,” Priebus told “Fox News Sunday.” “They have made it very clear that the story is complete garbage.”
However, his statement is unlikely to end the controversy, amid bipartisan calls on Capitol Hill to hold investigative hearings on the matter.
New stories about a potential Trump-Russia connection began to surface during the 2016 campaign when Trump lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forceful governing style.
And they appeared to reach a peak following reports that retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, before he officially became Trump’s national security adviser, spoke with a Russian official about U.S. sanctions, which led last week to Flynn’s forced resignation.
In a freewheeling press conference Thursday, the president repeatedly said he had no knowledge of campaign officials talking to Russian officials.
Priebus attempted Sunday to close the matter but declined to name his contacts within the intelligence community, which raised questions about him using the same kind of anonymous sources for a story that the administration opposes.
He also said officials within the intelligence community -- which includes the CIA and FBI -- have dismissed reports that they have denied Trump intelligence reports, fearing a national security breach.
Priebus defended Trump’s tweet in which he called the fake news media the “enemy of the American people.”
“I understand where he is coming from,” he said. “There are certain things that are happening in the news that just aren’t honest. We aren’t talking about everyone. … There is nothing wrong with background. We need to communicate with reporters and give context.”

Trump clarifies 'Sweden' remark, says he was referring to Fox News report

What the US could learn from Sweden's refugee crisis

President Trump on Sunday attempted to clarify his remark at a weekend rally that suggested a terror attack had taken place Friday night in Sweden.
“My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden,” the president tweeted.
Friday night's edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" featured an interview with documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz about a surge in violent crime in Sweden.
Some have traced the crime increase in Sweden to a surge in the number of refugees entering from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Trump said at a campaign-style rally Saturday outside Melbourne, Fla.: “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?”
Trump has made securing the United States from outsiders, particularly radical Islamic terrorists, a major part of presidential campaign and now his administration.
The president's mention of Sweden along with Germany resulted in Trump critics saying he had mistakenly referred to a terror attack.
Among the recent terror attacks in Germany was a December 2016 incident in which a terrorist drove a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring roughly 50 others. The Islamic State terror group took responsibility for the attack.
Trump’s comment at the rally Saturday follows White House special counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway mistakenly citing a “massacre” in Bowling Green, Ky.
Trump’s Sweden comment was questioned by Swedish officials, the news media and Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee whom Trump defeated.
Clinton tweeted: “What happened in Sweden Friday night? Did they catch the Bowling Green Massacre perpetrators?”
“Unclear to us what President Trump was referring to, have asked US officials for explanation,” the Swedish embassy in Washington tweeted.

Revised travel ban targets same seven countries, exempts green card holders

President Trump’s revised travel ban targets the same seven countries listed in his original executive order and exempts travelers who have already have a visa to travel to the U.S., even if they haven’t used it yet.
A senior White House official said the order will target only those same seven Muslim-majority nations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya. Trump was forced to come up with a second order after federal courts held up his original immigration and refugee ban. The official said the order could come sometime this week.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the order before it's made public, said that green-card holders and dual citizens of the U.S. and any of those countries are exempt. The new draft also no longer directs authorities to single out -- and reject -- Syrian refugees when processing new visa applications.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the version being circulated was a draft and the final version should be released soon. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the current draft of the revised order focused on the seven countries but excluded those with green cards.
Trump's original executive order triggered chaos at airports around the world, as travelers were detained when the order rapidly went into effect, U.S. permanent residents known as green-card holders among them. Attorneys provided legal assistance to those held and protesters descended on the airports as news of the order's implementation spread. In its original form, the order temporarily suspended all travel to the U.S. for citizens of those seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days.
The original order also called for Homeland Security and State department officials, along with the director of national intelligence, to review what information the government needs to fully vet would-be visitors and come up with a list of countries that can't or won't make the information available. It said the government will give countries 60 days to start providing the information or citizens from those countries will be barred from traveling to the United States.
KELLY: TRUMP IS WORKING ON A ‘STREAMLINED’ TRAVE L BAN
Even if Syrian refugees are no longer automatically rejected under the new order, the pace of refugees entering the U.S. from all countries is likely to slow significantly. That's because even when the courts put Trump's original ban on hold, they left untouched Trump's 50,000-per-year refugee cap, a cut of more than half from the cap under the Obama administration.
The U.S. has already taken in more than 35,000 refugees this year, leaving less than 15,000 spots before hitting Trump's cap, according to a U.S. official. That means that for the rest of this fiscal year, the number of refugees being let in per week will likely fall to a fraction of what it had been under the Obama administration's cap of 110,000.
The travel ban again came under attack when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to reinstate the ban, unanimously rejecting the administration’s claim of presidential authority, questioning its motives and ability to survive legal challenges. The pushback prompted Trump to tweet "SEE YOU IN COURT!" and he has since lashed out at the judicial branch, accusing it of issuing a politically motivated decision.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, speaking at the Munich Security Conference about combating terrorism, said Trump was working on a “streamlined” version of the initial executive order. Kelly said Trump's original order was designed as a "temporary pause" to allow him to "see where our immigration and vetting system has gaps -- and gaps it has -- that could be exploited."
He said the Trump administration was surprised when U.S. courts blocked the executive order and now "the president is contemplating releasing a tighter, more streamlined version" of the travel ban.
Kelly said this next time he will be able to "make sure that there's no one caught in the system of moving from overseas to our airports."
Kelly mentioned "seven nations" again on Saturday, leading to speculation they will all be included in Trump's next executive order.
Trump's order sparked an immediate backlash and sowed chaos and outrage, with travelers detained at airports, panicked families searching for relatives and protesters marching against the sweeping measure -- parts of which were blocked by several federal courts.
Protests were held across the country, including in sight of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York City, and at international airports where travelers were temporarily detained.