Russell Mead - An Important and Objective Analysis of Trump's Foreign Policy Initiatives. Run For The Hills! Those Pusillanimous French.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Democrats must believe having double standards is something good because two is better than one
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.
If Trump is a pragmatist will it prove successful and can our State Department change its ways?
Walter Mead writes that Trump is practical but also is not prepared to recognize  some of the subtle aspects of our foreign policy demands.  An interesting and objective analysis and an important read.(See  1 below.)
+++++++++++++++++T
The CFPB is a perfect example of how Obama chose to run our government, control our lives and thatos businesses. He was arrogant, power hungry, insecure and wanted the government to be increasingly empowered to operate outside the constitution.

He was able to accomplish many of his "trans-formative"  goals because the mass media idolized their anointed hero, Democrats were eager to support him and anything that increased the size and power of government. The consequence of all this irrational thinking was the worst economic recovery in our over 200 year history and now Trump is doing his best to unwind us from the mess Obama and his Democrat lackeys created.

Obama truly sought dictator status and continues his goal through the efforts of appointed holdovers and the government he has assembled outside.

The previous housing depression was caused by a variety of factors and GW tried to fight the cause but did not have the votes.  Banks were threatened to be examined and penalized by the government if they did not make loans to those who could not afford the mortgage payments. Wall Street took advantage of the then low rate structure and demand to bundle garbage loans which banks bought and rating agencies failed to do their job.

Dodd Frank was simply another mistaken power play on the part of Democrats who wanted to intrude government into the lives of Americans and were able to establish the CFPB on the premise the  agency would protect them.

We now know the CFPB failed to spot the Well Fargo fiasco.  So much for government oversight.

Sen. Warren headed up the agency until she won a Senate seat and her term proved to be an unmitigated disaster.

The public is too easily swayed by biased reporting and complicated evidence to understand what a threat Dodd-Frank and the CFPB are to business and our economic health. The circumstances I have enumerated above require connecting dots which  is difficult for those incapable of understanding the impact of government on business when they are told the umbrella created unfolds for their benefit.   Yes, "I am from the government and am here to help you." When you hear that or something akin run for the hills..(See 2 and 2a below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If the world had been  left to the French radical Muslims would already control it. (See 3 below.)
Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)

Trump Brings Foreign Policy Back to Earth

The goal now is less to make dreams come true than to keep nightmares at bay.

By Walter Russell Mead

Forget the tweets, the gaffes and the undiplomatic asides. The most trenchant criticism of President Trump’s foreign policy is that it risks forfeiting America’s hard-won position of global leadership.

It’s a compelling indictment: Mr. Trump is withdrawing from the Paris Accord, “restructuring” the State Department with a chain saw, dumping the Pacific trade deal, and abdicating on human rights while cozying up to authoritarians. The whole of the damage being done to America’s standing is greater than the sum of his tweets.

On the other hand, those hardy souls who defend the administration argue Mr. Trump is so smart that his critics can’t fathom the method to his apparent madness. The naysayers, as this theory has it, are playing checkers, while Mr. Trump is winning at chess.

The truth, as always, is more complicated. Mr. Trump is not the second coming of Bismarck, and his temperament, education and experience have not prepared him to steer American foreign policy at a difficult time. But there is a pattern if not a method to his moves. Moreover, Mr. Trump’s mix of ideas, instincts and impulses is not as ill-suited to the country’s needs as his most fervid detractors believe.

What gives Mr. Trump his opening is something many foreign-policy experts have yet to grasp: that America’s post-Cold War national strategy has run out of gas. During the period of confidence and giddy optimism that followed the Soviet Union’s fall, the list of “important” American foreign-policy goals expanded dramatically.

Promoting democracy in the Middle East; protecting the rights of religious and sexual minorities; building successful states from Niger to Ukraine; advancing global gender equality; fighting climate change: This is only a partial list of objectives recent administrations pursued, sometimes under pressure from congressional mandates. Foreign policy has become as complex and unwieldy as the tax code, even as public support for this vast, misshapen edifice has withered.

Change had to come, and the failure of Mr. Trump’s 2016 rivals—both Republican and Democratic—to offer a less disruptive alternative to gassy globalism helped put him in the White House. Although the president’s antiglobalist and mercantilist instincts blind him to some realities, they enable him to grasp three significant truths.

First, Mr. Trump knows that the post-Cold War policies can no longer be politically sustained. Second, he knows that China poses a new and dangerous challenge to American interests. Third, he sees that foreign policy must change in response. The old approach—on everything from trade and development, to military deployments and readiness, to religious freedom and women’s issues—must be reassessed in the light of today’s dangerous world.

For years foreign-policy thinking was dominated by the idea that the end of the Cold War meant the “end of history”—the inevitable triumph of the so-called liberal world order. This belief shaped a generation of intellectuals and practitioners.

But history isn’t over, and American foreign policy needs to come back to earth. The U.S. isn’t putting the finishing touches on a peaceful global system that is fated to endure for the ages. For the foreseeable future, foreign policy is going to be less about making dreams come true and more about keeping nightmares at bay.

Mr. Trump’s critics retort that committing to advance human rights and fight climate change wraps American power in a mantle of legitimacy and promotes cooperation from allies. The costs for failure in these areas will only grow. Moreover, some of Mr. Trump’s moves, like walking away from the Pacific trade deal, strengthen China at America’s expense.

Fair enough. American foreign policy must ultimately stand for something greater than itself. If FDR could proclaim the Four Freedoms in the depths of World War II, then a president today should be able to articulate a larger goal than “MAGA.” Mr. Trump does not appear to understand the importance of trade policy to building alliances and, therefore, American security. One can add that American security rests in large part on whether other countries believe they can count on Washington’s word. Erratic tweets and impulsive flights of rhetoric undercut that confidence.

In steering American foreign policy away from the inflated expectations and unrealistic objectives produced by the end of history mirage, the Trump administration is performing a much-needed service. But it is not enough to demolish the old. Ultimately Mr. Trump will be judged on his ability—or failure—to build something better.

Mr. Mead is a fellow at the Hudson Institute and a professor of foreign affairs at Bard College.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2)Mick Mulvaney Is the True Pope

Once again, naked progressive overreach sets Donald Trump up for a win.

By William McGurn

Once upon a time, the world had two popes. Today we have two acting directors of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In 1378, two men each claimed the papacy. One was Urban VI, an Italian who was elected by cardinals in Rome. The other was Clement VII, who was elected by French cardinals and reigned from Avignon—where a succession of French popes had lived for most of that century.

Monday morning, Americans awoke to similar competing claims for who the real acting director of the CFPB is. Mick Mulvaney says he is the true acting director because he was appointed by President Donald Trump. Leandra English, a CFPB executive, says she is the true acting director because former Director Richard Cordray anointed her such on his way out. Unlike the 14th century, when pope and antipope held court in different countries, Mr. Mulvaney and Ms. English are not only in the same city—Washington—but claim the same physical office.

It’s not over. And as so often happens when progressives overreach so publicly, the likeliest winner will be President Trump.

Republicans, of course, have distrusted the CFPB since its inception. Partly the objection is practical, because its creation embodies the classic Beltway approach: rather than fix a broken regulatory system, throw another powerful agency atop the heap.

In this case, however, the objections are also constitutional. Philip Hamburger, a Columbia University law professor and author of “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?,” notes that the lack of democratic accountability almost defines the CFPB.

“This agency is so independent that it does not need congressional funding, and it now has declared itself self-appointing—even in opposition to the president’s appointee,” he says. “The CFPB is thus a reminder of how the administrative state can go to dangerous extremes.”

In this battle over legitimacy, Mr. Mulvaney boasts two impressive credentials. First, he was appointed by the man whom the Constitution gives authority over the executive branch, the president. Second, Mr. Mulvaney is on record as saying he doesn’t “like the fact that the CFPB exists.” If only more heads of more administrative agencies came to their jobs with such a healthy reservation about government power.

All of which gives Mr. Trump and the Republicans an unexpected opening. One perpetual difficulty with advancing regulatory reform is that it’s not a sexy issue, so it’s difficult to drum up public support. But the longer the absurdity at the CFPB goes on, and the more attention it generates, the more the American people will see that the CFPB’s lack of accountability was meant not as a bug but a feature.

On strictly legal terms, Mr. Trump’s hand is strong. A year ago, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appealsthrew out provisions that insulated the CFPB director from presidential accountability and said the CFPB would do its job “as an executive agency akin to other executive agencies.” More recently, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel invoked the Vacancies Reform Act to uphold the president’s right to make this appointment. For good measure, even the CFPB’s own general counsel, Mary McLeod, says Mr. Mulvaney’s appointment by Mr. Trump is legitimate.

With Donald Trump, of course, it’s always possible that someone will find some federal judge somewhere who will allow personal antipathy for the president to get in the way of the law and the Constitution. But the arrogance on display this week by Ms. English & Co. should also invite congressional correction.

Behind the metaphor of “the swamp,” after all, is the idea, not without justification, that today’s Washington is far removed from government of, by and for the people. In this context the CFPB is a good proxy for the beau ideal of modern American progressivism: appointed bureaucrats, unaccountable to the elected representatives of the people, who wield their regulatory authority as a weapon. As if this were not outrageous enough, Ms. English argues the CFPB also has the right to self-perpetuate by the laying of hands on a successor by her predecessor when he leaves.

On Monday Mr. Mulvaney took his place in the director’s office, brought doughnuts for employees and met with senior staff. Meanwhile Ms. English sent an email signed “acting director.” And just as France and Scotland recognized the antipope Clement VII, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren say they recognize Ms. English as the CFPB’s true acting director.

In the end, the rebellion at the CFPB is about far more than an acting director. The defiance is a gift to Republicans, giving them a rare political opening to clip the wings of an agency designed to go rogue—while highlighting to the American people what happens when federal power is divorced from democratic accountability.

Anyone really think Mr. Trump loses this one?

2a) Leandra Costanza

Democrats pretend that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is its own branch of government.

By The Editorial Board

Remember the “Seinfeld” episode in which George Costanza refused to leave even after he was found to be faking a disability? No matter the obstacle, George strove to occupy his office. The U.S. government now has its own devious doofus George in the form of Leandra English, who insists that she deserves to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and is refusing to leave.

Ms. English is the former chief of staff to Richard Cordray, who resigned as CFPB director on Friday, but not before naming her as deputy director, a position that had been vacant for two years. The language of the Dodd-Frank Act lets the bureau’s deputy director serve as the acting director “in the absence or unavailability of the Director.”

Ergo, Ms. English claims she is the new acting director, never mind that President Trump has superseded that claim by invoking the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to appoint Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney as acting director. The law allows the President to temporarily fill a vacancy at an executive agency with a government official who has been confirmed by the Senate.

This standoff devolved into a farce worthy of “Seinfeld” on Monday, as Mr. Mulvaney occupied the director’s office and met with senior employees. But Ms. English refused to leave and posed for photos with Senate Democrats. We can only imagine her lineup of interviews on MSNBC and CNN as she portrays herself as the latest martyr for “the resistance.”

On Sunday she even found her own lawyer to sue the Trump Administration to keep her job. She had to find her own lawyer—is he Art Vandelay?—because even the CFPB general counsel concluded that the law is on the Trump Administration’s side.

As a memo from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) explains, 40 other office-specific statutes provide alternatives to the Vacancies Act. Even when it is not the “exclusive means for filling a vacancy, the [Vacancies Act] remains an available option” for a President to fill an opening, says the OLC memo. And “the President’s designation necessarily controls” unless a statute includes language expressly stating otherwise. Dodd-Frank does not.

OLC is the government’s main legal authority on executive power and it has consistently supported this interpretation, including in 2003 with regard to the acting director of OMB and in 2007 with the acting Attorney General. This interpretation also adheres to the only federal circuit court opinion on the subject, which was issued by an Obama appointee on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

The Ninth Circuit upheld Lafe Solomon’s appointment under the Vacancies Act as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, noting that neither the Vacancies Act nor the National Labor Relations Act “is the exclusive means of appointing an Acting general counsel” and that “the President is permitted to elect between these two statutory alternatives.”

In other words, Mr. Trump is acting well within his legal authority, and Ms. English’s resistance is grounds for dismissal. Dodd-Frank lets the President fire the director for cause, and resisting a President backed by the legal arguments of the Justice Department would qualify. A presidential order supported by Justice is presumed to be legitimate unless it is overturned by an Article III court. Or perhaps Mr. Mulvaney should avoid a scene and let Ms. English hang around until she finally gets tired of being ignored.

This fiasco underscores that the CFPB is a rogue agency whose structure is an affront to the Constitution’s separation of powers. A panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 ( PHH Corp. v. CFPB) that the bureau’s director must be subject to presidential authority. The full circuit, which former Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid packed with Obama nominees in 2013, vacated the decision while it considers the case en banc.

It’s likely that Mr. Cordray planned his exit strategy with Ms. English in the hope of creating some kind of incident on Monday at the CFPB. In the event Mr. Mulvaney brought a bag full of donuts and comity reined. Mr. Cordray and Democrats will try to portray all this as some kind of bureaucratic coup, the better to gin up more name recognition as he runs for Governor of Ohio next year.

But the Trump Administration is destined to prevail as a matter of law. The episode shows that hostility to Mr. Trump is causing his opponents to violate the rule of law themselves. Democrats created an executive-branch agency insulated from Congressional appropriations and presidential control, and now they claim to be able to run it like a branch of government unto itself with a self-sustaining directorship. This is a perversion of constitutional government that the President is right to resist and the courts should reject.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3)

France Submits to Terrorism, Muslim Anti-Semitism
By Guy Millière

GATESTONE INSTITUTE

• In France, since 2012, more than 250 people were killed by Islamic terrorism — more than in all other European countries combined.
• No other country in Europe has experienced so many attacks against Jews. France is a country where Jews are murdered because they are Jews.
• “Muslim believers know very well what is happening. Only a minority is violent. But as a whole, they do not ignore that their birthrate is such that one day, everything here will be theirs”. — Luc Ravel, Archbishop of Strasbourg.
  In Bagneux, France, on November 1, 2017, a plaque placed in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young Jew murdered in 2006 by a “gang of barbarians”, was destroyed and covered with graffiti. When a few days later, another plaque replaced it, the French government issued a statement that “hate will not win”.
  There are many signs, however, that hate has already won and that France is sick. If these signs were already obvious a decade ago, they are even more obvious today. Voluntary blindness prevented them from being addressed.
  Ilan Halimi was taken hostage in January 2006, then viciously tortured for three weeks. He was eventually abandoned, dying, on the edge of a road and died a few hours later.
  Most of kidnappers, who were arrested a few days after the murder, were Muslims. They immediately confessed. They said they had chosen Halimi because he was a Jew and they thought that “all Jews have money”. Some added that Jews “deserve to suffer”.
  They were tried behind closed doors. The leader, Youssouf Fofana, spat his bile against Jews and vehemently shouted the name of Allah during the whole trial, so the court could not hide that he was an Islamic anti-Semite. He was sentenced to “life” in prison — which in France means 18 to 20 years. If he had not assaulted his guards in the prison, he would already have be released. The other members of the gang, described by the prosecutor in a watered down way as “thugs looking for easy money”, were quieter and were handed down relatively light sentences. Today, almost all “the barbarians” are free.
  Even books, accentuating the whitewash, describe the crime as just an ugly “sign of greed” among “poorly educated young people”.
  In 2014, director Alexandre Arcady made a movie — 24 Days: The True Story of the Ilan Halimi Affair — to draw attention to what he perceived as a growing danger for Jews and for the French in general. The movie was a flop; almost no one paid attention to it, despite some murders just as sickening.
  On March 19, 2012, in Toulouse, a 23-year-old Muslim, Mohammed Merah, entered the yard of a Jewish school and murdered three children and the father of two of them. He had already shot French soldiers, but shattering the heads of children at point blank range was an act of total horror. Three days later, besieged in his apartment, after having explained for hours to a negotiator why he had chosen Jewish children, he launched a last attack but was riddled with bullets by the police. He instantly became a hero in all the Muslim French suburbs; the anti-Semitic dimension of his act just contributed to his fame.
  For many months, his name, Mohammed Merah, was a rallying cry for Muslim youths. The press, meanwhile, described him as a “lone wolf” and “lost child”.
  When evidence accumulated showing that his brother, Abdelkader, an Islamist, had trained Mohammed and helped him prepare his butchery, he was arrested.
  Abdelkader Merah's trial last month was as ugly as that of the “gang of barbarians”, maybe even uglier. Abdelkader did not lose his temper. He expressed no regret. He calmly explained that jihad is a sacred duty for every Muslim; that he thought that his brother was “in paradise” and what the status of Jews is in the Koran. Mohammed and Abdelkader's mother, Zoulikha Aziri, testified that they were “good sons”. Later, out of court, she said that “Allah orders Muslims to kill Jews”. (Abdelkader's lawyer said that Abdelkader was not guilty of anything; that he was just a devout Muslim “practicing his religion”, and that he himself considered it an “honor” to defend Abdelkader.
  Abdelkader was sentenced to twenty years in prison. If there is no appeal, and if he is no longer violent, he will be released in eight years. Abdelkader, while in jail, may still do what he was doing before: proselytize and repeat what he said in court about jihad. When he is released, he may well not stop. He will most likely not be arrested again.
  His mother may well repeat that Allah orders Muslims to kill Jews: the command is, she thinks, an integral part of her faith. She will not be accused of incitement to murder. Hundreds of thousands of men and women openly say what she says.
  There are thousands of Abdelkader Merahs. Some are in prison, some are not. Not only are 70% of prisoners in France Muslims, but prisons are now the main recruiting centers for jihadists in France.
  Calls to jihad can be heard from countless mosques throughout the country each week. A recent book, Partition, lists the addresses of 150 of them.
  Incitement to kill Jews is frequent in the almost 600 no-go zones that exist in France. Leaflets stipulating “if you meet a Jew, kill him”, were recently distributed in the Paris suburbs, near places where street prayers occur. “Death to Jews” and “Slit Jews' Throats” can increasingly be heard in organized street protests. Synagogues have been attacked in Paris, Sarcelles and Marseilles.
  In the five years since Mohammed Merah's murders, French Muslims have attacked more Jews.
  On May 24, 2014, Medhi Nemmouche, a gunman who had recently returned from Syria, opened fire in the Jewish Museum in Brussels and shot four people. On January 9, 2015, Amedy Coulibaly, a man who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, entered a kosher grocery store, took 19 people hostage, and shot four of them.
  Recently, on April 4, 2017, a retired Jewish physician, Sarah Halimi, was viciously brutalized for an hour, then thrown off the balcony of her apartment. Her murderer, Kada Traore, who shouted “Allahu Akbar”, was deemed “mentally ill” and sent to an asylum.
  Two attacks had a large number of casualties: one on November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis (130 killed), and the other on July 14, 2016 on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice (86 killed). A priest, Fr. Jacques Hamel, was knifed to death while saying Mass. A businessman was beheaded by one of his employees. A police officer was shot on the Champs-Élysées. It does not stop.
  On October 1, 2017, two women were slain in front of the Marseille central railway station. The murder of most off the journalists and editors at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015 (12 killed) led, three days later, to a huge demonstration in Paris, but indifference quickly returned.
  In France, since 2012, more than 250 people were killed by Islamic terrorism, more than in all other European countries combined. In addition, no other country in Europe has experienced so many attacks against Jews. France is a country where Jews are murdered because they are Jews.
  Every year, Jews flee France by the thousands. Those who do not emigrate move to cities and neighborhoods where they hope they will be able survive without risking aggression.
  Many non-Jews live in fear and remain silent.
  The government does almost nothing. A few times a year, its members ritually denounce “anti-Semitism”, but never forget to mention that it comes from the “far right”. They only denounce “radical Islam” when the facts are so blinding obvious that it is impossible to do otherwise. If they can, they prefer to talk about people who were “radicalized“, without giving any details or explanation.
  In August 2017, the Ministry of the Interior issued a statement that almost 300 jihadists were back from Syria and represent a risk. All of them could come back to France with French passports. None of them has been arrested.
  In March 2015, the French intelligence services created a Report Card for the Prevention of Terrorist Radicalization (FSPRT); there are 15,000 names on it. Monitoring everyone would require nearly 160,000 police officers. Therefore, only a few dozen suspects, are under surveillance.
  After France's November 2015 attacks, a state of emergency was declared. It consisted mainly of sending soldiers and police officers to railway stations and airports, and placing guards and sandbags in front of synagogues and Jewish schools.
  The state of emergency expired on November 1, 2017. It was replaced by a weak “anti-terrorism” law. Fewer soldiers and police officers will be deployed. “Security zones” will be created around events that appear “exposed to a terrorist risk”, and police controls will stand near such events. These controls, however, already exist. “Places of worship” will be “visited” if it “seems” they disseminate “ideas that could lead to terrorism”; then they could be closed for six months. Many “places of worship” already disseminate “ideas that lead to terrorism”; they are still open. Legal texts omit words such as “radical Islam”, “jihad” or “anti-Semitism”. They also do not include words such as “mosque” or “search”; instead, they speak of “places of worship” and “visit”. They also never define which “ideas” could “lead to terrorism”.
  Yaffa Monsonego, the mother of one of Mohammed Merah's victims, did not go to Abdelkader Merah's trial. Her daughter, Myriam, was eight-years-old when she was shot. Monsonego said in a mainstream television interview that attending the trial would have been of no use; that French justice will never live up to what she and other families of victims feel every day, and that she is certain more murders will happen.
  A journalist said on radio that, by not naming and not fighting evil, France betrays all those who want to live safely, and abandons the country to those who are crushing it. He reminded his listeners that the presence of Islamic anti-Semitism in France is older than they could imagine, and mentioned a young disc jockey, Sebastien Sellam, murdered in Paris by his Muslim neighbor in 2003, just because he was a Jew. The journalist said the destruction of the plaque placed in memory of Ilan Halimi was a way of killing him a second time.
  A few weeks ago, Luc Ravel, Archbishop of Strasbourg, said that those who run the country bury their heads in the sand; and that while Islamists are tried, the trial of radical Islam in France is not even considered. He added that all French political leaders know a population replacement is in progress that will quickly have much more serious consequences than those already evident today: “Muslim believers know very well what is happening. Only a minority is violent. But as a whole, they do not ignore that their birthrate is such that one day, everything here will be theirs”.
  
  Luc Ravel, Archbishop of Strasbourg, recently said that French political leaders know a population replacement is in progress that will quickly have much more serious consequences than those already evident today.
  (Image source: Peter Potrowl/Wikimedia Commons)
  Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron, while in Abu Dhabi on November 8 to inaugurate a museum, said: “Those who want to make you believe that anywhere in the world, Islam is destroying other monotheisms and other cultures are liars who are betraying you”.
  On November 13, back in Paris to pay homage to the victims of the attacks two years earlier, Macron participated in a release of multicolored balloons, watched them float to the sky, then laid flowers where the victims were killed. The plaques state that they were “murdered”, but not that they were victims of terrorism. Soon, the word “terrorism” could also disappear from France's vocabulary.
  In Submission, a novel published on January 7, 2015, ironically the same day as the Charlie Hebdo murders, its author, Michel Houellebecq, foresaw that words would disappear, that Islamic terrorism would lead France toward submission, and that the Jews would leave the country. He was right.

  Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

• +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++