Why is Jeff Flake preventing constitutionalists from getting on the federal bench over tariffs?

June 25, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Arizona members of Congress to condemn U.S. Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) for threatening to block votes on President Donald Trump’s judicial nominations:

“Arizona Senator Jeff Flake is living up to his name. His bizarre rationale for holding up highly qualified judicial nominees over President Trump’s tariff policies demonstrate that Flake has become desperate for relevance in his waning days in office. It is particularly irritating that Flake is seeking to claim an Article I rationale behind his actions, when he against Americans for Limited Government’s strong urging, voted to grant the President fast track trade authority in 2015. Now he is complaining about President Trump using the very authorities he and the rest of Congress delegated. If Flake knows his history he should remember that Congress after Smoot-Hawley passed laws that give the President broad authority to ratchet tariffs up and down reciprocally to enable the executive to move quickly in getting better trade deals for the American people, with the goal of promoting freer and fairer trade.

“Apparently Flake doesn’t like the German response to Trump’s policy by offering to eliminate their tariffs on U.S. vehicles in exchange for ending U.S. tariffs on German vehicles. This would not have been possible without President Trump’s leadership.

“Politically, Sen. Flake’s poorly thought out maneuver is great news for conservative state senator Kelli Ward in her primary battle against Flake-like U.S. Rep. Martha McSally. Every member of Congress and state representative in Arizona should unequivocally condemn Flake’s actions as they effectively negate their Senate representation. If Flake continues down this path, it is likely that the people of Arizona will have their own referendum on his idiocy with a primary outcome on Aug. 28 that neither he nor the senior senator from the state will appreciate.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 21, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising the Federal Communications Commission for looking into revising outdated children’s television programming rules:

“The Federal Communications Commission’s goals to modernize children’s television programming rules wisely recognizes that the existing rules reflect the analog era where a few broadcast channels captured the majority of viewing and viewing options were extremely limited.

“In today’s digital world, a vast majority of Americans have hundreds of viewing options, with children’s programming available on full-time children’s cable channels, on-demand from multichannel video producers, and streamed over the Internet.

“The existing rules no longer make sense in the new world of media options and disproportionately impact over the air, local broadcasters.  The willingness of the FCC to examine whether their KidVid regulations developed over the past twenty years meets the existing entertainment/education environment and how to upgrade them to reflect the modern broadcast realities.  Americans for Limited Government looks forward to participating in this discussion as hopefully the FCC will lighten the costly paperwork filing requirements and no longer necessary hard programming dictates that no longer serve the interests of children or their parents.

“FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly is doing the public a great service by taking on this task to ensure that the law on children’s programming is followed and the regulations reflect the modern programming realities.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 21, 2018, Fairfax, Va.–Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting members of the House who voted no on HR 4760, that would have ended family separations during deportation proceedings:

“The Goodlatte bill was proposed in January and would have ended family separations in deportation proceedings. Democrats and the handful of Republicans who voted no today could have solved this problem back then by supporting H.R. 4760. Incredibly, these members continue to side with the illegal immigration lobby that would rather keep children in fake cages than to actually solve this legislative problem. The Goodlatte bill could have been passed months ago, but thanks to Democrats and these Republicans, a legislative fix remains out of reach.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 20, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for enforcing federal immigration laws as they were written, even if immigrant adults enter the country illegally with minors:

“It’s ironic that we have a President who is standing up for Congress’ Article I lawmaking power and we have members of Congress saying not to enforce the laws Congress wrote. President Trump is being attacked for following the law that Congress wrote and courts have applied. The brazen hypocrisy of Chuck Schumer and his band of Democrats is breathtaking.  There is an obvious, available legislative pathway to fixing the legal loopholes that created this issue, yet based upon press reports, Schumer and the Democrats would rather have victims than do their jobs and legislate a solution.  Executive action is no substitute for Congress exerting its Article I authority and fixing the law, as it can be overturned both by the federal court and by a future President.  If Schumer is serious, he will announce his full-throated support for the Cruz bill, and the issue will be over before the week is out.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 18, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement announcing the launch of http://firetheswamp.com urging passage of the MERIT Act by U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.):

“There has been a tremendous amount of talk about draining the swamp. The sad fact is, you can’t drain the swamp without pulling the plug on civil servants who are neither civil nor do they serve the people. The MERIT Act is based upon language that has allowed the Veterans Affairs Secretary to fire non-performing and bad public employees on an expedited basis. Federal employees work for taxpayers, and the least taxpayers should be able to expect are those employees doing their jobs. Those who either refuse or are unable to do their jobs are the definition of government waste, and the heads of every department and agency should have the capacity to fire them through a fair but expedited process.

“Since the passage in 2017 of the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, firings for cause from the VA have increased by 26 percent, proving that the process works. The only way President Trump will be able to drain the swamp is if he can fire the swamp.”

Attachments:

“Job Security: Federal civil service employees have a 99.5 percent chance of never being fired,” By Natalia Castro, May 14, 2018 at http://dailytorch.com/2018/05/job-security-federal-civil-service-employees-have-a-99-5-percent-chance-of-never-being-fired/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 18, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following report in response to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that “We received a referral on that from the FBI” on former FBI Director James Comey allegedly leaking classified information:

“Former FBI Director James Comey deserves the same presumption of innocence as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn. A criminal referral is just that. It is not a finding of guilt, however, it does indicate that there is reason to believe that the former FBI director leaked classified information counter to the law.

“We strongly urge federal prosecutors to pursue this matter with every bit of vigor as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is in attempting to take down anyone associated with President Donald Trump. It would ironic for Comey to complain about such tactics since he has used these exact prosecutorial abuses against Martha Stewart, among others. It is my sincere hope that Comey receives justice whether it be through a finding of guilt or not. However, the illusion of him as the last ethical man in D.C. is now certainly shattered forever.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 14, 2018, Fairfax, Va.–American for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following in response to the DOJ OIG report that has revealed the August 8, 2016 texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok where Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it”:

“Every thinking person regardless of partisan affiliation should be both frightened and angered by the weaponization of our nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies for political ends. The more we learn about the internal machinations of our intelligence services in their attempts to stop Trump both before and after his election, the more it resembles a tragic theater of the absurd.

“Today’s release of the Strzok-Page text message promising his mistress that ‘we’ll stop it’ meaning the election of Donald Trump would be outrageous if it were the only piece of information about the FBI’s politicization against then-candidate Trump. It’s just another smoking gun. When coupled with top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s wife being hired at Fusion GPS as a Russia expert at the same time the Christopher Steele dossier was being paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign, along with the Department of Defense paying Stefan Halper almost $1 million while he was attempting to infiltrate and spy on the Trump campaign, the breadth of the conspiracy to stop the Trump campaign should be apparent to even the Inspector Clousseaus on the left.

“The President should immediately order the release to Congress of all pertinent documents subject to outstanding Congressional subpoeanas, given the failed vetting process revealed by the exclusion of the Strzok-Page smoking gun promise from prior releases.”

Attachments:

Office of Inspector General report on the Clinton email investigation, June 14, 2018, pp. 420-21 https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download#page=449 concluding that Strzok had “a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects”: “We were deeply troubled by text messages sent by Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations. Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, when one senior FBI official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, that “we’ll stop” candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Moreover, as we describe in Chapter Nine, in assessing Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop in October 2016, these text messages led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 12, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement expressing disappointment in the federal court ruling in favor of the AT&T-Time Warner merger:

“We are disappointed that the court missed an opportunity to rein in the First Amendment-crushing mass media consolidation trend, which puts too much media power in the hands of too few. We strongly urge the Justice Department to appeal this decision all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. The immediate fallout of this decision is likely to be an attempt by Comcast to outbid Disney for the media content owned by Fox.

“The past decade of media consolidation has put too big of megaphones into too few hands, and the court today unfortunately took another step forward in this trend.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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