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What Happens In A Transition

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While the mainstream media camp out in the lobby of Trump Tower, the work being done upstairs by the Trump transition team is a seemingly endless stream of personnel decisions, policy briefings and figuring out the personal and political chemistry of the president-elect’s inner circle.

Trump won the 2016 election on Nov. 8.  He now has just over 50 days to prepare to assume the most powerful office in the world.  And that means his team needs to get him ready.

“The idea is that when a president takes office Jan. 20, that he can literally step into his desk that first morning and begin to function as commander-in-chief and handle all the duties of the presidency,” said Reagan White House Political Director Frank Donatelli.

He says the first order of business is growing the president’s staff.

“When someone runs for president, chances are they have a small coterie of advisers around them.  Of course, once you become president, you need a lot more people than that.  So they have to expand the circle pretty rapidly,” said Donatelli.

While much of the media attention centers on the high-profile cabinet selections, there are a total of about 4,000 political appointments for a president to make.

“Any position that is cabinet-level, deputy secretary or assistant secretary, generally those require Senate confirmation.  The president will have some involvement at that level,” said Donatelli.

He adds that while 4,000 may seem like a lot, there are about one million career government employees.

Donatelli says some of the lower political appointments often go to people with some sort of connection to the president or the party.

“The president will give some direction to the kinds of people he wants.  Generally, the Office of Presidential Personnel in the White House is responsible for filling out the bureaucracy.  They’ll take into consideration campaign workers and key members of the Republican Party and fundraisers for the president, and oh by the way, people who actually have some expertise in the job,” said Donatelli.

In addition to personnel matters, there is the issue of bringing the president-elect up to speed on a wide range of policy issues.

“You want to be able to hit the ground running and so the president needs to be broadly familiar with the issues that are going to be hitting his desk immediately: budget issues, economic issues, obviously foreign policy issues and briefings,” said Donatelli.

It’s an intense process of poring over critical information that is a challenge for every incoming president.

It’s a big curve.  It’s no comparison.  Some people say it’s a lot more fun to run to be president than it actually is being president.  You’ve got a lot of decisions to make.  I think it’s true.  Only a past president can understand the burdens that a new president is going to take on,” said Donatelli.

While Trump studies his briefing books and makes key nominations, Donatelli says it would be wise for his inner circle to be studying Trump, beginning with the issues he’s most passionate about.

“I think another important thing is if you have people around you that understand the president-elect, so that you know what the president-elect is most interested in and what he’s not interested in – the stuff he’s not interested in that he really doesn’t have to know that much about and can be delegated elsewhere,” said Donatelli.

He says President Reagan had a very smooth transition because some of his closest aides from his days as California governor were by his side and knew how he operated.  Donatelli says the learning curve could be steeper for Reince Preiebus and Steve Bannon, who have been close to Trump for a much shorter time.

“Reince Priebus has not worked for Donald Trump before.  Steve Bannon was on his campaign but it was only for a short period of time.  So I think there is going to be a feeling out process here so that the White House staff knows how this president operates; what he wants to know, what he’s doesn’t need to know, how he functions, etc. etc.,” said Donatelli.

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Energy Industry Wants Help from Trump

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President-Elect Donald Trump is vowing to unleash American energy and begin scrapping burdensome regulations on his very first day in office, announcements welcomed by the energy industry, although they still have other goals they want to see the new administration pursue.

In a short video, Trump outlined several directives he will issue on his first day in office on issues ranging from trade and immigration to national security and ethics reform.  However, promoting domestic energy and rolling back regulations were right near the top of the list.

“I will cancel job killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high paying jobs,” said Trump in the video.

“On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated,” said Trump.

The energy industry is hopeful that the next four years will offer it a more hospitable environment than what it received during the Obama administration.

“We’re certainly encouraged by the fact that the president-elect understands that one of the key drivers to a strong economy is energy security,” said American Petroleum Downstream Group Director Frank Macchiarola.

Macchiarola believes Trump understands the need to champion domestic energy production and is fully confident the American people are on board.

“Survey after survey tells us that the American public is concerned about economic growth and believes that we need to be energy secure,” he said, but notes that Obama has left a pretty complicated knot for the new president to untangle on energy regulation.

“I think what happened over the course of the Obama administration is that there was a lot of consolidated power in the administration.  I think with the division in Congress and the stalemate between both parties in the House and Senate, I think the administration took that opportunity to consolidate it’s power through a stronger regulatory agenda,” said Macchiarola.

He says those regulations had a clear impact on the energy industry.

“We have 145 current regulations that directly impact the oil and natural gas sector, whether it’s issues related to public land and access or issues related to the downstream or issues related to air or water or an issue like the Renewable Fuel standard.  It’s a broad spectrum,” said Macchiarola.

Macchiarola and his allies want the Trump administration to go over every single one of those regulations and provide as much relief as possible.

“What we really would like to do is to have the new administration, with a fresh set of eyes, take a look at this regulatory onslaught that we’ve seen.  And, again, consistent with their message and principles that they stated during the campaign about the need for less burdensome regulations here in Washington, free up capital to be invested in the private sector and the nee for secure U.S. domestic energy production,” said Macchiarola.

One of the policies Macchiarola is most concerned about is the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, and the increasing amount of ethanol being required in our fuel.  He says the RFS was created last decade to help boost energy independence at a time when the U.S. was importing vast amounts of energy.

He says the policy no longer fits the reality.

“What they didn’t know is that we would have an American energy renaissance.  Because of the shale revolution here in the United States and the energy renaissance, we’re now producing greater and greater amounts of oil and natural gas.  We’re the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas,” said Macchiarola.

“At the same time, demand for energy has essentially flat-lined.  So what you’ve seen is America become more energy secure over that time,” he added.

Macchiarola says addressing the RFS is critical now because the amount of ethanol about to be required in gasoline is incompatible with the vast majority of American vehicles.

“(It) creates an issue because it potentially adds cost to the consumer both through food and fuel.  And these higher ethanol blends above E10 are incompatible with the cars we have on the road today.  So the bottom line is the RFS is a mess, and it really needs to be fixed,” said Macchiarola.

Bipartisan legislation to address the Renewable Fuel Standard exists in the House of Representative but has not yet been considered.

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‘We Are Distorting the Conversation’

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While some of Donald Trump’s early personnel choices are leading some Democrats and media figures to conclude a racially insensitive administration is preparing to take charge in Washington, the leader of a prominent black conservative group says the concerns are double standards whipped up by the left and that Trump’s controversial choices are actually more tame on racial issues than their counterparts in the Obama administration.

And he is also offering Trump some advice on how to make good on promises to revitalize predominantly black neighborhoods.

As of Monday afternoon, Trump has named people to five prominent positions, only two of which require Senate confirmation.  The choices eliciting the most concern from the left and the mainstream media are Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, for attorney general and former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon for chief strategist and counselor.

Media reports were quick to label both Sessions and Bannon as controversial due to their histories on race.

Project 21 National Advisory Board Co-Chair Horace Cooper begs to differ on multiple fronts.  First, he is weary of race being injected into every political debate.

“We are distorting the conversation, generally, about public policy by randomly throwing around epithets that this person or that person, either a supporter or and individual affiliated with Mr. Trump, must in some way be bigoted, racist, or sexist,” said Cooper, who served as general counsel for former House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas.

He says that constant prism is also a hindrance to advancing good policy.

“The idea that a person is for a tax cut or against a tax cut, is for a construction project or against a construction project, can only be viewed from the prism of does that make you a racist, a sexist, or some other ‘ist,’ is completely unhelpful,” he said.

Cooper is also frustrated by what he sees as a massive media double standard on personnel, noting that current Obama counselor Valerie Jarrett and former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder got a free pass even though they contributed mightily, in his eyes, to far worse race relations over the past eight years.

“These two individuals helped to encourage and promote what could only and honestly considered to be racially divisive policies by President Obama, and yet none of these questions were being considered,” said Cooper.

“I bring those two names up because I want to highlight the contrast where the media has played no role and where voices that claim they are interested in encouraging America to come together have been completely silent, even to this day, about the role that those two individuals provided in the Obama administration,” said Cooper.

Stacked up against Holder and Jarrett, Cooper believes Sessions and Bannon look pretty good.

“I don’t see any similar record with regard to the designate for attorney general, Mr. Sessions, or to Mr. Bannon as a key strategist and counselor in the office of the White House,” said Cooper.

Critics of both Sessions and Bannon point with alarm to statements and posts from avowed racists praising the choices.

“Bannon, Flynn, Sessions — Great! Senate must demand that Sessions as AG stop the massive institutional race discrimination against whites!” tweeted former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, who recently collected three percent of the vote in Louisiana’s jungle U.S. Senate primary.  He finished in seventh place.

Cooper says an avowed klansman in publicly endorsed and donated to Hillary Clinton and she faced little media pressure to denounce him, although her campaign did.  He says the bottom line on a candidate or nominee is their record and not who likes them.

“I actually don’t care whether (Louis) Farrakhan or whether the Klan issues an endorsement in the election.  What I care about is what are policies and characteristics of the individual in question who is asking for our vote,” said Cooper.

Once again, Cooper says the media is showing a double standard.

“This has not been an even-handed assessment on the part of the media.  If they would like us to have this more expansive view, that supporters of given a given entity or individual are as important or more important than the candidate him or herself, then they needed to have been saying or doing that over the last eight years.  And they didn’t,” said Cooper.

He also hammers the press for drawing parallels between what might come in a Trump administration and the segregation era of American history.

“The mainstream media is working hand in glove with progressives to create this false impression.  This is not good for the country.  It is not helpful to pretend that a record in America that existed during the era of Jim Crow is the functional equivalent of a 21st century Trump transition team,” said Cooper.

“If we are serious about looking at the rhetoric, we need to match the rhetoric with the reality.  Nothing in Donald Trump’s commentaries is the equivalent of that old evil of segregation and racism,” said Cooper.

Cooper hopes Trump can put the concerns of many at ease by making good on his promise for a New Deal for the black community.  Cooper says any meaningful effort will start with improving schools in those neighborhoods.  And that means improving school choice.

“We’ve absolutely got to stop the union stranglehold over our schools and allow our young people, particularly in the inner city, to have the option of leaving poorly-functioning public schools or threaten to be able to leave them,” said Cooper.

He says that choice ought to extend to faith-based schools as well.

“That’s a key ingredient in the black community that will instill the kinds of achievement values that are biblically based.  That would go a long way to assuring that young black men and women who graduate from failed public schools, and not able to read their diploma, would be able to not only read their diploma but be able to compete,” said Cooper.

On the economic side, Cooper says enforcing and even tightening immigration policy would greatly help improve employment in black neighborhoods since illegal immigrants can easily underbid American citizens for work.

But Cooper also says government policies that encourage entrepreneurship can also revitalize those local economies.

“If you want to incentivize employers, then you create a right regulatory regime and the right tax regime so that it is possible that jobs in the community close to where inner city residents live can develop,” said Cooper.

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Indoctrination Triggers Campus Chaos

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Donald Trump’s election triggered an avalanche of grief and defiance on many college campuses, and administrators are accommodating the grieving students through a variety of efforts, but a top official at one of America’s best known traditional schools says the actions of both students and administrators are way off course.

Since Trump became president-elect on the morning of Nov. 9, schools around the country are taking great pains to comfort students traumatized by the GOP victory.  Some are setting aside “election processing spaces.”  Others options include counseling for students, vigils, and even sharing the suicide hotline numbers.  The University of Michigan Law School even planned a therapy event featuring Play-Doh before eventually canceling it.

Not all campuses are seeing so much volatility.  One is Hillsdale College in Michigan.  The school is well known for is 172-year refusal to accept any federal money.  Even federal student loan money is no good there.

Hillsdale Provost Dr. David Whalen says the emotional fragility seen on so many campuses comes as no surprise.  .

“These are really the predictable consequences of an entirely politicized environment in higher education,” said Whalen.

“For a long, long time now, higher education has been entirely political.  It’s forsaken it’s original purpose to foster a keen-sighted intellectual awareness on the part of students and instead indoctrinate them politically.  This is what you get.  You get what can only be described as an infantilized student body,” said Whalen.

In addition to creating an environment where such emotional demonstrations are becoming common place, whether about election results or perceived discrimination, Whalen says the way administrators are responding to the outcries is also very harmful.

“If the student is in your face, shouting and bellowing demands, you have failed that student in some fundamental way.  The most important thing at this moment is not publicity but what you can do to restore the student to a receptive educational context,” said Whalen.

“You’re a teacher.  That’s a student.  The student needs you.  The student needs to be informed by you in some significant respect.  Don’t forget that’s your primary role,” said Whalen.

So why do administrators regularly cater to the student demands.  Whalen sees multiple reasons.

“Administrators are often quite sympathetic with the students making the demands.  They wish they could move as quickly as the students are urging them to move,” said Whalen.  “The second reason is they, in too many cases I should say, lack the moral and intellectual resources to respond to the students or at least respond coherently.”

“The administrators, as a rule, are very concerned with appearances; too concerned about appearances and not sufficiently concerned…about the moral and intellectual formation of the students, of the intemperate person making the demands,” said Whalen.

The result, he says, are college graduates not ready to face the real world.

“It’s the same thing that happens when you give in to a two-year-old’s demands repeatedly and then they hit adolescence.  You get somebody who is completely incapable of governing himself,” he said.

Why does this not happen at Hillsdale?  Whalen says students at Hillsdale know exactly what is expected of them.

“The students here understand they are partners.  They are colleagues in an enterprise.  They are not consumers unhappy with a product they are buying.  They are undergoing a formation that they have to contribute to willingly.  They’re plugged in.  They’ve bought in.  They’re engaged,” said Whalen.

Due to it’s independent nature, Hillsdale attracts a more conservative student body than most colleges and universities but debate and disagreement are everywhere on campus.  Whalen says the difference is how students are taught to approach their disagreements.

“We educate them in the western intellectual tradition, which is a tradition of massive argument, disagreement and debate.  We’re not indoctrinating people with conservative stuff.  We’re just presenting this tradition that has arguments about everything from economics and the relation of the state to the individual to the existence of God and the nature of evil, everything imaginable,” said Whalen.

“When you wrap your mind at difficulty, under pressure and in strain around the most serious arguments about the most serious things, you turn into a pretty intellectually adept, responsible, mature person,” said Whalen.

The 2016 election brought fierce debate to campus, particularly during the primary season.  Whalen was proud of how the students approached those debates without resorting to what’s being seen on other campuses.

“The debates were vigorous but civil,” he said.  “There weren’t breaking up of friendships and shouting down dormitory hallways.  There was a lot of very vigorous, very serious disagreement, but it was done with civility and respect.  People didn’t assume that someone with a different point of view was morally deficient,” said Whalen.

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Three Martini Lunch 11/17/16

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Ian Tuttle of National Review applaud House Speaker Paul Ryan for quashing an attempt by some Republicans to bring back earmarks.  They also slam the defiant Democratic mayors who insist illegal immigrants will be fully protected from deportation in their cities.  And they discuss the social media crackdown on fake news and what passes for journalism on the left these days.

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Getting Specific on Repeal and Replace

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An effective overhaul of the nation’s health care laws will require scrapping the most damaging parts of Obamacare, keeping some of the provisions, and giving much more freedom to states and insurance companies to create vibrant competition that will increase consumer choice and bring down soaring costs.

That’s the assessment of Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, a prominent voice against both Obamacare and the Clinton administration’s attempted overhaul of health care in the 1990s.

The Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature domestic legislation, survived a Supreme Court challenge in 2012.  While the court states that mandating Americans buy health insurance is unconstitutional, the provisions were allowed to stand since people were given the choice to buy insurance or pay a fine.

Turner says the individual and employer mandates need to be the first things on the cutting room floor.

“They do have to go.  The individual mandate, in particular, is the single-most unpopular part of this law,” said Turner, who says there are ways for the Trump administration to kill the mandates without a vote in Congress.

“There are ways through the regulatory process, not even through legislation, that Mr. Trump could basically eviscerate the individual mandate.  But I also expect that to be very much on the chopping block when they do their repeal bill,” said Turner.

She says the employer mandate deserves the same fate.

“The employer mandate is the same.  Even many of the president’s advisers have said that the employer mandate is really relatively useless, except for forcing people to buy – this is me saying this – that is extraordinarily expensive and is driving up everybody’s premiums and deductibles,” said Turner.

But while there has been much talk of full repeal, Trump recently said he would be open to keeping a limited number of provisions that have proven to be popular.  Turner says keeping policies to forbid insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions or allowing adult children to stay on their parents’ policies should be retained.

“The president-elect should have have come out early on, saying, ‘Of course there are some goals in Obamacare that we share.  We want to make sure that as many people as possible have coverage.  We want to make sure that people are protected so that their insurance is real insurance.  The fact that they’re in Obamacare does not mean that they’re bad,'” said Turner.

“They just have to go about a way of achieving those goals in a much different, more consumer-friendly, more market-friendly way,” said Turner.

She also expects Congress to provide a transition period from the current law to those new, market-oriented solutions.

Turner also says federal subsidies should still be available to those buying coverage on the individual exchanges, suggesting many people will still need a hand up even if efforts are successful to drive costs down through competition and choice.

She says subsidies are actually very fair.

“People with employer-based health insurance get huge subsidies worth $250-300 billion a year and forgiving that part of their income from taxes that goes to pay their health insurance premiums.  So people who don’t have that option are being shut out.  They’re paying their premiums with after-tax dollars.  So yes, subsidies are going to have to be part of the equation,” said Turner.

Where Turner really hopes to see big change is the stripping away of the federal tentacles that currently dictate most details of the health care system.  She says that will bring down costs and bring more people into the system.

“It would, as long as they don’t have so many rules that are forcing young people to pay so much more than their likely use of health insurance, which is one of the problems with Obamacare, and so long as you don’t have rules that allow people to simply purchase health insurance when they’re sick and drop it after they get treatment,” said Turner.

Turner says another vital step is to rip away the mandates of what has to be included in a given health care plan and allow the marketplace to decide what’s best.

“I can’t even think of the options that are out there that insurance companies might come up with – and smart actuaries – to give people the opportunity to make the decision for themselves what kind of coverage they need.  Maybe it’s a health savings account.  Maybe it’s a high-deductible plan, maybe it’s an HMO that has more restrictions on it,” said Turner.

“If people can make those decisions for themselves, then the market will be able to respond to them, rather than all these Washington bureaucrats and regulators,” she added.

Decenralizing power from Washington would also put more control in the hands of the states.

“The problem now is we’re all forced into this same strait-jacket of Obamacare.  We all have to buy these hugely expensive products, which fewer and fewer people can afford.  Give the market really an opportunity to provide products that people want to purchase within parameters and some guidelines that make sure it’s real insurance and that people are protected,” said Turner.

Turner says Obamacare is driving people away from a product they want because of the crushing mandates and high costs.

“People want health insurance.  It’s not that you’re forcing them to buy something they don’t want.  They want health insurance, but they don’t want to pay more for their health insurance  than they’re paying for their mortgage, which is happening to many people right now,” said Turner.

Turner says new companies would spring to life when they see an explosion in demand from patients interested cheaper plans that better meet the needs of their families.

She says House Speaker Paul Ryan already has the relevant committee chairmen working on plans to overhaul Obamacare.  However, she says it’s very unlikely that Republicans will try to achieve reform through one massive bill.  Instead, Turner believes lawmakers will pursue a piecemeal approach targeting specific aspects of the current law that need to be changed.

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‘It’s Not Possible’: Dems Push Back on Claims of Stuffed Absentee Envelope

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Democratic Party officials in Fairfax County, Virginia, are categorically denying that pro-Democrat campaign materials were included in the same envelope as a voter’s absentee ballot, arguing that pamphlets were sent in a separate mailing to absentee voters from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, or FCDC.

Earlier this week, Jena and David Jones shared their story of finding more than they expected in the envelope that contained her ballot.

“I found a letter from the governor of Virginia asking me to please vote Democrat and ‘help keep Virginia blue’ this year.  Then I got a letter from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, giving me a step-by-step, yes-and-no what I should vote for as far as the meal tax and all those other things on the ballot,” said Jena.

In recent days, at least two more people contend they received the same materials in the envelope with their absentee ballots.

After the report was first published, and shared on Facebook by David Jones, Fairfax County Democratic Committee Executive Director Frank Anderson replied to David’s post to dispute their account of what the ballot envelope contained.

“These materials were NOT sent in the same envelope as the ballot. The ballot is mailed separately by the Office of Elections. Political parties are free to mail items to voters who request absentee ballots. The two envelopes arrived at the same time,” commented Anderson, showing a photo of the pro-Democratic materials and the separate envelope they are designated to be sent in.

jones-ballot-5

That triggered a quick back-and-forth between David Jones and Anderson.

“I hate to tell you but you’re wrong. All items came in one envelope,” said Jones.

“Impossible. That letter came out of my office. We never have access to other people’s ballots,” replied Anderson.

“Then it seems those that sent the ballots have access to YOUR letters,” said Jones.  “Who should I believe? You or my lying eyes?”

Anderson then stated that political parties are informed when anyone requests an absentee ballot and mailings are sent to those voters to promote Democratic candidates and positions on ballot initiatives.

“I am literally sitting down the hall from the place where those envelopes are stuffed. We are a political office and have no business handling anyone’s ballots. You can believe what you want to believe,” concluded Anderson.

The Virginia Department of Elections did not respond to repeated attempts for a response.  But after seeing our reports, Anderson protested the premise of the story.

“Please stop spreading these absurd allegations that are just hearsay from a misinformed voter who cannot verify his claim,” stated Anderson in an email, in which he also explained why he believed the Jones account could not be accurate.

He also shared a photo sent by State Sen. Scott Surovell, showing his absentee ballot envelope next to a separate envelope containing Democratic Party advocacy.

jones-ballot-4

In a formal interview, FCDC Communications Adviser Bruce Neilson says the Jones version of opening the envelope cannot be true.

“It’s not possible,” said Neilson, who then explained how absentee voters are approached by the local Democrats.

“Voting is a sacred privilege and a right of every citizen.  The activity of voting is also a public record.  The Fairfax County Democratic Committee receives a notice of everyone who has requested an absentee ballot.  We get that information as public information on the day the ballot is mailed,” said Neilson.

“The same day the ballot is mailed, our volunteers prepare materials to advise voters what the Fairfax (County) Democratic Committee knows to be Democratic positions on the ballot,” said Neilson, noting the materials include fliers on candidates and ballot proposals like the meals tax.

However, he insists those materials are never sent with the ballot itself.

“That material is mailed in a separate envelope, labeled with our initials – FCDC – and our return address in Fairfax, Virginia, and would be received either the same day, perhaps the day before or the day after she received her official absentee ballot from the government,” said Neilson.

“It’s a separate mailing.  It’s a separate stamp.  It’s a separate envelope.  It’s very easy to confuse where they came from if you have all those materials on the table at the same time while you’re filling in your votes,” said Neilson.

Jones is standing by her story 100 percent, as is her husband.  David says it’s a very clear memory.

“Jena opened the envelope that contained her ballot, the green sample ballot, the two-sided letter from the governor and card with kids on it saying “go vote” or something of that nature. There was also the return envelope which I signed,” said David.

The coverage of Jena’s story has also elicited similar stories from two other Fairfax County voters.  Both of them commented on Reddit.

“I can confirm this.  I live in Herndon, VA (Fairfax County) and also received these materials in my absentee ballot.  I thought it was fishy at the time but didn’t look into it,” stated a comment by a reader using the handle thisisaterriblename.

Another, under the Reddit handle Nightingale-Nights, said the same thing happened to them and posted similar photos to the ones David and Jena shared last week.

Neilson says there is no way the county government, which sends out the ballots, could be including partisan materials in the envelope containing the ballot.

“They don’t have our materials.  Our materials are printed for us, by our printer, and we have complete control over our materials in our office and they come from our office in our mailing.  They don’t go anywhere else,” said Neilson.

“It’s not possible that the county government is distributing partisan Democratic materials.  It’s never happened before.  I’m not aware of it happening now.  And I don’t think that it would happen anywhere in the future,” said Neilson.

There are only a few known complaints of stuffed ballot envelopes in Fairfax County, leading David Jones to believe an individual in the government is responsible.  He accepts the explanation that the Fairfax County Democratic Committee is not responsible for what he and Jena discovered with her ballot.

“I understand Frank’s comments about his office has nothing to do with the ballots. I believe that. I think what we are seeing here is a person that actually stuffs and mails the ballots is taking it upon themselves to add in extra material. I don’t see how Franks office could be held accountable for what’s in the ballot envelope. But it does seem odd that others are now reporting similar issues,” said Jones.

Neilson says there is no chance of that scenario being true.

“I just can’t imagine that happening because of the internal controls that we have on the literature that we mail,” said Neilson.

He also says the internal controls at the county government are air-tight.

“I am an election official.  On Election Day, I serve in a non-partisan capacity for our county election office.  I can assure you, you have Democrats and Republicans working in the office.  You have plenty of oversight of the voting process and there’s no way that a partisan political piece was mailed with her ballot.  There is no way that happened,” said Neilson.

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Ready to Replace Reid

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Senate Republicans are playing a lot of defense in the 2016 election cycle, but their brightest hope for winning a seat held by Democrats not only buoys GOP hopes for keeping a majority but has the party on the brink of capturing the seat held by retiring Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

Reid, D-Nevada, is stepping down after 30 years in the Senate.  The battle for his seat is a very close contest between GOP Rep. Joe Heck and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the former attorney general of Nevada.

Heck, who is also a physician and Army reservist, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.  He says in this chaotic election season, keeping the U.S. Senate in Republican hands ought to be a major priority.

“The most critical issue is to ensure we have a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, regardless of who’s in the White House.  We want to make sure there’s a system of checks and balances.  We want to make sure that we facilitate good ideas, block bad ideas and, of course, make sure that we are running the confirmation hearings for the next Supreme Court justices,” said Heck.

Heck was the the party’s top choice to seek the open Senate seat.  For much of the general election season, he enjoyed a small but steady lead over Cortex Masto.  In the past couple of weeks, however, Masto has edged ahead although the race is easily within the margin of error.

Heck says Nevada is a tough state for Republicans but he is vigorously pursuing every vote.

“It’s the demographics of our state.  The population has changed significantly.  Nevada, which had historically been a red state, is now really a blue state.  There’s an 88,000 Democrat voter edge in our state, a growing Latino population.  So it makes it that much harder to get out and talk to folks and earn their votes, but that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Heck.

“We’ve done that over the last 18 months.  I’m the only candidate in this race that has held public events in all 17 counties, making sure that people all across the state have the opportunity to learn about who I am, where I am on the issues, and why I want to be their next U.S. senator,” said Heck.

The congressman says four issues come up most with voters: jobs and the economy, national security, health care, and education.  Heck says he has direct experience in all those areas that can improve the lives of Nevadans and all Americans, starting with the economy.

“I owned my own company.  I had a business.  I know what it’s like to make a payroll, to actually hire folks and put people to work.  I know what the impact is of every regulation that’s passed by a state, local, or federal government and what it does to a small business owner,” said Heck.

On national security, he says his time in the U.S. Army prepares him very well to face the challenges confronting our nation.

“I’ve served in uniform for 26 years.  I continue to serve in the Army Reserve.  I’ve had the honor to command some of the finest men and women this country has to offer, three tours of duty overseas.  I know what it takes to keep our country safe,” said Heck.

According to his website, Heck directed emergency services and the aeromedical evacuation section of a combat support hospital in Al-Anbar province during his time in Iraq.  He says he is acutely aware of America’s health care needs as well.

“I’m a practicing physician.  I’ve worked in inner city hospital emergency departments for over 20 years.  If you ever want to see what works and what doesn’t work, come spend some time in an inner city hospital emergency department,” said Heck.

He is also the parent of three children who have gone through the public school and public universities in Nevada.  He says that gives him the same insights as other Nevada parents.

“My opponent has no real world experience in any of those issues,” he said.

On the other hand, Heck says people know they’ll just get more of the same with Cortez Masto.

“She is Harry Reid’s hand-picked candidate, so we would expect her to continue down the same path of failed policies that Harry Reid has championed over the last decade, certainly over the last eight years in aiding and abetting the president, and one of the reasons we still have a stagnant economic recovery with sluggish economic growth, stagnant wages, a failed foreign policy that has caused our allies to no longer trust us and our adversaries to no longer fear us,” said Heck.

“She came out in support of the Iran nuclear deal, which certainly does nothing to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  She did so in a quid pro quo, after Harry Reid and the president conducted a fundraiser for her here in Nevada,” said Heck.

Heck is also committed to protecting land rights for ranchers and other family businesses in Nevada.  He vows to fight against protected federal status for the sage grouse and against the Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, Rule.

“A dry irrigation ditch on a farm, once it has some water in it, would be considered a navigable waterway, subject to all the regulatory requirements of the Clean Waters Act.  That’s going to have a significant impact,” said Heck,

The federal government owns about 87 percent of all the land in Nevada.  Heck wants to see the federal government relinquish some of that back to the state and locales.  He says doing that, while protecting treasured parks and forests, would allow the state to bring in more property tax revenue and use that to improve Nevada’s lagging schools.

Heck says his six years in Washington have proven he can get things done.  He says he has built relationships on both sides of Capitol Hill that will pave the way for positive change.  He says his track record in the House proves that he can things done, even with President Obama in the White House.

“I’ve had bills that address veterans’ homelessness, bills that have addressed the victims of human trafficking, legislation that actually creates good-paying jobs in southern Nevada by transferring an old abandoned mine site that’s owned by the federal government to a local redevelopment authority so that it can be remediated, reclaimed and developed at no cost to the taxpayer, and supporting our men and women in uniform which is critical to our national security,” said Heck.

Republicans currently hold a 54-46 majority in Senate.  Democrats need to flip four Republican seats to retake the majority if Hillary Clinton wins the presidential race.  They would need to win five GOP  seats five if Donald Trump wins.

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‘Believe Me, This Is Going to Get Worse’

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Democrats are engaged in damage control in the wake of undercover videos from Project Veritas showing party operatives admitting to stoking violence at Trump rallies and being open to engaging in mass voter fraud, and the group says these videos are just the tip of the iceberg.

On Monday, Project Veritas released a video depicting the recently-fired Scott Foval of the Democrat-linked Americans United for Change admitting to inciting violence at Trump events, including a riot in Chicago that injured police officers and another that shut down a road near a Trump rally in Arizona.  Foval was quickly fired.

Tuesday, a follow-up video depicted Foval bragging about Democrats busing in voters from other precincts to influence elections and at least entertaining other forms of voter fraud this year.  Longtime Democratic operative Robert Creamer resigned as head of Democracy Partners that same day.  Creamer, who is married to Chicago-area Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., also served time years ago on a felony fraud conviction.

“In the first video, we see that they’re actually doing the things that are despicable.  In the second video, we have them talking prospectively about what they’re going to do on Election Day.  We have to be vigilant, go out and see if we can catch them on Election Day doing those things,” said Project Veritas Executive Director Russ Verney.

“But since they’ve already delivered on their violence at rallies, we have no reason to believe that they don’t intend to bus people around and commit other voter fraud,” added Verney.

In addition to dismissing Foval and Creamer, Democrats have pointed the finger of blame at Project Veritas and founder James O’Keefe.  Media, such as the New York Times, usually refer to Project Veritas as “a conservative group led by the activist James O’Keefe that has been heavily criticized as using deceptive editing.”

Verney rejects the left’s effort to dismiss the videos by attacking Project Veritas and O’Keefe.

“Nobody has pointed to anything in either of the videos that’s untrue or that they challenge the veracity of.  We’ve got them in their own words admitting to their own underhanded acts to subvert the Trump campaign and to commit voter fraud,” said Verney.

As for the suggestion that “deceptive editing” created this controversy, Verney says that is patently false.

“They attack the messenger instead of the message.  You say that it’s heavily edited and imply that we’ve done something nefarious with the editing, but they can’t point to anything within the videos that are nefarious.  They are the actual words of the targets in their own context.  We allow the people to fully hang themselves in these videos,” said Verney.

Verney especially gets a kick out of broadcast media promoting the “deceptive editing” defense.

“Every video you watch on ABC, Fox, whatever, is edited.  We would have to post hundreds of hours of video if you want it unedited,” he said.

But while Democrats try to wash their hands of the controversy by kicking Creamer and Foval to the curb this cycle, Verney doesn’t necessarily buy that they’re really off the stage.

“As they say in the video, ‘We don’t talk about things that we talk about.’  All this is a wink and a nod.  So whether or not they’re actually fired or just moved to another company is yet to be seen,” said Verney.

Even if the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign and private groups really did cut ties with Creamer and Foval, Verney is confident the tactics aren’t changing.

“Regardless of whether or not those individuals are still in their positions, the organizations that they’re with are still in position and still carrying on, still committing the same kind of tactics as when Bob Creamer was the head of the operation or Scott Foval.  They’ve still got plenty of other replacements out there doing the same things,” said Verney.

However, Verney warns Democrats that there damage control efforts are not over yet.

“They’ve fired two of the top people so far.  The only thing that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary campaign can do is try to attack the messenger.  They can’t deal with the message.  And believe me, this is going to get worse,” said Verney, referring to more Project Veritas videos that are on the way.

He didn’t say exactly what the forthcoming videos would show, but he did mention that as many as eight undercover reporters infiltrated various parts of the Democratic Party apparatus and discovered more evidence of illegal communicating and collaborating between organizations that are forbidden by law from working together.

“They gained the confidence of the highest level of Democratic operatives in multiple organizations: Americans United for Change, the Foval Group, Democracy Partners.  They sat in and listened to conference calls where the campaign, the White House, the Democratic National Committee and the Super PAC were all on the conference call with these operatives making their plans,” said Verney.

He says that’s proof of the Democrats flagrantly violating the law.

“The Hillary Super PAC is involved in this coordination, which makes the whole thing totally illegal.  This is a dark money conspiracy, where these organizations are prohibited from prior coordination with each other if they’re spending money to promote the Hillary election or the Trump defeat.  They cannot coordinate.  We’ve exposed exactly how they coordinate with each other in violation of the law,” said Verney.

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Liberty Students Defend Public Rebuke of Falwell

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Liberty University students are standing by their public criticism of school president Jerry Falwell, Jr., for what they say is “inexorably associating” the school with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

On Thursday, a group called Liberty United Against Trump released a nine-paragraph letter rebuking Falwell for his enthusiastic backing of Trump and carrying the name of Liberty University with him.

“In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him, the statement begins.

“Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose,” the statement says.

Liberty United Against Trump spokesman Dustin Wahl says students, who firmly rejected Trump in the primary, are fed up with Falwell associating them with Trump.

“It’s about the fact we don’t want to associate Donald Trump with Christianity, most importantly, and then also with Liberty University,” said Wahl, noting that Falwell has traveled to campaign for Trump and also spoke at the Republican National Convention.

“He carries the banner of Liberty University when he goes.  That’s why people know who President Falwell is,” said Wahl.

Wahl acknowledges and seems to largely agree with the argument that Hillary Clinton will be aggressively hostile to the values Liberty holds dear.  However, he says the amount of passion Falwell has for Trump’s campaign is troubling to him.

“There’s quite a difference between casting a ballot for the lesser of two evils and being kind of frustrated about it than what Falwell has been doing,  which is loudly and proudly supporting Donald Trump,” said Wahl.

Wahl says students have been frustrated with Falwell since the primary season, but Trump’s comments about women in the recently released Access Hollywood tape from 2005 demanded the group dissociate from Falwell. who continues to back Trump.

“Our motto is ‘Training Champions for Christ,’ and that is supposed to be our message.  Our message isn’t supposed to be endorsing any political candidate, but especially not one who directly opposes everything that we’re taught and everything we’re supposed to stand for and believe,” said Wahl.

And while stating the gospel of Christ cannot be stopped by any man, Wahl says Falwell’s actions make the work more difficult.

“It’s difficult to advance the message of Jesus Christ of salvation from our sins when we’re tying ourselves directly to a man who is not only sinful, because we’re all sinful, but who proudly preaches his sin,” said Wahl.

He says Falwell and others who defend Trump risk being branded as hypocrites.

“It’s pretty disappointing when the same people who used to say that character matters when Bill Clinton has his problems are now saying that character doesn’t matter when it comes to voting for the highest office in the land,” said Wahl.

Falwell quickly responded to the student statement.

“I am proud of these few students for speaking their minds.  It is a testament to the fact that Liberty University promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities where political correctness prevents conservative students from speaking out.  However, I am afraid the statement is false in several respects,” stated Falwell.

Falwell stated that Trump has much more support on campus than his critics are willing to admit.  He also says many of the people in Liberty United Against Trump aren’t even students and that he is always clear that he is not speaking for the university when he advocates for Trump.

He also claims his actions are biblical.

“I am only fulfilling my obligation as a citizen to ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ by expressing my personal opinion about who I believe is best suited to lead our nation in a time of crisis,” stated Falwell, referring to Mark 12:17.

Wahl is not impressed.

“I’m not a biblical scholar but I think there’s a strong argument to be made that’s he’s maybe taking that verse out of context.  I believe that had a little more to do with taxes than , not so much with endorsing a specific presidential candidate,” said Wahl.

He says even Trump supporters on campus are applauding Trump opponents for speaking out.

“We’ve received word from all kinds of Trump supporters here on campus and other places that are proud of what we’re doing.  Even though they’re voting for Donald Trump, they say, ‘Look, we don’t want Liberty to be associated with a man like Trump.  I personally think Hillary Clinton is worse.  But I don’t want my degree tied to someone like Donald Trump even though I’m choosing to vote for him for president,'” said Wahl.

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