Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see Jill Stein’s quixotic recount journey get shut down in Michigan and headed towards an anticlimactic finish in Wisconsin. They slam the media for only now realizing that many of the new jobs created in the Obama years are low-wage, part time openings that aren’t a long-term solution for families. And they unload on CNN for suggesting that racism was behind the fierce Republican opposition to President Obama’s agenda.
News & Politics
Hillary’s Fingerprints ‘All Over This Recount’
Legal challenges and hand counting of ballots are daily occurrences in Michigan, and the head of an anti-Hillary Clinton political action committee says the former Democratic nominee is deeply involved in an effort to give the perception Donald Trump’s victory is illegitimate while Green Party candidate Jill Stein is just in this for herself.
The courts have been back and forth on the issue. After Stein pressed the issue in court, federal judge Mark Goldsmith ordered the recount to begin on Monday, despite Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette trying to stop the process. The state is arguing that since Stein has no chance of winning she has no standing to make the request.
On Tuesday, the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed with Schuette and ordered to recount to be stopped. However, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the recount ought to continue. The various parties were arguing the case again before Goldsmith on Wednesday morning.
After all 83 Michigan counties certified their vote totals last month, the Michigan Board of Canvassers declared the winner of the state’s 16 electoral votes by a 10,704 vote margin. Stein successfully triggered a recount in neighboring Wisconsin, where Trump leads by roughly 22,000 votes, and Pennsylvania, where the margin is more than twice the spread in Wisconsin.
The Committee to Defend the President is also wading into the legal waters. Formerly known as the Stop Hillary PAC, the group says this recount drama is nothing more than an expensive circus.
“I think it is a waste of taxpayers’ money first and foremost. The taxpayers in these three states are going to have to pick up the tab for these recounts,” said Committee to Defend the President Chairman Ted Harvey.
“The recounts will achieve nothing. Jill Stein received one percent of the vote in these states. There is no way that she can get the votes necessary to overcome Trump’s victory and I don’t believe she has any standing in these states to file lawsuits to do a recount because of that,” said Harvey.
He says Stein’s true motives are fairly obvious.
“She is simply doing this to raise money for her organization, to raise her profile as an individual and to raise the profile of the Green Party,” said Harvey.
The Clinton campaign is officially joining Stein in it’s stated cause of ensuring the vote was not subject to hacking, error, or fraud. However, the Clinton team has publicly stated it doesn’t expect any changes in the results.
Harvey doesn’t believe Clinton is just a silent bystander in all of this. He sees the former secretary of state as a raging hypocrite.
“After the (final) debate, she stood up in speech after speech after speech and said Donald Trump is attacking democracy by questioning the election. That was easy for her to say when she thought she was going to win. Now that she is losing, her fingerprints are all over this recount,” said Harvey, who also has scathing reviews for how the media is covering this.
“I think it’s typical of the agenda of the left-wing media, which is all of the CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC in this country. They are run by leftists and they have an agenda,” said Harvey.
He says the media roundly mocked Trump for suggesting voting irregularities could be a factor in the election but they are only too eager to treat Stein and Clinton’s challenge as serious news.
On the contrary, he says there are plenty of examples of truly concerning issues across the country, including in his home state of Colorado.
“Here in Colorado, they passed legislation to allow for same-day voter registration without proof of voter ID. When it was brought up that this was only going to lead to massive voter fraud, they laughed at it and they pushed it through. Now here we are with an election that they lose and they’re coming before the American people and the press and they’re claiming voter fraud. It’s just hypocrisy left and right,” said Harvey.
Harvey says the media has been toeing the liberal narrative since the moment Trump won the election.
“You saw what happened the day after the election when you had ‘spontaneous’ rallies around the country protesting Donald Trump’s election. That didn’t just happen overnight. That was organized by (George) Soros and the Clinton campaign to rally young people around the country to protest. The media gobbled that up and ran with that hour after hour after hour,” said Harvey.
He says the media then jumped to new stories when the protesting became stale, namely an obsession with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote and then treating the recounts as legitimate.
Harvey believes all these different tactics have the same long-term goal.
“Their whole agenda is to discredit Donald Trump and discredit his duly legal election. I think they will continue to do this for the next four years to say that everything that he is going to do as president is not legitimate,” said Harvey.
Three Martini Lunch 12/7/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America correct the record on Tuesday’s faithless elector story and how the new information makes his actions far worse. In today’s martinis, they react to a Time magazine piece suggesting people stop paying taxes if a president is ever elected again without winning the popular vote. They also debunk the liberal fantasy that Democrats can somehow confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court before the senators elected last month get sworn in on Jan. 3. And they slam Pres. Obama for his incredibly misleading statement about terrorism on U.S. soil during his administration.
Can Trump Tackle Government Waste?
A recently uncovered evaluation of Pentagon spending shows $125 billion could be slashed within five years, showcasing the challenge for the incoming Trump administration to make government more efficient, an effort that will also be tested by Trump’s call for a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending.
The Pentagon study was commissioned to find areas of administrative bloat that could be then channeled towards actual military projects. The review was finished by the Defense Business Board in January 2015, and suggested $125 billion could be cut over a five-year span. However, the Washington Post reports the amount of waste was so massive that officials buried the study.
“Uncovering the bloat is not a surprise and covering it up is also not a surprise,” said Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz, who believes $125,000,000,000 in unnecessary spending at the Pentagon is just the tip of the iceberg.
“The Pentagon has never passed a financial audit, so we know that there’s a lot more waste even than the Defense Business Board found,” said Schatz.
One of the most glaring findings from the Defense Business Board is that a quarter of the Pentagon’s $580 billion budget was spent on overhead, such as human resources, accounting and other line items not directly related to training and fighting.
“Right now the Pentagon has almost an equal number of civilian personnel and contractors as it does troops, which seems to be a little bit too much in terms of support. You should have more troops than support,” said Schatz.
While the Defense Business Board recommended reallocating the wasted money towards combat-related programs in future years, Schatz says it’s not that easy to make those changes.
“A lot of people who have run the Pentagon have tried to get things done to make the whole operation run more effectively. Congress gets in the way as well. It’s difficult to get rid of a wasteful program or even reduce staff,” said Schatz.
Schatz says this kind of waste has been going on at the Pentagon for decades. His own organization was founded to follow up on the government waste-cutting recommendations of the Grace Commission – a panel commissioned by President Reagan. In 1984, the Grace Commission uncovered billions and future trillions that could be cut throughout government. Congress ignored the recommendations.
He said the findings on the Pentagon look pretty familiar.
“The Grace Commission found a lot of similar expenditures at the Pentagon. Five of the forty-seven Grace Commission task force reports were on the Pentagon, a lot of it dealing with procurement and personnel,” said Schatz.
Schatz also says defense official missed a golden opportunity to come clean to Congress.
“The report itself said take this money and use it for more important defense purposes. The Pentagon brass apparently didn’t trust Congress to do that. I think they would have received this quite well. Congress has closed unnecessary military bases when they needed to. They would certainly cut back on this kind of overhead,” said Schatz.
Many Trump supporters are expecting him to tackle government waste head-on and were encouraged by his call for Boeing to scrap construction of a new Air Force One after going above budget on the project.
Schatz says Trump needs people who will actually address these issues.
“We hope that’s the case. I think taxpayers and voters brought Donald Trump here to do these kinds of things. He’s not attached to any of these matters or any of the companies that are involved,” said Schatz. “It’s time to make changes. A number of the people coming in have longstanding business experience.”
“While the government is not a business, it’s very difficult to fire people, which is part of the problem. They can certainly initiate more ways to spend the tax dollars effectively,” said Schatz.
Also looming on the horizon is Trump’s trillion dollar plan to revitalize U.S. infrastructure. Conservative critics see it as a big government rerun of the Obama stimulus, but Schatz believes that is highly unlikely. Done right, he thinks a targeted approach could actually be a boon to the U.S.
“I don’t see any way a Republican Congress approves another stimulus, so it won’t look anything like that. If it’s done properly and it’s done by pushing a lot of that money down to the states so that they can spend it effectively – and the way that transportation funds are spent overall is part of this deal – then yes, some of this could be very helpful,” said Schatz.
But he says they need to avoid horrific ideas like the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” that overwhelmingly passed through a GOP-controlled Congress and was signed by George W. Bush.
He says there also really bad ideas from the Obama stimulus that should not be duplicated.
“We don’t need the federal government to go back to paying for streetscapes and street lights in the middle of a small town, which is part of what happened under the stimulus and the transportation bill in 2006,” said Schatz.
So can it realistically be done in an efficient way that doesn’t result in myriads of wasteful projects.
“Saying that we need a trillion dollars is not the same as putting the legislation into place and determining how it can be done. There’s a lot of talk about public-private partnerships. There might be more roads with tolls that help pay for the roads. So there are ways to pay for some of this in the way the construction is done and how the funding is done into the future,” said Schatz.
Three Martini Lunch 12/6/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America groan as Rush Limbaugh says Donald Trump’s trillion dollar infrastructure bill could be a big success – just like FDR. They also get a kick out of Democrats getting really excited over the prospect of a 78-year-old Joe Biden running for president in 2020. And Jim unloads on a “faithless elector” from Texas, who says he cannot cast a vote for Trump.
‘This Is the New Sheriff in Town’
Donald Trump made cleaning up the Department of Veterans Affairs one of his top campaign promises, and as the president-elect considers his options to lead that effort, a retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and veterans activist says personnel will be critical since the job of fixing the VA will be long and difficult.
Jessie Jane Duff served 20 years in the Marines. She is now a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and says Trump must pick someone who can run a massive operation like the VA but is also tough enough to force change upon those addicted to the status quo.
“This is not for somebody who just is well-versed on the VA. It’s great to be versed on the VA but if you don’t have management experience dealing with unions, dealing with backlogs, dealing with bureaucracy and trying to be a positive change agent, you’re not going to be the person for the job,” said Duff.
Duff says prior military service might be nice but is really not all that vital to doing what needs to be done.
“I’m not even that concerned if someone is a veteran or not. It’s not a military organization. It services veterans. I need somebody who is service-oriented and understands what it is to deliver on a product or service to a customer, particularly one that is so important such as our American veterans,” said Duff.
Because of the sprawling nature of the VA.she says that tough, competent person must have tough, competent people beneath them.
“The changes are going to be difficult. It’s going to be very difficult. Whoever does get in there is going to have to align themselves with really strong undersecretaries. The Veterans Administration is broken up into many, many small departments and they’re scattered throughout the nation. So you can easily find little pocket groups that are going to do their own thing,” said Duff.
According to Duff, the new secretary must make it crystal clear from day one that business as usual is over.
“Employees have to understand, this is the new sheriff in town. We’re going to get this right and whatever it takes is what we’re going to do. You’re going to meet massive resistance and the unions are probably going to fight them left and right. They have to get the right center of attention and that is back on the veteran and not on the VA employee,” said Duff.
While Duff and many other veterans activists are highly critical of the Obama administration’s approach to the issue, she admits that current VA Secretary Robert McDonald faced roadblocks over the personnel changes he did try to make, precisely because of organized labor.
“He had tried to fire multiple employees VA and was just never successful with it. Often it was because they would go through this appeal process, and the union that protects these employees would find that little loophole that says, ‘No, that doesn’t fall under the guidances of our agreements,” said Duff.
The union in question is the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE.
“They were able to get many, many of these employees back pay or reassigned to placed back into the jobs that they had been severed from,” said Duff.
She says those kinds of bureaucratic hurdles prevent real change from happening.
“The process, the system, everything about it is so severed, so broken. You have to have somebody willing to go in there and recognize that and not try to pretend that you’re going to put a bandage on a sucking chest wound,” said Duff.
So how does that entrenched bureaucracy ever budge? Duff says it’s more about determination and less about any additional legislation.
“You have to find out how how can we fire people without going through all this bureaucracy. It’s going to require shaking up and breaking up that union. They’re going to have to figure out a way to do it because trying to legislate your way out of this has proven time and time and time again to be ineffective,” said Duff.
As an example she says the 2015 legislation that allowed “veterans choice” for vets that don’t live near a VA facility turned out to be a nightmare. Instead of making life easier for veterans to get private sector care that’s far more convenient, VA bureaucracy turned the opportunity into a nightmare.
“Well guess what happens? The bureaucracy to fill out the paperwork becomes so deep that many veterans got discouraged doing it. Some veterans have reported finding out the bills were never paid by the VA and they turned around and got them on their credit report. And the VA itself had tried to allocate the billions of dollars they were given for it into other areas of the VA,” said Duff.
The care itself is still turning up horror stories as well, most recently the allegations that a VA dentist failed to sterilize his equipment and now some 600 patients need to be screened for HIV and various strains of hepatitis. The dentist is still on the VA payroll, but has been moved to an administrative position.
Duff says the approach of the new VA boss needs to be very simple.
“We have to get somebody who’s a clear-headed thinker that realizes you’re obviously not going to be able to service all veterans. You have to allow veterans who are not near a VA medical system, or not getting adequate care, to go to (private sector) facilities near them. That’s rule number one,” said Duff.
But as critical as Duff is of the current system, she doesn’t want to scrap it. She wants to replicate what works in successful VA hospitals in the facilities that are failing.
“Rule number two: You don’t have to destroy the entire system,” she said. “There are many model hospitals that are out there. Use them as the diagram to re-establish those hospitals that are failing,” said Duff.
Duff says VA facilities should face consequences for failing to meet the standard of care our veterans deserve.
“Treat it like a school system. Set up a standard of excellence that must be managed and maintained. Those who do not manage or maintain it are threatened to be closed or reformed or [have their entire staffs fired],” said Duff.
If Trump picks someone capable of doing all this, how soon could we see significant results?
“With the right people and the right direction and the right demands of them and they’re given checks and balances and they’re given a benchmark to reach every quarter and every year, I think we’re going to see significant improvement in the first year. We should see mass improvement in two,” said Duff.
She firmly believes Trump’s fate in 2020 could very well depend upon how well he keeps this promise.
“Should he be re-elected, it means he did a great job because veterans are behind this man. The reason he’s in office is because a huge number of veterans got out there and voted for him,” said Duff. “He cannot drop the ball on this one. It will make or break his re-election,” said Duff.
Three Martini Lunch 12/5/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America shake their heads as the media and the left go nuts because Donald Trump took a phone call from the president of Taiwan. They also sigh as the media ramp up an hysterical assault on “fake news.” And they note that the Wisconsin recount has done nothing so far – except narrowly increase Trump’s lead.
Gen. Boykin Cheers Mattis for Defense Secretary
Retired U.S. Army Lt. General William “Jerry” Boykin is applauding President-Elect Donald Trump’s selection of retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis to be the next Secretary of Defense and believes Mattis will do an excellent job of restoring the military to its original purpose and moving it away from the giant social experiment its become during the Obama years.
Boykin, who served 36 years, many of them in special operations, sees Trump and Mattis as kindred spirits in that they both despise political correctness. Mattis, known as “Mad Dog” and “Chaos” during his years in uniform comes to the confirmation process with a sterling reputation as a military scholar and leader and for speaking his mind bluntly.
“I think what Donald Trump was looking for was somebody who would send a very strong message to our military, to the people in the ranks of our military that we are going to get back to a focus on what the military’s mission is. And this is plain and simple to win the nation’s wars. I think Mattis sends that signal. It’s a very good choice. I’m excited about it,” said Boykin.
When asked how Mattis would tackle priorities like ISIS or strengthening the military, Boykin says the most urgent priority is something else.
“I think his top priority will be restoring the warrior ethos here. We’ve been plagued by various social experiments for the entire eight years Obama has been out commander-in-chief. It has created a huge morale problem. It has reduced our readiness. It has made our ability to win the nation’s wars questionable,” said Boykin.
Boykin says there are limits to what Mattis can do to reverse the social engineering implemented in the military during the Obama years.
“There are some things that he cannot roll back. What he can do is put an end to all the wasted training time that is associated with every social experiment,” said Boykin.
“For example, when you allow transgenders to serve in the military, there is a training program that goes with that. Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and Coastguardsman has to go through hours and hours of that training. What does that do? It causes them to have to give up something in their training program,” said Boykin.
He points to January’s incident in the Persian Gulf, in which Iran took American sailors prisoner, took video of them on their knees and forced the commanding officer to apologize. The U.S. later apologized and even thanked Iran for it’s hospitality of our personnel.
“That’s not acceptable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The problem was they didn’t get that kind of training. What they did get was diversity and inclusion and tolerance and white privilege and all those things that go with social experiments and they contribute nothing to the ability to fight and win the nation’s wars,” said Boykin.
Boykin is confident Mattis can handle the job of running a massive organization like the Department of Defense. And while Boykin, strongly prefers civilian leadership at the Pentagon, he says we need Mattis right now.
“I fully endorse civilian control of the military. It’s a fundamental principle to our constitutional republic. We all believe in that. But these are extreme circumstances. These are extreme situations we find ourselves in now,” said Boykin.
“So in this situation, I am comfortable with it. I would not want it to be the norm. But again, we’re not in a normal situation or circumstance,” said Boykin.
Three Martini Lunch 12/2/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Donald Trump for selecting retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis to be Secretary of Defense. They also roll their eyes as Clinton campaign officials contend white supremacists won the election for Trump. And they explain why Trump’s deal is good for Carrier employees but a bad model to follow as an economic policy.
Three Martini Lunch 12/1/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America have all crazy news today. They slam Pres. Obama for suggesting that Fox News being on in restaurants and bars is the reason Democrats fell short in 2016. They also unload on BuzzFeed for demanding to know whether popular HGTV hosts agree with their pastor about homosexuality being a sin – which leads to a bunch of fun tangents about HGTV in general. And they rip Democrats and the media for throwing a hissy fit about the Electoral College and even intimidating electors just weeks after clutching their pearls about Trump possibly not accepting the election results.