Trump Beginning To Meet Viguerie’s Foolproof Test

Movement conservatives are now in charge of the Trump campaign

Richard Viguerie

“Who you walk with tells me a lot about who you are” is an aphorism that I have long applied as a foolproof test of whether a candidate or elected official is going to govern as a conservative. This might be seen as a Richard Viguerie companion or corollary to another one of my favorite rules of politics – personnel is policy.

When Ronald Reagan was running for President every time I saw him, and I saw him quite a bit, he was surrounded by people I knew from conservative politics: Senator Paul Laxalt, Jeff Bell, Lyn Nofziger, Marty Anderson, Dick Allen, Judge Clark, Ed Meese, etc.

This gave me confidence that when Reagan was elected he would look to the conservatives with whom he had surrounded himself to staff his White House, and the Cabinet and sub-cabinet appointments in his Administration.

And, with a few notable exceptions, that’s what he did.

On the other hand, when I looked at Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole, or both Bushes, what I saw were lobbyists, industry insiders, professional political operatives and other “rented strangers” as columnist George F. Will once called those of the professional political class.

So when we look at who Hillary Clinton walks with; Leftwing financier George Soros, Muslim Brotherhood-connected aide Huma Abedin, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and other radical Leftists we know where she is going to lead the country.

But what of Donald Trump?

Trump has spent the past three decades in the company of the show business stars, sports legends, and pop culture figures that promote his business ventures.

He’s readily admitted that, as part of his business strategy, he’s supported both political parties and their candidates – he even donated to Hillary Clinton in one of her past campaigns.

However, since he began to the think about running for President, and once he announced, he has walked mostly with people from the right-of-center, from Senator Jeff Sessions, to Jerry Falwell, Jr., to conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, to his National Co-Chairman Sam Clovis and economic advisors Steve Moore and Larry Kudlow, Trump’s major supporters and many of his inner circle have been from the conservative movement.

Now, the hiring of Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager and Steve Bannon as chief executive of the campaign brought two more movement conservatives into the leadership of Trump’s campaign.

Donald Trump’s recent economic speech, his national security speech and his law and order speech in Wisconsin were full of sound conservative policy prescriptions and were reflective of a strong conservative governing philosophy.

Most importantly, through the ups and downs of his campaign, contrary to the conventional wisdom espoused by the DC political class and the establishment media, Trump has not “moved to the center,” but marched steadily to the right.

With Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon at the top of the campaign, Mike Pence as Vice President and Senator Jeff Sessions at Donald Trump’s side, the Trump campaign is shaping up to be the most ideological campaign since Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter.

Does this mean that Donald Trump, the secular businessman, has suddenly erased his glitzy past – of course not. Trump is still Trump with all that comes with that.

However, conservatives can look at Donald Trump’s campaign and draw more and more assurance that through the application of Viguerie’s Foolproof Test and its corollary Donald Trump is going to govern as a conservative, and that is, in the end, exactly what we conservatives want from this election

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Trump and Blacks

Thomas Sowell

Who would have thought that Donald Trump, of all people, would be addressing the fact that the black community suffers the most from a breakdown of law and order? But sanity on racial issues is sufficiently rare that it must be welcomed, from whatever source it comes.

When establishment Republicans have addressed the problems of blacks at all, it has too often been in terms of what earmarked benefits can be offered in exchange for their votes. And there was very little that Republicans could offer to compete with the Democrats' whole universe of welfare state earmarks.

Law and order, however, is not an earmarked benefit for any special group. It is a policy for all that is especially needed by law-abiding blacks, who are the principal victims of those who are not law-abiding.

Education is another area where something that is needed by all segments of the population is especially needed by blacks and other low-income minorities. In other words, here again there is no need for a divisive policy of earmarked benefits, in order to attract new voters into a “big tent.”

No matter what policy Republicans follow, they are not going to win a majority of the black votes this year, nor perhaps even this decade.

Nor is that necessary. Just an erosion of the Democrats' monopoly of the black votes can benefit both Republicans and the black community, who are currently taken for granted by the Democrats. Republicans may also get more white votes if they are no longer seen by some as racists.

Education is a slam dunk issue for Republicans trying to appeal to black parents with school-age children, as distinguished from trying to appeal to all black voters, as if all blacks are the same.

Education is an issue with little, if any, down side for the Republicans, because the teachers' unions are the single biggest obstacle to black youngsters getting a decent education — and among the biggest donors to the Democrats.

Among the few signs of educational success for low-income minority children in the public schools are the KIPP and Success Academy charter schools. But teachers' unions are bitterly opposed to increases in the number of such schools, and Democrats do what the teachers' unions want, because money talks.

As long as blacks vote automatically for Democrats, while the teachers' unions insist on getting their money’s worth, it is all but inevitable that the education of black children will be sacrificed in the public schools, wherever Democrats are in control.

Republicans have nothing to lose by taking on the teachers' unions, which donate more than 90 percent of their money to Democrats. Again, Republicans may not win a majority of the votes of even those parents who have children in the public schools. But that is where any inroads into the black vote can begin.

Here, as elsewhere, a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. That step should include appeals not only to black parents with children in successful charter schools, but also the larger number of black parents on waiting lists for charter schools, and anyone else in the black community who understands that a good education is the key for the next generation to advance.

The black vote has not always been a monopoly of the Democrats. From the time of Abraham Lincoln to that of President Herbert Hoover the black vote was Republican. Even in the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the black vote was one of the few that went to President Hoover in 1932.

Even after President Franklin D. Roosevelt won over black voters in FDR’s 1936 landslide, Republicans continued to get a significant share of the black vote over the next 20 years. But not in recent elections.

Someone on CNN said that if Trump were serious about wanting the black vote, he would address groups like the NAACP. That was in fact a big mistake that even President Reagan made.

Blacks voters are not the property of the NAACP, and they need to be addressed directly as individuals, over the heads of special interest organizations that have led blacks into the blind alley of being a voting bloc that has been taken for granted far too long.

Whether other Republicans will re-think their approach to attracting minority voters is a big unanswered question.

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Child Rape Case Inspires Lawmaker to Fight Philadelphia’s Sanctuary City Policy

An illegal immigrant living in Philadelphia has been charged with raping a child, spurring opponents of the city’s “sanctuary” policy to use his arrest to bolster their argument that such practices leave dangerous criminals on the streets.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Martina White, a Republican, says the alleged rapist, Ramon Aguirre-Ochoa, a 45-year-old Honduran national, avoided deportation only because of Philadelphia’s policy not to comply with most immigration-related requests from the federal government.

In an interview with The Daily Signal, White said she hopes the incident will inspire bipartisan support for her bid to hold sanctuary cities accountable for crimes committed by residents who are living in those municipalities illegally.

“There is a lot of support for the state of Pennsylvania to make sure sanctuary city policies do not continue, and that they do not spread,” White said, adding:

These policies are dangerous. Philadelphia, and cities like it, are basically encouraging illegal immigrant criminals to come there. And unfortunately, we are seeing that these policies impact citizens’ lives. These are very, very sad circumstances and repercussions from a flawed policy.

White’s bill would make any sanctuary city in Pennsylvania liable for “damages”—such as injury to a person or property—caused by illegal residents who have been convicted of a crime.

White introduced the bill in April in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled House, and she says the legislation will get a committee vote in September. She expects the bill, which has 41 co-sponsors, including two Democrats, to be approved by the House.

Inspired to help address the costs of higher education and health care, White, 28, was elected in 2015 to represent Pennsylvania’s 170th district. A financial adviser, she is a lifelong resident of Northeast Philadelphia.

White’s push to punish sanctuary cities comes at a time of division over Philadelphia’s policy, which opponents consider to be one of the most extreme in the country.

Under the policy, implemented by Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, after he took office in January, the city in most circumstances does not respond to requests from federal immigration authorities to be notified of the release of an illegal immigrant from custody.

Michael Nutter, the city’s former Democratic mayor, had ended his own sanctuary policy before leaving office, but Kenney decided to quickly change course.

Now, Philadelphia will satisfy immigration requests only if the person in custody was convicted of a first- or second-degree felony involving violence. The policy requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal authority in charge of deportations, to present a judicial warrant—the equivalent of an arrest warrant—for cases in which it seeks compliance from the city.

According to ICE, Philadelphia chose not to honor an earlier detainer request in 2015 against Aguirre-Ochoa after the dismissal of criminal charges of domestic aggravated assault.

A detainer is a request from ICE asking local law authorities to hold immigrant detainees it suspects of being in the country illegally for up to 48 hours after they were scheduled for release from jail.

Aguirre-Ochoa remained free until his arrest July 26 in the child rape case, when he was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and related offenses.

ICE has filed another detainer with Philadelphia, requesting Aguirre-Ochoa be transferred to the custody of federal immigration authorities after his case is resolved.

The case has drawn the attention of Pennsylvania’s national representatives, including Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, who is up for re-election.

In July, Senate Democrats blocked Toomey’s bill to strip congressional funding from sanctuary cities. Since the rape case, he has urged Kenney to repeal Philadelphia’s sanctuary policy.

Toomey’s Democratic opponent, Katie McGinty, also called on Kenney to increase his cooperation with ICE.

More HERE

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