Radio America Online News Bureau

President Trump

Trump Doesn’t Fire Mueller, Left Freaks Over DACA Concession, Left Coast Lunacy

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are amused by the media frothing over President Trump allegedly trying to have Special Counsel Robert Mueller fired seven months ago, while largely overlooking the fact that Mueller wasn’t fired.  They also discuss President Trump’s major concessions on amnesty in his his immigration legislation framework – concessions that haven’t stopped his critics from accusing the president of being a white supremacist who is tearing apart families.  And they throw up their hands as the majority leader in the California State Assembly proposes penalties of six months in jail or $1,000 fines for any waiter who gives a customer a plastic straw without being asked.

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Brighter House Outlook for GOP? Why Would Trump Talk with Mueller? Kerry 2020?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer up a bit following Jim’s exhaustive study of all the House seats held by retiring Republicans, a report which concludes the vast majority of those seats are likely not in danger of flipping to Democrats.  They also wonder what President Trump would possibly have to gain by talking with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who seems plenty eager to pounce on process crimes as much or more than crimes directly related to the purpose of his investigation.  They have some fun with the news that former Secretary of State John Kerry told a Palestinian official that he is “seriously considering” a 2020 presidential run.  And they get a kick out of reports that the ill-fated XFL appears to be making a comeback in a couple of years.

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House Judiciary Chairman: There Is No DACA Deadline

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The author of the House of Representatives bill to clamp down on illegal immigration and address the fate of people brought to the U.S. illegally as children says there is no reason for lawmakers to rush immigration legislation and says his goal is to make sure the nation never faces an illegal immigration crisis again.

Senate Democrats tried to attach immigration legislation to efforts to keep the government funded past January 19.  Three days later, they agreed to fund the government in exchange for a promise that an immigration debate would begin prior to the next funding deadline of Feb. 8.

At issue is the fate of roughly 700,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.  President Obama granted legal status for anyone who enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, through executive action in 2012.  In September, President Trump announced the executive DACA program would end in March 2018.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is author of the Securing America’s Future Act.  He says despite some lawmakers waving frantically at the calendar, Congress does not need to race to get legislation done.

“We should take our time and not feel we’re compelled to do anything by any deadline.  There is no deadline.  February 8 is not a deadline to solve this bill.  It is a deadline to keep the government funded but not to solve this problem.  March 5, the deadline the president has set, can be changed if necessary,” said Goodlatte, who also notes a federal judge has ordered a stay on Trump’s order.

“We should use all the time that’s necessary to get this done right and not a minute longer,” said Goodlatte.

The Goodlatte bill and the Senate’s Gang of Six legislation differ significantly in many ways.  It allows current DACA enrollees to receive legal status for three years, which they can renew in perpetuity.  The bill does not offer them a pathway to citizenship, and it grants no legal status to people eligible for DACA but failed to enroll.

The Senate plan offers a pathway to citizenship  to DACA recipients as well as the other so-called “Dreamers.”  It also confers legal status on the very parents who broke the law to bring their families to the U.S.

Goodlatte’s plan would also greatly limit chain migration to only spouses and minor children, kill the visa lottery, authorize whatever is necessary to beef up border security, and make overstaying one’s visa a crime.

Goodlatte says his legislation comes from a very straightforward premise.

“We agreed we would negotiate on four points: security, chain migration, ending the visa lottery, and DACA.  That’s what my bill does,” said Goodlatte.

He also explained his mindset in crafting the legislation.  He wants “a fair way way to deal with the problem created by President Obama in this unconstitutional program and ended by President Trump.”

“But then [Trump] turned around and said these individuals need a solution and Congress should do it.  We provided that in our bill,” said Goodlatte.

He also wants this to be the last time Congress has to deal with the immigration mess.

“We also are the only plan that addresses Speaker Ryan’s concern and that is that we not allow this problem to happen again,” said Goodlatte.

While the Senate and the media focus on the Gang of Six bill, Goodlatte says he has assurances from Republican House leaders that his legislation will come to the House floor.  He says before that time, he plans to educate his colleagues on why all of the various enforcement mechanisms are required and why he thinks they will be effective.

Goodlatte is ready to defend his bill, starting with his refusal to grant DACA enrollees a pathway to citizenship.

“We don’t object to people who are DACA recipients finding an opportunity to get a green card and U.S. citizenship as long as they follow the existing law like anybody else who has followed the rules and come here legally,” said Goodlatte.

“Under our bill, DACA recipients would be allowed to live in the United States  permanently with three-year renewables but indefinitely.  [They can] work in the United States, own a business in the United States, travel in and out of the country and if they find a way under the normal law to qualify for U.S. citizenship that’s fine, but not a special pathway to citizenship,” said Goodlatte.

He says the parents who perpetrated the crime of illegal immigration should not be rewarded in any way.

“I am not unsympathetic to the situation, but it is a situation that their parents created for them and one we have to respond to with that in mind.  In other words, take care of them but don’t give them an opportunity to petition for those same parents who were responsible for coming here illegally in the first place,” said Goodlatte.

In exchange for granting legal status for DACA recipients, Goodlatte’s bill clamps down hard on chain migration, ending the practice of an immigrant sponsoring many extended family members to come into the U.S.  It also ends the visa lottery.

“The visa lottery is a crazy program that gives 55,000 people green cards every year, not based on family relations, not based on job skills, but based upon pure luck.  That is totally unfair and it is a national security concern as well,” said Goodlatte.

When it comes to border security, President Trump has made it clear that there will be provision for a border wall or he will not agree to DACA legislation.  Goodlatte says Republicans are in agreement on what that means.

“There is a need to repair fences, to extend the wall and build a wall in some places, particularly in high population areas and in high crime areas where there is a lot of smuggling going on.  You do not need it where there are mountains, where there are large deserts, or where there are rivers,” said Goodlatte.

But he cautions enforcement advocates that there is a lot more to preventing the influx of illegal immigration than just the wall.

“That is one tool but it doesn’t at all address the 40 percent of [illegal immigrants] who come into this country legally and them simply ignore the laws and overstay their visas.  Nor does it address the people who come into the country illegally  and are not trying to evade the border patrol but are actually going to them and turning themselves in,” said Goodlatte.

He says those people are then released into the U.S. and told to show up for a court hearing, which they rarely do.

Goodlatte’s bill is officially known as H.R. 4760.

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Tax Cuts More Popular, Rough 2018 Forecast, Are Reporters Fit to Serve?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome a new poll showing nearly half of Americans hold a positive view of the Republican tax bill and are bullish on the economy, although they are not ready to give Trump and the GOP credit.  They also wince as Democrats win a usually safe Republican seat in the Wisconsin State Senate, and Gov. Scott Walker urges GOP members and activists to make sure people know about their significant accomplishments.  And they sigh as President Trump’s doctor gives the commander-in-chief a clean bill of health, but White House reporters still ask the physician a litany of repetitive questions about Trump’s mental health and whether he he is fit to serve under the conditions of the 25th Amendment.

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Iran Deal Stands for Now, Trump Sends Clear Message

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President Trump is giving the Iran nuclear deal another four months but also warned Congress that will not happen again without lawmakers passing major changes to the agreement, and leading Iranian dissidents urge the U.S. to stop trying to save a fatally flawed deal in the first place.

In addition, the Trump administration announced new sanctions aimed the Iranian regime in connection with its crackdown on protesters in recent days.

Officially, Trump is waiving nuclear sanctions against Iran until May.  He did not say what type of changes would meet with his approval at that time.

For the Iranian dissidents, there’s no way to salvage this deal.

“The main problem is that the entire nuclear structure of the Iran regime has remained intact, and the fact that there’s no real access to the key centers and locations that are actually engaged in weaponization, which is a critical part of building nuclear weapons.

“There’s no access for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to the military sites where the real deal is.  Then there is a sunset clause.  At some point down the road, all of those restrictions are going to be gone and the Iranian regime will be free to continue its development of nuclear weapons,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is allied with the main internal resistance group in Iran, Mojahedin-e-Khalq.  The group is also known as the MEK.

Jafarzadeh says modifications to the nuclear deal will be fruitless because the regime will never abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.  He says there’s only one effective modification for Iran.

“The Iranian regime is intent on building the bomb so the real solutions to all of the problems is to see fundamental change in Iran to change the regime,” said Jafarzadeh.

The Iranian resistance is also very pleased with the Trump administration’s actions, through the Treasury Department, to issue sanctions against 14 different Iranian individuals and entities, largely in response to the repression of protests over the past couple of weeks.

One figure targeted financially is he head of the Iranian judiciary, Sadeq Larijani.

“He’s the one who implements all the repressive measures of the Iranian regime.  He’s the one who has been prosecuting and putting people in jail. at least 8,000 demonstrators in the past two weeks.  He has already instructed the other judges to be very, very harsh against the demonstrators,” said Jafarzadeh.

“Another entity was the Rajai Shahr prison.  It is a very notorious prison that is known for torture and horrible things they have done to prisoners.  A number of people who have been detained during the demonstrations are now in Rajai Shahr prison,” said Jafarzadeh., who says the head jailer there is also named in the sanctions.

Others targeted by sanctions on Friday include elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically for cutting off internet access that prevented protesters from communicating with each other and the outside world.  Individuals and entities assisting the Iranian ballistic missile program are also being targeted.

Jafarzadeh says Trump is paying attention.

“The president showed Friday that while he is so unhappy with the nuclear deal, he’s even more unhappy with the other aspects of the Iranian regime’s behavior, namely their domestic repression, their censorship and threatening their neighbors in the region,” said Jafarzadeh.

He also says the pressure is getting to the regime.  This past week, Ayatollah Ali Khameini gave a speech vowing to crackdown on the protests even more and blaming them on a “triangle” of organized resistance – namely the United States, hostile Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, and the MEK.  He also vowed a fierce crackdown on all elements of the triangle within Iran.

Jafarzadeh does not think the threats will work because they don’t change the reality of economic misery in Iran.

“No matter how much you repress them, the disconnect of the people will not go away.  The economic situation is not going to get any better.  There’s no plan for the government to resolve the issues.  There are workers who have not been paid for eleven months.

“Even doctors who used to get regular pay haven’t been paid for 9-10 months.  A lot of factories are not working,” said Jafarzadeh.

Jafarzadeh says the protests swelled to 141 different cities of all sizes.

“This is absolutely unprecedented since the ayatollahs came to power in Iran,” he said.

The bottom line, says Jafarzadeh, is that pressure from inside and outside Iran is working.

“The more pressure the United States builds against the Iranian regime, the more the regime’s forces get frightened and the more encouraged the people will get,” he said.

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Auto Jobs Coming Back to U.S., Trumps’s Execrable Comments, Pelosi’s PC Dogma

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Yes, we’re talking about Trump’s immigration comments, but no, you don’t have to worry about your kids hearing bad language.  Today, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer great news in the automotive industry as Fiat Chrysler announces it is investing a billion dollars in Michigan and planning to add 2,500 jobs to build Ram pickup trucks again.  This follows earlier news that Toyota and Mazda will team to build a $1.6 billion plant in Alabama and employ up to 4,000 people.  They also recoil at President Trump’s attitude towards people in deeply troubled nations, noting that it’s fair to point out there are many horribly corrupt and crime-ridden nations in various parts of the world and re-evaluate immigration policy but deeply wrong to suggest those people have no value.  At the same time, many Trump critics suggest that diversity is what makes America great, and Greg and Jim set them straight.  And they shake their heads as Nancy Pelosi dismisses congressional immigration negotiators as “five white guys” – including her top deputy among House Democrats – as she called for more diversity in the group.

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Rohrabacher: Forget Leverage, Ditch DACA Altogether

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While Republicans and Democrats work to produce legislation to grant legal status and a pathway to citizenship for people brought to the United States illegally when they were children, one Republican congressman says Congress should refuse to enshrine that policy into law to avoid a flood of new illegal immigrants looking to benefit from the same policy.

In September, President Trump announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, would end in March 2018, but also suggested that the people impacted by his decision ought not to worry.  President Obama enacted DACA in 2012 and the program survived despite fierce criticism that such a change in the law could come through an act of Congress.

With the DACA expiration now just weeks away, House and Senate leaders in both parties appear united in wanting to pass legislation to protect those impacted by the policy. A “Gang of Six” in the Senate is working on the bill, although President Trump has rejected their first overture.

Many conservatives are urging GOP leaders and President Trump to use DACA as leverage to squeeze concessions out of Democrats, including a reduction in chain migration, and end to the visa lottery, expanded E-Verify at businesses and greater border security including at least portions of a new border wall.

However, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., rejects the premise of the discussions.  He doesn’t want DACA as part of federal law.

“If we legalize the status of 850,000 young people who are here illegally, we can expect tens of millions of young people throughout the world to notice that.

“If they would like the government benefits of health care and education that comes from legally being in the United States, there is no reason for me to believe this won’t obliterate out chances of getting control of our border,” said Rohrabacher.

The congressman says once Congress gives the green to putting “dreamers” on the path to citizenship, it may be impossible to restore integrity to our immigration system.

“We’re talking about millions of people here who will be brought into this country and there’s no way we can build a wall high enough or dig a ditch deep enough to stop it after we’ve given them a treasure house of medical care and education.  We are going to undo any good we can possibly do otherwise,” said Rohrabacher.

Rohrabacher says even if the legislation agrees to significant limits on chain migration, providing legal status to people who came to the U.S. illegally will still be crippling.

“We cannot secure our borders as long as we’re giving this ultimate prize to people who have made it across the border illegally.  When we have young people like this, we’re notifying parents all over the world, ‘Whatever you do, get your kid to the United States,'” said Rohrabacher.

While Rohrabacher admits many young people are suffering terribly in our own hemisphere and around the world, the resources of the United States only go so far.

“There are people who are living in horrible situations overseas.  Young people.  We cannot afford to take care of every one of them while we don’t even have the money now to take care of our own people, meaning the veterans and the seniors, and yes, the young people who need educational training here,” said Rohrabacher.

At an on-camera negotiation this week, President Trump was open to a two-step approach to immigration offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who wanted a “clean” DACA bill now with a commitment to address comprehensive immigration reform later.  Trump later explained he considers a border wall part of a clean DACA bill.

Rohrabacher has no interest in that.

“The only thing I would have a stomach for if DACA comes first is if it’s defeated,” said Rohrabacher.

With Republicans, Democrats and the president seemingly agreeing to the general path forward to enshrine DACA, Rohrabacher says other critical voices are being ignored yet again.

“What hasn’t changed is the American people.  They keep getting left out of this as if their point of view doesn’t count.  Up until now, nobody’s made the case to the American people of the magnitude of what we’re talking about,” said Rohrabacher.

He says people who casually follow the debate think it’s about helping a few impoverished kids from Latin America or Asia when the facts are very different.

“They don’t know that they’re talking about the large number of people that we’re talking about and the impact that it will have later on as people all over the world pay attention to the fact that if young people can get to the United States, we don’t have the heart to send them back.  Then what we’ll see is a flood of millions more people coming in,” said Rohrabacher.

Rohrabacher has been part of efforts to beat back immigration legislation in 2006, 2007, and 2013.  He says public pressure clearly makes a difference.

“The only thing that’s saved us from a massive onslaught of people crossing our borders from all over the world, many of whom probably would have been detrimental to us in terms of terrorism, it’s been alerting the American people that’s given us the leverage,” said Rohrabacher.

President Trump campaigned vigorously on enforcing immigration laws and beefing up border security, most famously with a wall.  However, Rohrabacher says the performance of Republicans in the televised meeting suggests most GOP members have no intention of pursuing Trump’s campaign vision.

“I don’t think there was anybody in that meeting that was someone who was, on principle and in practicality, opposed to legalization of illegal immigrants,” said Rohrabacher, who admits no lawmakers would admit to such a label.\

However, the congressman says actions speak louder than words and the emerging talks suggest a major disconnect between lawmakers and the voters who sent them there.  He says it could have a major impact come Election Day 2018.

“We could turn off our base the same way moderate Republicans have turned off their base and lost elections for the last 20 years,” said Rohrabacher.

Interestingly, despite his vehement opposition to congressional legislation on DACA, Rohrabacher is not guaranteeing a ‘no’ vote.

“I’m not telling you that if I lose in my argument that I will vote against any bill that has DACA in it or any other type of immigration reforms or changes they plan to make,” said Rohrabacher.

“I’ll pay attention to the compromise to see if it’s possible that I could vote for it.  I’ll keep an open mind, but I think it will do us great harm, so I would prefer not to have a legalization, especially of 850,000 young people,” said Rohrabacher.

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McCain Wallops Wolff, Greitens Exposed, Trump Fumbles FISA Tweets

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Meghan McCain for calling out Michael Wolff’s many factual errors and questionable journalistic ethics  to his face during a discussion of his book on “The View.”  They also unload on Republican Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens for conducting an extramarital affair as he prepared to launch his bid for governor and they recoil at accusations that he threatened to release compromising photos of the woman if she revealed their affair.  Greitens admits to the affair but strongly denies the blackmail.  And they smack their foreheads as President Trump trashes FISA renewal legislation in a tweet before realizing his administration actually supports the bill.

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Unshackling Energy, Trump’s Impulses Obscure Big Week, Gorilla Channel Parody

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke for taking steps towards allowing energy exploration and development on more than 90 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf.  They also fume at President Trump for taking a week when he could be highlighting his support of Iranian protesters, the Dow crossing 25,000 and expanding American energy production and instead ranting about nuclear button sizes and trying to order a book publisher not to release a book critical of his presidency.  And they laugh at the liberals in the media and beyond who believed an online parody – about Trump being obsessed with the “Gorilla Channel” up to 17 hours at a time – was actually in that new book.

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Trump Ends Voter Integrity Panel After States Refuse to Hand Over Records

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President Trump scrapped the commission he created to investigate problems with alleged voter fraud on Wednesday, blaming state leaders for refusing to share data that could help to determine the extent of any problem.

However, Trump is now asking the Department of Homeland Security to pick up the investigation and urging Congress to pass a national Voter ID law.

“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a statement Wednesday.

“Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action,” she added.

Hans von Spakovsky manages the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation and served on the commission until its termination.

“I’m disappointed but I understand why President Trump did this.  The commission has basically been unable to do its work for more than two months,” said von Spakovsky.

He says the inability of the commission to make progress is a result both of state officials refusing to cooperate and lawsuit-happy activists grinding the work of the panel to a halt.

“We have all these state election officials refusing to provide us with the data we need with state voter registration lists so we can do the research we need to do.  Also, liberal progressive groups have filed about a dozen lawsuits to stop the commission from being able  to operate.  The staff of the commission is spending all their time in this frivolous litigation,” said von Spakovsky.

One of the most common arguments made by state officials in refusing to turn over voter registration lists is that the federal government has no business barging in and demanding states provide the information.

Von Spakovsky says that argument rings hollow given what states constantly do with the same information.

“The information we asked for is information that all of these states routinely sell to candidates and political parties.  So why they think they shouldn’t give it to this commission looking at election integrity, I don’t really understand,” said von Spakovsky, who contends the federal government has every right to see the same records.

“The federal government is entitled to that information because those voter registration lists are what are used for federal elections, elections for Congress and the president.  Obviously, the federal government has a right to that information,” said von Spakovsky.

Despite the dearth of records to study, von Spakovsky says the commission’s work shows there is clearly a problem.

“Some folks who got the voter registration lists  – the same information we wanted – from 21 states that represent just 17 percent of the voters in the country, and yet they found more than 8,500 people who illegally voted in more than one state in [the 2016] election,” said von Spakovsky.

On Thursday, election officials in Virginia determined the outcome of a race for the House of Delegates that would also determine the majority in that chamber.  The race was deadlocked after recounts and court challenges, and Republican David Yancey’s name was drawn out of a bowl, giving the GOP a 51-49 majority.

Von Spakovsky says that race may well have been impacted by illegal voting.

“That’s a legislative district in which a group that I’m associated with discovered that in just one town, Newport News, in the last few years they’ve removed a couple hundred non-citizens who had registered in that city and had voted almost 300 times in prior elections.  So it’s very possible that particular race may have been decided by people who shouldn’t have been voting,” said von Spakovsky.

So what happens now?  As Trump indicated, the issue will now be referred to the Department of Homeland Security.  However, von Spakovsky says DHS is going to need a lot of help.

“They can’t look into this problem without the help and cooperation of the U.S. Justice Department.  That’s going to take Jeff Sessions helping them too.  It looks like it’s going to have to be private groups and others like myself still trying to look into this problem,” said von Spakovsky.

Trump has one other suggestion.

“As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do…..except when it comes to the most important thing, VOTING for the people that run your country. Push hard for Voter Identification!” he tweeted Thursday morning.

Voter identification has been pushed in many states governed by Republicans, but the more liberal states want nothing to do with it.  It’s unclear whether Trump is advocating for a national voter identification law, but von Spakovsky believes it would be constitutional.

“I agree with the president.  Congress could impose an ID requirement for federal elections.  If they did that, that would virtually guarantee ID for all elections because in most states the state and federal elections are held at the same time,” said von Spakovsky.

However, he does not believe there is nearly enough political will to get the idea through Congress.

“Politically,  don’t think it’s possible  because you would have huge fights between both Democrats and Republicans over this issue.  There are some states that are moving forward with this.  Iowa just put in an ID requirement, but there are other states that are adamantly opposed to it like New York and California, which are two of the largest states in the country,” said von Spakovsky.

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