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Trump is draining the swamp —Rebuilding government may be impossible In the 2013 novel “A Delicate Truth,” John le Carré presents the “deep state” as a moneyed, cultured élite — the “non-governmental insiders from banking, industry, and commerce” whose access to information allows them to rule in secret. Trump’s conception is quite different. A real-estate baron, Trump is at war with the clerks — the apparatchiks who, he claims, are seeking to nullify the election by denying the prerogatives of his Administration. This attack on “bureaucracy” is really an attack on the State Department, the intelligence community and ordinary bureaucrats...

In his first year as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has already transformed the agency in many ways. He spoke exclusively to The Daily Signal before addressing attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual Reagan Dinner. An edited transcript of the interview is below. Rob Bluey: You gave a speech at CPAC last year where you were just at the beginning of your tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency, and you outlined some of the things that you wanted to do. Here we are a year later, you’ve repealed, taken back, 22 regulations at a savings...

This isn’t getting anywhere near the same amount of oxygen in the news cycle as the Net Neutrality story, but it certainly should be. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under the tenure of Barack Obama was busy handing out all sorts of goodies to the unions which finance most Democratic political campaigns. One particular burr under the collective, conservative saddle was a new “reinterpretation” of rules regarding the obligations of larger corporations who authorize the operation of franchises under their name. I wrote about this back in 2015 when the rule was originally finalized and it was a deplorable...

The Environmental Protection Agency has shrunk considerably since Scott Pruitt took over as administrator. In fact, the agency is back to President Reagan-era staff levels. Over 700 EPA personnel have either retired, quit, or taken voluntary buyouts since Pruitt took over...

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to repeal net neutrality rules, over the objection of Democrats in Congress, Internet activists and online companies. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, and Commissioner Brendan Carr, all Republicans, supported the proposed rollback of the Obama-era rules. Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel opposed the change.

'Doing better than Ronald Reagan' to cut rules! Under the Obama administration, the White House, the Department of Justice and other federal agencies repeatedly circumvented Congress by using guidance memos to create de facto regulations, changing laws without going through the review process. In less than a year, however, the Trump administration has dramatically scaled back government overreach, Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, told WND. “Guidance typically from the department means there is some question about how to do this, because of the way it was ambiguously written, so a federal agency would provide...

Buried in an otherwise-humdrum jobs report was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Department of Labor that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016, and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs. What a turnaround. Liberals have been saying that Donald Trump was lying to the American people when he said that he could bring coal jobs back. Well, so far, he has delivered on his promise. There's more good news for the coal industry. Earlier this month, Peabody Energy — America's...

JUST IN President Donald J Trump signs repeal of Dodd Frank provision

The last 8 years of unconstitutional executive orders and forcing through illegal policies has weighed a heavy burden on the country and the taxpayer. No more so than the ultimate job killer, Obamacare. But now, the pendulum has swung to the other side, and everything is on the chopping block. Yesterday in the Senate, a vote of 54-45 was struck to abolish Obama’s order that had the adverse effect of almost completely wiping out the coal mining industry and thus taking 83,000 jobs off the job market. As you might have known, it was the government’s Stream Protection Act that...

In one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump effectively halted nearly $200 billion worth of regulations, according to a new analysis.President Trump has taken aggressive action to curb regulations in his first week, promising to cut 75 percent or "maybe more," and signing an executive order Monday to cut two regulations from the books when every new rule is introduced.The first move came in the form of a memo to all federal agencies from Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, freezing all recently finalized and pending regulations. The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, found the action resulted...

The former head of President Donald Trump’s transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he expects the new administration to seek significant budget and staff cuts. Myron Ebell said in an interview with The Associated Press that Trump is likely to seek significant reductions to the agency’s workforce — currently about 15,000 employees nationwide. Ebell, who left the transition team last week, declined to discuss specific numbers of EPA staff that could be targeted for pink slips. Asked what he would personally like to see, however, Ebell said slashing the agency’s size by about half would be a...

Within four hours of becoming president of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to limit immediately the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) in ways that are revolutionary. With the stroke of a pen, the president assaulted the heart of the law that was the domestic centerpiece of his predecessor’s administration. How did this happen? How can a U.S. president, who took an oath to enforce the laws faithfully, gut one of them merely because he disagrees with it? Here is the back story. When ObamaCare went through Congress in 2010, all...

“I think as an industry, we’re excited about working together with the president and his administration on tax policies, on regulation, and on trade to really create a renaissance in American manufacturing,” Fields told reporters after the meeting, according to the Detroit News. Fields also praised Trump’s decision to kill former President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, pointing out that it failed to address currency manipulation.

U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi admitted that manufacturing challenges exist exclusively in the United States thanks to oppressive regulation set forth by President Obama. Longhi is willing to bring as many as 10,000 jobs back to the United States because of the prosperity predicted with the advent of the incoming Trump administration. Jobs were lost to lay offs and downsizing during the Obama administration, and many employees found work overseas.

Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, sending the Republican businessman to the White House as the first president-elect with no prior experience in government or the military. Trump’s unexpected victory sent shockwaves throughout the country and the world, and will likely do the same for federal agencies. Trump has promised to institute a government wide hiring freeze on his first day in office and to change civil service laws to ease the firing of disloyal workers. Last month, just 65 percent of federal employees said they were committed to staying in their jobs if Trump were elected.

Donald Trump's transition team is preparing for the billionaire businessman to take over as commander in chief, they're ruffling a few feathers along the way. Scientific American reports Trump has selected climate change critic, Myron Ebell, to lead his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team. Ebell, who's the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, has been described by Newsweek as a fierce opponent of climate change, which the publisher calls “entirely at odds with scientific consensus.” David Goldston, a policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, explained that...

1. Reduce Bureaucratic Red Tape Republican leaders made it easier to do business in Indiana. They reduced bureaucratic red tape and eliminated many unnecessary regulations. Rather than burdening employers and trying to micromanage how businesses operate, Republicans put in place policies that have allowed our state to grow. 2. Balance the Budget The state put its fiscal house in order. Statehouse leaders cut government spending, balanced the budget, created a surplus, and built a near record reserve fund. Indiana earned a triple-A credit rating in 2010 and has maintained it ever since. These strategies help put the state in a...

Candidate Ted Cruz and candidate John Kasich have officially “suspended” their campaign efforts to win the republican nomination. However, the campaign effort to deliver a resounding win for Donald Trump continues.Yes, a major hurdle has been crossed – Donald Trump is now the last remaining candidate running for the nomination; but that doesn’t mean the push through the last remaining states should be any less important. Every vote counts. Every delegate matters.Anyone who is inclined toward complacency needs only to look at the reaction yesterday by House Speaker Paul ‘Omnibus‘ Ryan and note why it is vital for the...

Over the past 28 years there has been a sea change in the media. Not only has the monopoly of the so-called mainstream media been shattered but the phenomenal rise of conservative media has been truly stunning. It began in 1988 with the national syndication of Rush Limbaugh and his distinctive brand of conservative political commentary espoused in an entertaining and captivating way, which opened the flood gates for other conservatives, together with Rush, to dominate the talk radio airwaves. In the 1990’s the internet, through hundreds of websites, gave voice to journalists to report stories either ignored or downplayed...

Since Obuma was elected to POTUS, I have been coming to Free Republic to get news, opinions and a few laughs. Most of the serious posts were bemoaning the out of control government and what could be done about it. "Oh Whoa is Me!". Then along comes a constitutional conservative. For the first time since Ronald Reagan, we have a constitutional candidate running for the GOP nomination. This man was elected by conservatives to go to Washington and stand up to the elites that no longer listen to the American people. He didn't go to Washington and "fall in" with...