How Can Election Integrity Be Strengthened?

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when democracy is protected by election integrity. One way to protect the integrity of our elections is to ensure that all ballots are counted on Election Day. In his article published at The Daily Signal, Fred Lucas discussed how election results in the United States take much longer than those in other nations. 

Germany’s election this week marked another reminder that most industrialized democratic countries tend to call the results of their elections on election night, unlike the United States, where some congressional, state legislative, and statewide contests ran for days or months after Election Day in November.

While the worst predictions about a prolonged 2024 presidential outcome in the U.S. didn’t come true, down ballot races were delayed.

It’s not just the often-cited California, where eight races were not called on election night – two U.S. House races, five state legislative races, and one statewide ballot measure. A North Carolina state Supreme Court race is still unresolved.

“Most European countries don’t have mail-in elections where election officials are counting ballots for two weeks,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “These countries have in-person voting at the polling place and have the results on election night.”

… almost three-fourths of the countries in the European Union don’t allow mail-in voting without specific reasons, while every European country except Britain has voter ID requirements.

As explained in the article, there are several reasons that determine how fast ballots are counted. Do states count ballots that arrive after Election Day? Do they start counting ballots prior to Election Day? Lucas quoted Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation:

“It takes a lot longer to process an absentee ballot than a regular ballot…. You have to open up the envelope. Check all the information on it. Did they sign it? Did they date it? Etc. Then you open up the second envelope, which actually has the ballot. And you have to unfold it. And you put it in a stack. You do all that processing ahead of time, then when Election Day closes, you already have the ballots there.”

Whatever can be done to strengthen election integrity should be done, and voters should insist that it be done. By creating greater election integrity, we can strengthen our democratic republic and protect our American way of life. By doing so, we can strengthen our families, communities, states, and nations.

Why Is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Trouble?

The liberty principle for this freedom Friday concerns consumer protection for American citizens. However, some methods of protection are better than others.

The Department of Government Efficiency – better known as DOGE – has the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in its sights. DOGE is looking at the “initiative for its censorship, waste, and hindering of businesses disfavored by the Left, among other issues.”

According to an article by Fred Lucas in The Daily Signal, Democrats, the media, federal employee unions, “60 Minutes,” and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are all objecting to the dismantling of the CFPB. Lucas claims that Warren, as a law professor at Harvard, “was the architect of the agency.” 

The CFPB was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation to regulate banks, credit card companies, lenders, and other financial services companies. It is funded through the Federal Reserve.

The agency has had a string of controversies, including censorship, a massive data breach, internal financial waste, and complaints of workplace discrimination.

Several actions are being taken regarding the CFPB. President Donald Trump appointed Russ Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to be the acting director of the CFPB, which operates under the Federal Reserve. “Vought eliminated the agency’s budget request for the next quarter and ordered about 1,700 employees not to perform any work.

Meanwhile, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) introduced a bill to eliminate the entire agency. A spokesperson for CFPB had no response when asked for a statement for this story. Here are five controversies that Lucas considers to be the biggest ones in which the agency has been involved.

1. Censorship in Chicago

The CFPB scored a $105,000 settlement late last year with the Chicago-based Townstone Financial, a non-bank mortgage firm, in a case that critics say amounted to policing speech.

“This was German-like censorship by the CFPB,” Berlau said. “No financial services owner is free to speak on a podcast or radio show under this very dangerous precedent.”

Berlau said the Trump administration should cancel the settlement and fire anyone involved….

2. Discriminating Tastes

Last year, the CFPB settled a decade-old class action racial discrimination lawsuit for $6 million brought by 85 black and Hispanic employees. The agency also paid $1.5 million for attorneys fees….

3. Data Breach of 256,000 Consumers’ Information

CFPB defenders assert it protects consumers when accessing records from financial institutions.

But the CFPB hasn’t yet resolved a 2023 data breach that forwarded the confidential information of 256,000 consumers to a personal email address, Berlau noted….

4. Surpassing the Trump Tower

A Federal Reserve inspector general report released in 2014 found renovations for the CFPB’s Washington headquarters exceeded $215 million – or about $120 million over the original estimate.

The House Financial Services Committee noted this was more than $590 per square foot. That meant the agency was spending more per square foot than it cost to build the Trump World Towe in New York, which was $334 per square foot; the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, which was $330 per square foot; and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which was $450 per square foot.

The inspector general report also said the CFPB “was unable to locate any documentation of the decision to fully renovate the building.” …

5. Operation Choke Point

The CFPB was involved in the Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point debanking initiative, according to a 2015 report by the inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The operation spearheaded by the Justice Department encouraged banks not to do business with gun stores, pawn shops, payday lenders, and other legal industries considered “high risk.” The CFPB reportedly warned banks against disclosing publicly about any of its investigations. 

Has Alaska Been Saved?

According to Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, President Donald Trump saved Alaska on his first day in office when he signed an executive order that unlocked the “bounty of natural wealth” in Alaska. This bounty includes oil, gas, minerals, and timber. Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal reported on an interview with Dunleavy at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. 

“Everything has changed” for Alaska’s energy and natural resources production under the Trump administration, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy says….

“Whatever Alaska has is now open for business,” Dunleavy told The Daily Signal….

Trump’s actions have “rescued Alaska – rescued, I think, the country, and quite frankly, the world – from this social-engineering approach that was taking place,” the Alaska governor.

The Biden administration was “brutal” to Alaska, Dunleavy said, adding that “opportunity was stolen left and right through upwards of 66, 68 executive orders and actions by the federal government.” Under President Joe Biden’s leadership, “offshore oil leases were suspended,” the governor explained, and leases for oil production were slowed.

“In many respects, our future in oil production in Alaska was basically doomed” under Biden, Dunleavy said. “When President Trump came in, all that has changed.”

With Trump in office, Alaska is moving ahead with the construction of an 800-mile natural gas pipeline that will enable the U.S. to ship gas to Asian allies. The pipeline starts in Prudhoe Bay in far north Alaska, where the state’s major oil and gas fields are located, and would end south of Anchorage in Nikiski, Alaska, where the gas can be liquefied before being exported to Asia.

The pipeline project will create “thousands and thousands of jobs,” Dunleavy said, adding, “It’s going to be a golden age for this country.”

It is much safer for America’s Asian allies to get their natural gas from the U.S., according to the governor, who says his hope is that shipments can be consistent “for at least 50 to 60 years.”

Dunleavy predicts that the increased oil and gas production will positively affect markets and lead to lower prices for American consumers at the gas pump….

Although the governor expects environmental groups to attempt to stop the pipeline construction. However, he expects the projects to eventually move forward. The governor also hopes that Congress passes some laws to stop the “whipsawing effect” whenever there is a change in administrations. According to Dunleavy, there are members of Congress who see the need for such legislation.

 

Is Trump Keeping His Promises?

President Donald Trump is keeping his promises, and he described some of his actions at the Conservative Political Action Conference held just outside Washington, D.C. He deployed active-duty troops to guard the border and to “repel the invasion of our country.” Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell reported on Trump’s speech at CPAC. 

Trump said that on Day One, he ended “catch and release” at the border, reinstated the Remain in Mexico policy, and ended birthright citizenship.

Catch and release is a process the Biden administration used where it would catch people illegally crossing the border and release them into the United States rather than deporting them immediately. Remain in Mexico is a policy from the first Trump administration where immigrants seeking asylum in the United States apply for asylum and wait for a determination on their claim while staying in Mexico rather than coming to the United States and waiting here – a wait that can last for years….

Trump said he, too, could not stand seeing “people come in from jails, mental institutions, and the worst criminals on the street, gang members being dropped off in buses and bussed into our country.”

Deporting illegal immigrants is “liberating” to communities like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, “that have been occupied by illegal alien criminals from all over the world,” the president said.

“We’re rescuing the Americans whose jobs have been stolen, whose wages have been robbed, and whose way of life has been absolutely destroyed,” he said. “And under the Trump administration, our country will not be turned into a dumping ground. We’re not going to do it.”

Foreign countries are taking their illegal immigrants back, Trump said, including countries like Venezuela and Columbia, which originally refused.

Trump celebrated designating as a terrorist organization the violent Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, which has been infiltrating the United States.

 

Who Is Kash Patel?

My VIP for this week is Kash Patel who was confirmed last week to be the FBI director after several weeks of delay. The vote was 51-49 with two Republican senators opposing him. No one should be surprised to learn that the two senators are Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Fred Lucas discussed the Patel appointment in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

President Donald Trump nominated Patel to reform the FBI, which has been the subject of several whistleblower complaints in recent years and is under scrutiny for being politicized and weaponized, including for targeting parents who spoke out at school board meetings and for plans to infiltrate traditional Catholic churches.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., noted that law enforcement organizations and state attorney generals have supported Patel’s nomination….

Patel has a 16-year career in law and natural security, with both career and political positions at the Justice Department, the White House, and the Defense Department. Patel will bring needed reforms to the FBI, said Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia attorney general and former acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration.

“The FBI has been at the heart of weaponization of government,” Cuccinelli told The Daily Signal. “Putting someone in there with as much knowledge and experience as Kash Patel has is an important step forward. He’ll do a great job and will keep America protected, with a less biased FBI. There is an amazing amount to clean up there. He will never get it all cleaned up. But I think he can pick up the bureau up by the ankle and shake the change out of its pockets.”

In 2023, Patel’s book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy” was published and detailed his critique of federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the FBI. The book was a sticking point for many Democrat senators during the confirmation process.

During the first Trump administration, Patel was chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.

Before that, Patel was the deputy assistant to the president and the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

While at the NSC, he helped oversee Trump policies that included eliminating the Islamic State terrorist group as well as al-Qaeda leadership such as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasim al-Rimi.

Patel also was the principal deputy to former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, who oversaw the operations of 17 intelligence agencies.

Before going to the White House, Patel was senior counsel for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under then-Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and oversaw the investigation into the Russian active measures campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The two-and-a-half-year investigation into whether Trump conspired with the Russian government to win the 2016 election was prompted by information fed to the FBI from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Democrat operatives. The House panel and later special counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was no evidence that Trump conspired with Russia.

Patel also played a key role in the Nunes memo that showed the FBI relied on partisan “politically motivated or questionable sources” to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

What Did Trump Accomplish During His First Month in Office?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the accomplishments of President Donald Trump during his first month in office. His supporters at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference summarized his accomplishments with one of his mottos from his campaign: “Promises Made, Promises Kept.”

During his first month, Trump signed 70 executive orders to do a variety of tasks: secure the border, cut wasteful spending, eliminate radical gender ideology, establish an “America First” foreign policy approach, challenge discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion, and much more. Trump has the approval of 70% of Americans for doing what he promised.

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell summarized five of Trump’s accomplishments in her article published at The Daily Signal. 

Securing the Border

Two days into his second term, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, enabling him to deploy additional personnel to the border, and directing the acting secretaries of the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to finish the border wall.

The White House has touted January’s 36% decline in border apprehensions – resulting in the lowest number of illegal aliens apprehended along the border in almost five years – as the “Trump effect.”

That total includes 29,116 apprehended at the border outside of official ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s the lowest since May 2020. And that compares with 47,3l6 apprehensions outside of official ports in December, before Trump took office.

The January total also includes 32,349 apprehensions at ports of entry, compared with 48,719 in December….

Slashing Government Inefficiency

Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency, aimed at identifying and eliminating wasteful spending. DOGE, which Trump tapped Elon Musk to lead as a special adviser to the president, says it’s already saved $55 billion in federal spending.

On his first day in office, Trump placed a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development….

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she “clawed back” tens of millions of dollars in funds “that FEMA deep state activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant hotels.”

The federal Department of Education announced it had terminated more than $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that were using taxpayer funds to train teachers in critical race theory and radical gender ideology….

DOGE uncovered $1.9 billion at the Department of Housing and Urban Development that was “misplaced during the Biden administration due to a broken process,” DOGE revealed on X.

Protecting Women, Children From Gender Ideology

On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order clarifying the existence of only two sexes, male and female, ending the Biden-Harris administration’s war on biological reality….

He signed an executive order in the Oval Office surrounded by female athletes of all ages protecting women’s and girls’ sports from male intrusion. The NCAA then changed its policy on transgender-identifying athletes.

The Department of Education announced an investigation into the Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation for failing to adhere to the order by continuing to allow males to compete in female sports….

The president also prohibited radical gender ideology and critical race theory instruction in federally funded public schools….

Another executive order ending federal support for irreversible child sex-change procedures inspired many children’s hospitals to cease so-called gender-affirming care for minors….

Confirming Cabinet Nominees

Trump said it was essential for his Cabinet nominees to get confirmed so they can start working as quickly as possible, and after a month, he has been able to swear in the majority of his Cabinet….

The Senate has outpaced itself for the number of Cabinet confirmations completed by this point in time since the George W. Bush administration in 2001.

Instituting One-Voice Foreign Policy

Since the Constitution vests foreign policy authority in the president, Trump declared on Feb. 12 all foreign policy must be conducted under his direction.

He announced reciprocal tariffs on countries currently assessing tariffs on the U.S….

Trump restored a 25% tariff on steel imports and elevated the tariff to 25% on aluminum imports….

What Are the Blessings of the Priesthood?

My Come Follow Me Studies for this week took me to Doctrine and Covenants 12-17 and Joseph Smith – History 1:66-75 in a lesson titled “Upon You My Fellow Servants.” The lesson was introduced by the following information. 

Most people around the world have probably never heard of Harmony, Pennsylvania. The Lord often chooses humble places for the most significant events in His kingdom. In a wooded area near Harmony on May 15, 1829, John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. He placed his hands on their heads and conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon them, calling them “my fellow servants” (Doctrine and Covenants 13:1).

John the Baptist was the trusted servant of God who baptized the Savior and prepared the way for His coming (see Matthew 3:1-6, 13-17). To these two young men in their twenties, it must have been humbling, perhaps even overwhelming, to be called John’s fellow servants. At the time, Joseph and Oliver were relatively unknown, much as Harmony was. But service in God’s work has always been about how we serve, not about who notices. However small or unseen your contribution may seem at times, you too are a fellow servant in the Lord’s “great and marvelous work” (Doctrine and Covenants 14:1).

This scripture block contained several principles: (1) I can participate in God’s “great and marvelous work” (Doctrine and Covenants 12; 14), (2) Jesus Christ sent John the Baptist to restore the Aaronic Priesthood (Doctrine and Covenants 13), (3) Ordinances give me access to God’s power (Joseph Smith – History 1:66-75), (4) Bringing souls unto Christ is of great worth (Doctrine and Covenants 15-16), and (5) The Lord uses witnesses to establish His word (Doctrine and Covenants 17). This essay will discuss principle #3, Ordinances give me access to God’s power.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as they experienced the major events of the Restoration? They received great blessings when John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood and gave them authority to baptize each other. Later, Peter, James, and John restored the Melchizedek Priesthood.

I have received great blessings because the Aaronic Priesthood and the Melchizedek Priesthood have been restored. Every single Sunday, I have the opportunity to partake of the bread and water of the sacrament to renew my baptismal covenant with God and to make a new covenant with Him. These blessings come to me through the Aaronic Priesthood held by the young men in my ward (congregation).

I have received many priesthood blessings under the hands of men who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, blessings of healing and comfort as well as help to provide service in the Church of Jesus Christ. I received the greatest of priesthood blessings in holy temples when I received an endowment and was later sealed to my husband. This sealing seals my family together for eternity if we prove worthy of such a blessing. Also, I can return to the temple as often as I desire to do proxy work under the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, work that blesses me as well as the person for whom I do proxy work. 

What Should We Teach Our Children About Their Bodies?

Families, communities, states, and nations will be stronger when they have correct information about gender transition. One of President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders cut federal funding for gender transitioning of minors. Trump’s action shows the effects coming from questions about medical interventions that may be harming children. Camille S. Williams claims that the “body of work supporting this position is significant and growing” from “health care professionals, whistleblowers, and detransitioners who are questioning” the impact of such actions. 

One scholarly critique challenges the myth of “reliable research” in pediatric gender medicine, contending that medically modifying the bodies of gender dysphoric children entered clinical practice worldwide without “the necessary rigorous clinical research” to confirm that “robust and lasting psychological benefits” outweigh the burdens of “lifelong dependence on medical interventions, infertility and sterility, and various physical health risks.”

James M. Cantor’s fact-check of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy on gender care concludes that the academy advocates “for something far in excess of mainstream practice and medical consensus” and that its statement “is a systematic exclusion and misrepresentation of entire literatures.”

Despite that thin evidence base, as Jennifer Block reports, “More adolescents with no history of gender dysphoria – predominantly birth registered females – are presenting at gender clinics.” Some “121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021,” with at least 18,000 of them beginning treatment with puberty blockers or hormones….

While the question before the Supreme Court in the United States v. Skrmetti was whether Tennessee’s ban on medical body modification for minors with gender dysphoria is sex discrimination, the justices seemed troubled by the conflict between therapists and doctors who consider medical body modification for minors to be ethical and clinically indicated, and psychological and medical professionals disputing such claims.

The liberal justices seemed more willing than their conservative colleagues to minimize the risks of gender medical treatments and to create a new class of transgender persons.

That reluctance is reasonable. As the editors of The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry have stated, “distorted body image is common … in all age groups,” and “there has been a steady increase in the number of people undergoing medical body modification to alter their physically healthy bodies in invasive and nearly irreversible ways.”

Both gender dysphoria and body dysmorphic disorder involve a perceived “mismatch” between the physical body and how the individual views their body.

Yet, according to a 2016 review, for the majority of those with gender dysphoria diagnosed in childhood, feelings of gender discomfort “remit around or after puberty without the need for any intervention.

Traditionally medical body modification has not been used for body dysmorphic disorder since it doesn’t address the root cause of the disorder. Instead, psychiatric treatments, including psychotropic drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy, have been used.

However, psychotherapy for gender dysphoria has been hindered by concerns about coercive conversion efforts when the therapy is perceived as not “affirming” enough….

Certainly, treatments for other body dysphoric conditions do not follow the autonomy-based model. For example, surgeons don’t generally amputate the healthy limbs of people with body integrity identity disorder, nor perform, as Erika Bachiochi has pointed out, anorexia-affirming bariatric surgery….

Because none of us enters this world without a body, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George contend that “Our bodies are essential aspects of ourselves as the kind of entity we are – a certain type of animal with a rational nature, a human being. We … are personal bodily organisms. And the sex of an organism is determined by how that organism is organized with respect to sexual reproduction. As there are two complementary ways of being sexually organized, so there are two sexes: male and female.”

Anderson and George maintain that “Children who feel deep discomfort with their bodily sex should be treated with kindness, respect, compassion, and love. They need toe be protected from bullying, teasing, discrimination, and any form of mistreatment…. This includes providing counseling for any underlying trauma or for social dynamics at home or school that may play a role in the dysphoria. And it includes helping them to break down misguided sex stereotypes or cultural expectations that may underlie their dysphoria.” …

… We should be wary of warring against our own bodies psychologically or medically. That’s why Tennessee, Utah and 23 other states are right to try to prevent what some refer to as “medically assisted self-harm” to minors, and are instead encouraging appreciation for the human body, and noninvasive psychological care to address minors’ gender/body dysphoria.

Parents should do all that they can to teach their children that their bodies are gifts from God. This teaching should begin in infancy and continue through emerging adulthood. By thus instructing their children, parents can strengthen their family, community, state, and nation.

What Is Happening Being Trump and New York?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns New York, lawlessness, and lawfare and their relationship to President Donald Trump. The State of New York is in a world of hurt for several reasons, but all roads lead back to Trump. Jarrett Stepman discussed the connections in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

In the four years that Donald Trump was out of office, no state political establishment besides the Biden White House did more to persecute the former president through banana republic-style weaponization of courts.

What’s more, New York became the poster child of what happens when you abandon Trump’s border policies and turn them on their heads. New York City, a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state, was absolutely flooded with illegal aliens under President Joe Biden.

On the one hand lawlessness, on the other lawfare. Anarcho-tyranny. That’s pretty much the Democrat Party’s modus operandi.

Now the tables have turned. Trump is back in the White House and from the flurry of actions he’s taken so far, it looks like he means business in putting a kibosh on the state’s sanctuary status.

Trump loves his hometown and home state, New York City, New York. He has made it obvious that he would like them to become beautiful again. However, neither the city nor the state will be beautiful again as long as illegal immigrants are welcomed and lawfare continues. The new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice are taking steps to take care of illegal immigration problem.

“They have a ‘tip-off’ provision that requires New York’s DMV commissioner to promptly inform any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested their information,” Bondi said, according to ABC News. “It’s tipping off an illegal alien. And it’s unconstitutional, and that’s why we filed this lawsuit.”

Trump’s Justice Department is also suing some of New York’s top officials, including Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James.

It should be noted that James was one of the leaders of the movement in New York to prosecute Trump.

The Trump administration isn’t just suing New York. It is cutting off federal funds that were used to facilitate illegal immigration.

Illegal aliens who poured in from Biden’s open wound at the southern border made their way to New York City en masse.

The influx of illegal aliens transformed the Big Apple….

Illegal aliens were driving the crime surge in popular tourist areas like Midtown. Many of them have been involved in violent gangs.

The now notorious Roosevelt Hotel became a symbol of the crisis. The hotel, which allegedly received a great deal of money from the Biden administration through the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], became a cesspool of criminality.

The money wasn’t just going to this one hotel. FEMA was sending tens of millions of dollars to New York so that they could keep the flow of illegal aliens coming.

This wasn’t just a terrible sanctuary law hurting locals; it was a money pit costing taxpayers and diverting resources away from needy Americans….

Strangely enough, Trump may have found a New York ally in his pursuit of curtailing illegal immigration. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who found himself on the wrong side of the Biden administration for having qualms about the scale of illegal aliens coming into his city, has expressed willingness to work with Trump. [Sounds like lawfare to me.]

The Justice Department recently dropped bribery charges against Adams. Critics have said this is part of a deal to make Adams cooperative, though Adams and the White Youse have denied it.

Adams has indicated he will reopen the shuttered Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at Rikers Island and will give ICE agents more leeway to do their jobs.

Adams is correct in working with ICE to remove illegal immigrant criminals from his city. If New York State authorities continue to battle against Trump and the Justice Department, they may find themselves trying to operate without federal funding.

Does America Have Common Sense?

“Common sense” is something that we hear a lot these days. President Donald Trump promised to bring common sense back to America, and we are reminded many times each day of the common-sense actions being taken.

Robert Curry at The Blaze calls the actions of the Trump administration a “common-sense revolution” – something that “may be precisely what patriotic Americans have longed for – and what America has long needed.” 

Because common sense is the key to understanding America’s original design at every level, America was long known as “The Common Sense Nation.” Now, President Trump and his “common-sense revolution” might succeed in making America the common-sense nation once again.

Unalienable rights and self-evident truths are the core ideas of the American founding. Those ideas are also the core ideas of a philosophical school known as “common-sense realism,” inspired by Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, and other representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment. In the words of Arthur Herman, “Common Sense Realism was virtually the official creed of the American Republic …” As historian Allen Guelzo explained in “The American Mind,” his indispensable college lecture series, “before the Civil War, every major collegiate intellectual was a disciple of Scottish common-sense realism.”

The founders were true revolutionaries, believing that the people were capable of self-rule by virtue of their common sense.

America’s founders were guided by the ideas and the thinking of the common-sense realists. Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, especially, were thoroughly trained in common-sense realism by their teachers, who brought those ideas and that manner of thinking from Scotland to America.

Today, the centrality of Scottish common-sense realism to the founding of our nation and to its ongoing sense of purpose is all but unknown. The founders would be astonished by our ignorance of the men who inspired their work. Admittedly, it has been a struggle – for more than a century, American academia has labored to obliterate the memory of what was once known by virtually every American.

Of course, academia has also been working hard to destroy “common sense” in its ordinary usage, too, insisting that men and women are arbitrarily designated categories and that the imperative of every English professor is to support violent insurgency….

The founders’ wild and crazy idea was that the people are sovereign. At the time, this construction was a contradiction in terms. The monarch was the sovereign. To say that the American people are sovereign was to say that the American people would rule and that government in America would be the agent of the people. Talk about turning the world upside down!

The founders were true revolutionaries, believing that the people were capable of self-rule by virtue of their common sense….

It certainly feels as if we are now engaged in a titanic struggle to determine America’s future. Perhaps the best way to understand the meaning of that struggle is to see it as an effort to restore rule by the common sense of the American people. President Trump and his common-sense revolution may be precisely what patriotic Americans have longed for – and what America has long needed.

Can Trump Bring Peace Between Russia and Ukraine?

President Donald Trump has been in office for less than one month. He has spoken with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Vologymyr Zelenskyy, and he says that both of them desire peace. According to Victor Davis Hanson, there is a “scent” of a deal in the air. We might help bring about peace if all of us just took a deep breath and let the diplomats work on the Russia-Ukraine issue. 

… there has been some commentary about the outlines of the deal. And it’s exactly what everybody’s been talking about, that Ukraine will not be in NATO. Ukraine will be armed and protected. There’ll probably be a demilitarized zone. The Donbas that was stolen 11 years ago by Putin – I’m not sure that’s the right verb – absorbed, and Crimea, it’ll be institutionalized, but he’ll have to go back to the Feb. 24 invasion point.

So, what do both sides get out of it? Ukraine says, “Ou heroic defense of Kyiv saved the country. We’ve gone from 41 million to 28 million. We’re going to get our population back. We proved to the world we stopped this Russian juggernaut. We were never going to get back Donbas and Crimea.

And there hadn’t been one administration – not Barack Obama, not the first Trump administration, not the Biden administration – prior to February of 2022, that ever said they were going to arm Ukraine with enough offensive weapons to militarily invade those areas and take them back. They were written off….

So, let’s be realistic. We know the outlines of the deal. I want to say a couple of final things to put this all in perspective. Vadimir Putin invaded during the Obama administration because he thought that Russian reset under Hillary Clinton and Obama was rank appeasement. And he knew they wouldn’t do anything.

He invaded under Joe Biden and tried to decapitate Kyiv because he knew that Biden had said our reaction would hinge on whether it was a minor invasion. And he knew that Joe Biden had suspended offensive weapons for Ukraine, and he saw what happened in Kabul.

He invaded in 2008 into Ossetia and Georgia because George W. Bush had said he looked in the eyes of Putin, he saw a soul, kindred soul. And he knew that the Bush administration was a lame duck and weakened by the Iraq and Afghanistan imbroglios. OK.

He did not invade during Donald Trump. And we know why, because he thought Trump was too unpredictable, too dangerous, and it wasn’t worth it in a cost-to-benefit analysis.

We should remember that. We should remember that it was Donald Trump’s administration that he did not go into….

What did Donald Trump do when he came in? He started giving offensive weapons to Ukraine. He killed 300 to 400 of the Wagner Group in Syria. Nobody had ever done that in the Cold War, killed that many Russians. He got out of an asymmetrical missile deal. He sanctioned the oligarchs at a higher level. He started flooding the world with cheap oil that could bankrupt Russia.

He was the best friend that Ukraine ever had. He wasn’t Putin’s asset – Putin’s puppet, as they said. This hatred of Donald Trump and this accusing him of appeasing Russia was very deleterious. It turned up in Russian collusion hoax. Disinformation hoax….

Let’s get real. There’s going to be a deal based on what everybody expects. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is it going to stop the greatest slaughter in Europe since Stalingrad? Maybe 1.6 million dead, wounded, and missing, on aggregate, on both sides? Yes.

So, let’s just calm down and let Donald Trump see if he can cut a deal that is satisfactory – not good, but satisfactory for both sides – and stop the bloodletting.

Why Reauthorize Presidential Reorganization Authority?

 My VIPs for this week are Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) for their efforts to support President Donald Trump to cut the size and cost of the federal government.

According to Cani Mondeaux, Lee introduced on Thursday a bill in the Senate that “would reauthorize presidential reorganization authority until the end of 2026.” This bill “would allow Trump to decrease the size of the federal government and eliminate programs he deems wasteful or unnecessary.” Mondeaux continued, “The bill would extend reorganization authority to Trump, greenlighting a little-used statute that allows the president to temporarily adjust the federal government if approved by Congress.” 

“Congress cannot afford to sit on its hands in this fight,” Lee said in a statement. “Reauthorizing presidential reorganization authority is the most comprehensive tool that the president can use to restore good governance to Washington.”

Under the Reorganizing Government Act, Congress must pass a joint resolution of approval within 90 days of submission. By doing that, the Senate can approve Trump’s plans to reform the structure of the federal government without being filibustered by Democrats.

Instead, it would only need majority support in both chambers.

Under the bill, Trump would have the authority to reduce the federal workforce, deregulate and eliminate special interests, make department-level changes, request the elimination of statutory programs, but could not use the bill to increase the budget or add federal employees.

The same bill is set to be introduced in the House by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.

“The federal bureaucracy has grown dramatically in size and scope, creating unnecessary red tape. We must cut through the inefficiency and streamline government to improve service delivery and save taxpayers money,” said Comer, R-Ky. “We owe it to the American people to make government efficient, effective, and accountable.” …

Although the act of creating or abolishing federal agencies is typically a power held by Congress, presidential reorganization authority has been granted to nine presidents on 16 separate occasions throughout history. The last time it was approved was in 1984 for then-President Ronald Reagan.

George W. Bush requested the authority in 2002 but such a package was not approved by Congress. Similarly, Barack Obama sought reorganization authority during his term to restructure the Department of Commerce and other agencies. Authority was not granted.