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The Republican Party of Texas Launches Volunteer Engagement Project
Mitch Carney as Executive Director and Steve Munisteri as Senior Adviser

AUSTIN, TX – State party Chairman James Dickey announced that the Volunteer Engagement Project has been formally launched. Chairman Dickey previously outlined to the State Republican Executive Committee during the 2nd Quarterly Meeting the exciting news that the resources had been pledged to fund an effort which focuses on volunteer recruitment, revitalizing Republican Party auxiliaries, and engaging in nuts-and-bolts party building such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts for the 2020 election cycle. The Chairman has appointed members to a special working group which already includes Karl Rove who has graciously donated his time to provide strategic advice, Karen Newton, President of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, Jack Barcroft, Chairman of the Texas Republican County Chairmen’s Association, Kathaleen Wall, Chairwoman of the RPT Voter Registration working group, and is anticipated to include several additional prominent Republicans. Chairman Dickey also serves on the committee.

The initial funds necessary have been raised to start the project and Mitch Carney has been hired to serve as the Executive Director for the Volunteer Engagement Project. Carney is also serving as the new Political Director for the RPT.

The working group has retained the strategic consulting firm FP1 Strategies to assist in the development of the overall strategic plan, strategies for implementation and organization. FP1 Partner Steve Munisteri is handling the account on behalf of FP1. Munisteri also serves as Senior Advisor to the project.

Mitch Carney has managed and worked on some of the most competitive Republican campaigns across the country, including Congressman Will Hurd’s extensive voter contact and turnout effort in his successful re-election effort in the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in 2016. Carney also served as Deputy Political Director for Carly for America and Regional Political Director for The Republican Party of Texas’ southern region.

Chairman Dickey commented:

“Mitch has worked on some of the toughest races in Texas and we’re confident he will lead our ground game expertly and ensure we accomplish the goals we must to win Texas next year. We have an uphill battle ahead, and I’m confident Mitch is up to the task!”

Chairman Steve Munisteri is the former Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas from 2010 to 2015. He stepped down to serve as a senior adviser to Senator Rand Paul. Following his tenure with Senator Paul, Munisteri was retained by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as Senior Advisor to the Chairman. Following this, he served in the Trump administration as Deputy Assistant to the President as well as Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison before returning to Texas to serve as a Senior Advisor for Senator John Cornyn’s re-election campaign. Munisteri will split his time between the Cornyn campaign, the Texas Republican Senate Caucus, and the working group.

Chairman James Dickey continued: 

“With over 47 years in politics, Chairman Munisteri brings a political aptitude that will help us turnout more Republicans and defend Texas in 2020. We look forward to working with him to achieve our monumental goals and deliver Republican victories in Texas.”

Chairman Dickey concluded: 

“We are thrilled to have Chairman Munisteri and Mitch Carney join our team. They bring a wealth of political knowledge and experience that will help us defeat the Democrats and keep Texas Red in 2020! ”

Chairman Dickey with Steve Munisteri (L) and Karl Rove (R) at the announcement of the Volunteer Engagement Project in June.

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The post The Republican Party of Texas Launches Volunteer Engagement Project appeared first on Republican Party of Texas.

While some countries like Venezuela remain
stuck with socialism, others are quietly transitioning from repression to
openness.

Uzbekistan is one of those countries. Though it still has a very long way to go, it is now transitioning from a command-and-control economy to a market-based economy, propelled by a wide range of reforms.

To be clear, Uzbekistan still suffers from
poverty, corruption, and oppression, and the state-run cotton trade still uses
forced child labor, despite a recent presidential decree banning the practice.

With an area and population roughly the
same as California, Uzbekistan is still classified as a “mostly unfree” economy
by The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom, which tracks economic
policy developments around the globe.

The country’s young, growing workforce desperately needs jobs, and Uzbekistan’s sluggish state-owned enterprises have not kept up with the country’s needs. Investors are afraid to invest. Businesses are expropriated.

Lots of ambitious Uzbeks have moved to neighboring countries in the Caspian region, draining the country of its best and brightest. There’s also a lingering threat of Islamic extremism among the disaffected youth who are searching for meaning.

But Uzbekistan is inching toward improvement. According to the Financial Times:

Under former dictator Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan used to rank alongside North Korea for its political rights and civil liberties. With strict currency controls and widespread corruption, it was off limits for most investors. But following Mr Karimov’s death in 2016, new president Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who had served under Mr Karimov as prime minister, shocked the international community by embarking on major reforms. Political prisoners have been released, exchange restrictions lifted and political debate encouraged.

Indeed, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and his reform-minded team have mapped out a far-reaching roadmap to “promote good governance, judicial reform and rule of law, economic liberalization, social development, and an open and constructive foreign policy.”

They have also taken practical steps to attract greater foreign investment, such as loosening currency controls and transforming the Uzbek som into a fully convertible currency.

Early indicators are encouraging. Some
forms of private property ownership were made legal for the first time in decades. A few months
ago, Uzbekistan received its first-ever credit rating by two of the three main credit
agencies and succeeded in issuing its first $1 billion Eurobond.

Tashkent’s relationship with Washington has entered into “a new era of strategic partnership” as well.

During Mirziyoyev’s historic first visit to the White House in 2018, President Donald Trump pledged U.S. technical assistance to Uzbekistan, as the country has sought admission to the World Trade Organization and undertaken a reform agenda to liberalize its trade regime in line with its World Trade Organization obligations.

Also notable is that the U.S. has removed
Uzbekistan from a list of countries with the worst religious tolerance. Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo recently commented,
“In Uzbekistan, much work still remains to be done, but for the first time in
13 years, it is no longer designated as a country of particular concern.”

It is still too early to say if these
ongoing positive changes will have a lasting impact on Uzbekistan, but these
early indicators are encouraging signs for the future of the country.

The post Uzbekistan Is Making Healthy Strides Toward Good Governance appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Thanks for joining us this Independence Day! We hope you’re enjoying the barbecue and fireworks. President Donald Trump has said the fireworks display in D.C. will be “the show of a lifetime,” but of course, it hasn’t come without controversy. Some have knocked the idea of a “military parade.” Today we’ll consider what kind of July Fourth celebration is most fitting with the American tradition. But first, we’ll play a historic Fourth of July speech from President Ronald Reagan.

We also cover these stories:

• Trump contradicts the Department of Commerce on the 2020 census, says he is “absolutely moving forward” with the citizenship question.
• Iran warns Europe it will increase uranium enrichment even further if a new deal isn’t reached.
• A judge blocks the Trump administration’s policy keeping asylum-seekers detained.

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at moc.l1563354485angis1563354485yliad1563354485@sret1563354485tel1563354485. Enjoy the show!

The post Podcast: A July Fourth Show Like No Other appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On a special Independence Day edition of “Problematic Women,” we team up with Jarrett Stepman and Fred Lucas, co-hosts of The Daily Signal’s “Right Side of History” podcast, to discuss some of the most problematic women throughout American history.

We begin by honoring the legacy of Betsy Ross after Nike pulled its latest USA-themed sneaker from the shelves in light of the claim by Colin Kaepernick, former NFL player and liberal activist, that the Betsy Ross flag featured on the sneaker was offensive.

From there, we discuss other problematic women such as Abigail Adams, Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, and Phyllis Schlafly. Listen to the podcast below.

The post The Most Problematic Women in American History appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The world held its breath in
anticipation as President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on
June 28 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Osaka, Japan.

The outcome of their meeting was mostly unsurprising, despite conferring for almost an hour.

By the end, the two agreed to
resume negotiations toward ending the U.S.-China trade war.

Trump agreed to hold off on
levying new tariffs on $300 billion worth of goods Americans buy from China. According
to the president, they also discussed Chinese purchases of U.S.
agricultural products and student exchanges.

Markets responded accordingly
to the positive meeting.

However, Trump also made some
vague comments regarding allowing U.S. companies to continue selling products
to Huawei Technologies Co., a Chinese telecommunications giant and U.S. national
security concern.

That has unsettled
the national security community.

While we’re still missing a lot of details from what was actually agreed upon during the Trump-Xi meeting, the outcome was essentially what I predicted the same day as the meeting itself; namely, that they would agree to another trade war truce.

For now, it’s good to know there won’t be another tax increase on Americans who buy goods from China, but companies and consumers will still have to pay for the existing 25% tax on $250 billion worth of goods from China until a deal is done.

There’s still no indication
when we can expect to see a deal. Given how close the two sides were to making
a deal just recently, I think we could see a deal before the end of the year.

On Monday, Trump reiterated that he
wants to make a deal with Xi, and that he thinks Xi wants a deal, too.

In Washington, we often hear questions
about who wants the deal more, Trump or Xi.

At the end of the day, that
kind of question is unproductive, since it’s mostly a political one, and the
politics in Washington are different than the politics in Beijing. It’s like the
proverbial comparing of apples and oranges.

For example, when it comes to U.S. politics, the White House continues to describe any deal with China as a trade deal. Trump doesn’t want to call it anything else, partly, no doubt, because he has campaigned as a deal-maker.

I briefly explain
here why any deal with China is not a trade deal, in the traditional sense,
but more an executive agreement over U.S. economic interests within China.

In China, Xi doesn’t need to
worry about elections, only about keeping other members of the Communist Party happy.

To the extent the question of
who wants a deal more is an economic question, it is in the interest of both
countries to reach an agreement. The current impasse is doing no one any good.

So, what did the U.S. really
gain from Trump attending the G-20 and meeting with Xi? My colleague, Jim Roberts, recently wrote about whether these G-20 summits are even really worth the effort at all.

But progress in U.S.-China
trade talks is still progress. The sooner there’s a deal between the U.S. and
China, the sooner Americans can expect to see tariffs lifted and another huge
tax cut.

That’s because there are ways to deal with China other than increasing taxes on Americans. I’ve previously laid out a number of options the U.S. can take when dealing with China.

Because of U.S. tariffs, over
the past year, Americans have paid roughly $5 billion a
month in additional taxes.

And as Trump likes to say,
that’s billion with a “b.”

The post What Did the US Gain From the Trump-Xi Meeting at the G-20 Summit? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli becomes a key player in the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration laws. 

On Tuesday, Cuccinelli attended a ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York as 52 persons from 28 countries became U.S. citizens.

“This is a vivid reminder of the resiliency of our nation and why so many people around the world make sacrifices each day in order to call the United States their new home,” Cuccinelli, 50, tweeted. 

Today I had the privilege of welcoming 52 new U.S. citizens from 28 countries at the @Sept11Memorial. This is a vivid reminder of the resiliency of our nation and why so many people around the world make sacrifices each day in order to call the United States their new home. ?? pic.twitter.com/Ka4rbq2CsJ

— USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli (@USCISCuccinelli) July 2, 2019

In another tweet Wednesday, Cuccinelli called on Congress to step up and address the country’s immigration crisis. 

While the @realDonaldTrump admin is working to solve the crisis at the southern border, members of the House are preparing for their August vacation. We need Congress to step up now and help us secure the system and prevent the further loss of lives.

— USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli (@USCISCuccinelli) July 3, 2019

The left and the media recently accused Cuccinelli of placing “blame” on the Salvadoran father who died with his 23-month-old daughter while they tried to illegally cross the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the United States. 

A photo of the entwined bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria was on the front page of The New York Times, among prominent play in other media outlets.

Asked in a CNN interview if the deaths were the fault of Trump administration policies, Cuccinelli said: “No, in fact, just the opposite.”

“The reason we have tragedies like that on the border is because those folks—that father didn’t want to wait to go through the asylum process in the legal fashion, so [he] decided to cross the river and not only died but his daughter died tragically as well,” he said.

“Until we fix the attractions in our asylum system, people like that father and that child are going to continue to come through a dangerous trip,” added Cuccinelli, former president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee, as well as Virginia’s attorney general from 2010 to 2014.

Citizenship and Immigration Services is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that oversees the nation’s naturalization process and system of legal immigration. 

With 19,000 employees and contractors, USCIS in fiscal year 2018 adjudicated more than 8.7 million lawful immigration matters, including citizenship, green cards, and other matters. 

“Ken Cuccinelli was a great pick by the president for USCIS,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “He was an outstanding attorney general in Virginia and is exactly what the president needs: a by-the-book, rule-of-law lawyer who understands enforcing the law.”

It’s a special day in NYC for 52 new U.S. citizens. Today’s ceremony marks the final milestone in the journey toward citizenship. Our ceremony @Sept11Memorial remembered those who lost their lives and honored the strength and resilience of our nation. ?? pic.twitter.com/XnFCMH2Flk

— USCIS (@USCIS) July 2, 2019

Upon creation of the Department of Homeland Services after the 9/11 terror attacks, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service was split into three agencies: Citizenship and Immigration Services; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and Customs and Border Protection. 

Here are four things to know about the acting head of USCIS, who took the position June 10. 

1. Virginia Attorney General

A graduate of what is now Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, Cuccinelli practiced law for about 25 years. 

He served in the Virginia state Senate from 2002 to 2010. A conservative Republican, he represented the Fairfax area—part of the liberal Northern Virginia region of the state.

In 2009, Cuccinelli was the Republican nominee for attorney general of Virginia. In a GOP sweep that included the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, Cuccinelli defeated Democratic nominee Stephen C. Shannon with 58% of the vote. 

Among his top priorities was fighting human trafficking. According to USCIS, Virginia had been one of the worst states in combating the practice, but by the time he left office in 2014, it was one of the best in the country.  

Cuccinelli also focused his office’s efforts on fighting criminal gangs and prosecuting health care fraudsters and child predators. 

During his first year in office, he waded into illegal immigration when he issued a legal opinion regarding a Prince William County law requiring police to check the immigration status of those they arrested. The county law was similar to a controversial law passed in Arizona. 

On Aug. 2, 2010, Cuccinelli wrote that “law enforcement officers, including conservation officers may, like Arizona police officers, inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested.” 

This came after Cuccinelli, in July, joined eight other Republican state attorneys general in an amicus brief defending Arizona’s law against a Justice Department lawsuit during the Obama administration.       

2. Taking on Obamacare 

Cuccinelli gained national political stardom when he became the first state attorney general who sued to stop Obamacare, the 2010 health care law that required Americans to purchase government-approved insurance plans.       

Cuccinelli’s suit was separate from the 26 attorneys general who sued to abolish Obamacare by challenging the “individual mandate” for Americans to buy health insurance. The Virginia lawsuit specifically defended a bill passed by the Virginia General Assembly that opposed any federal mandate requiring Virginia residents to buy insurance plans.     

Cuccinelli won at the district court level when a federal judge found Obamacare unconstitutional. However, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, and determined that Virginia lacked standing to sue. 

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote in 2012, held Obamacare constitutional in the case brought by the 26 attorneys general. 

3. Virginia Governor’s Race

Cuccinelli ran unopposed for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2013 after then-Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling opted not to run when the party decided to hold a state convention instead of a primary. 

Terry McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee chairman, also ran unopposed for his party’s nomination for governor after losing a primary four years earlier. 

McAuliffe was a heavy favorite to win, with a commanding lead in polls. The ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton also raised $8.1 million, compared to Cuccinelli’s $2.1 million. 

Moreover, right-leaning Libertarian Party nominee Robert Sarvis was pulling 3% of the vote, most of which likely would have gone to a Republican nominee.

Nevertheless, on Election Day, the count was surprisingly close as McAuliffe won with 2.6% of the vote. 

Cuccinelli said at the time that “this race came down to the wire because of Obamacare.”

4. Championing Criminal Justice Reform

After his tenure as attorney general, Cuccinelli joined the “Right on Crime” movement to advocate criminal justice reform. The goal was to gear prison inmates toward integration back into society upon release, reduce recidivism, and cut sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. 

Cuccinelli was a strong advocate for the First Step Act, the bipartisan prison reform bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in late 2018. 

In a piece for The American Spectator, Cuccinelli wrote: 

Criminal justice reform is engineered to incentivize participation in substance-abuse treatment and other recidivism-reduction programs, or otherwise to curb overly punitive sentences which may extract their pound of flesh but also rapidly lose their effectiveness as one moves down the offense severity ladder.

To summarize, weightier factors besides simply ‘locking up’ criminals must be at play to account for crime reduction. Ascribing that reduction solely to lengthy sentences is a theory that doesn’t play well with the data—especially given the fact that 30 states have recently experienced crime rate reductions while simultaneously reducing their prison populations.

The post 4 Things to Know About Ken Cuccinelli, Trump’s New Chief for Lawful Immigration appeared first on The Daily Signal.

From the presidential candidate debate stage to new think tanks, voices from both left and right are demanding an end to America’s endless wars. Only one problem: We’re not fighting any endless wars.

No matter. The endless-war warriors want us to do less on the world stage.

Even in this age of great power competition, these “new” isolationists would prefer America step off the playing field and wave from the sidelines. It’s a strategy that would work well for Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow—but not for the U.S.

No one is denying we’ve seen plenty of wars—and long ones at that. The U.S. has fought more than it ever wanted, including the global war on terrorism and related conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But America’s endless war days have ended—at least for now.

That’s not to say we don’t have troops in combat zones around the world. But, by any reasonable definition, America just isn’t at war.

We are, for sure, dealing with the aftermath of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq marked the end of that war, and he transitioned the effort in Afghanistan from all-out fighting to an advice-and-assist mission.

History supplies overwhelming evidence that weakness and indifference do not deter aggression and exploitation, they invite it.

Today, what America does around the world is pretty much what it has been doing since 1945—providing forward presence, deterrence, counterterrorism, training, assistance, and freedom of navigation. That’s important work and a heavy lift, but it ain’t war.

So what the carpers are really complaining about is not “endless wars” (an admittedly powerful albeit dishonest catch phrase), but U.S. foreign policy in general. So the question is: What foreign policy do they want instead?

The U.S. is a global power with global interests and responsibilities. That’s not a choice; it’s just who we are.

No one today is arguing that the U.S. can child-proof the world to make America safe. The overly ambitious efforts of the George W. Bush era clearly created as many problems as they solved.

But, walking away from problems doesn’t work well either—as the Obama team more than amply demonstrated.

They ended the war in Iraq. And, for that, we got a war with the caliphate. They ended the war in Afghanistan. For that, we got the resurgence of the Taliban.

The reset with Russia produced a war in Ukraine. Tried to buy Iran off, and that didn’t work. And they stood by as China moved to make the South China Sea its own and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un built out his nuclear arsenal.

President Donald Trump has tried to stake out a middle ground. He isn’t interested in being the world’s babysitter, but he is willing to stand up and demonstrate sufficient resolve to protect America’s interest. He has managed to do that—and finish off the caliphate—without starting any new wars.

So where are the endless wars? Or, more to the point, what’s so bad about this administration’s foreign policy?

Look around, and you’ll see Russia stonewalled in Crimea. Iran just failed to close the Straits of Hormuz. The DPRK is negotiating. The Stars and Stripes proudly sail the South China Seas, and there is nothing Beijing can do about.

Apparently, that’s not good enough for the end-the-endless-war warriors. They want us to do even less. But “do less” is a poor prescription for dealing with the world as it is.

History supplies overwhelming evidence that weakness and indifference do not deter aggression and exploitation, they invite it.

What America needs now are discussions about how to prudently exercise its power in a complex world: what’s the right balance of multilateral action, prodding allies, making compromises, and standing strong.

What we don’t need are politicians and pundits who suggest that, if America simply does nothing, our enemies and competitors will behave just as they should and everything will be just fine.

Trump’s foreign policy has been dramatically successful at rebalancing U.S. interests. It has not brought war, much less endless war.

To withdraw further from the world stage would only invite the world’s bad actors to take center stage once more.

Originally published by Fox News

The post What Those Decrying America’s ‘Endless Wars’ Are Really Talking About appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Anti-Americanism sells, apparently.

Nike recently pulled a line of shoes—the Air Max 1 USA, featuring a Revolutionary War-era American flag, the so-called Betsy Ross flag—which was slated to be rolled out for the Fourth of July holiday.

Why? Because, according to The Wall Street Journal, Nike endorser and former NFL player Colin Kaepernick deemed the flag an offensive symbol:

After images of the shoe were posted online, Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery, the people said. Some users on social media responded to posts about the shoe with similar concerns. Mr. Kaepernick declined to comment.

Kaepernick is a former NFL quarterback who washed out of the league after popularizing national anthem protests.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told the NFL media when he launched his protests. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Kaepernick had no problem wearing socks portraying police as pigs and a shirt positively portraying Fidel Castro, whose Cuban police state regime remains notoriously racist and repressive.

But being logically consistent doesn’t seem to be a problem for Kaepernick and Nike.

If the flag is offensive because it existed during “an era of slavery,” then we can certainly apply that view to the modern American flag, too, since it is based on the design of the Betsy Ross flag.

And, if we’re really digging deep here, isn’t Nike and its logo also offensive given that the name of the company is based on the Greek goddess of victory, which was most certainly created in “an era of slavery”?

Nike’s adherence to political correctness is all the more absurd considering that it also kowtows to autocratic regimes that perpetrate modern human rights abuses.

In the same week that Nike buried the Betsy Ross sneaker, the company pulled products in China made by designer Jun Takahashi after he expressed support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

Nike said it ditched the products “based on feedback from Chinese consumers.” Of course, in Communist China, public opinion is highly controlled by the state.

“So the Chinese government and Colin Kaepernick, then, are either implicitly or explicitly calling the shots at Nike, pressuring the company into making business decisions to cater either to this mob or that. And those decisions aren’t passing without comment,” wrote National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis.

It appears so.

Nike’s move to ditch the Betsy Ross shoes is just the latest example of corporate America putting its foot firmly on the left-wing side of the culture wars. It also illustrates that there is a growing mass of people in the U.S. and elsewhere who are perfectly fine with, and, in fact, openly embrace, an anti-American message.

As a recent Gallup poll demonstrated, American patriotism is at a record low, with only 45% saying they are extremely proud to be American. That’s down from 57% in 2013.

It wasn’t long ago that the American left chafed at the suggestion that they hated America or didn’t feel patriotic.

Yet today, that’s an open position for many on the left, with some like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying, “America was never that great,” and New York Times Opinion saying, “The U.S. is really just O.K.”

The myth of America as the greatest nation on earth is at best outdated and at worst, wildly inaccurate. If you look at data, the U.S. is really just O.K. pic.twitter.com/pFrWBH0Zfl

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) July 2, 2019

Is it surprising that it’s come to this?

For generations, our schools have morphed from being institutions aimed at transmitting citizenship and patriotism into engines of un-assimilation. Our media and popular culture institutions portray love of country as inherently racist and xenophobic.

The only time to be proud of one’s country, it seems, is when progressives are doing well at the ballot box or are in the White House—which is precisely the opposite of what genuine patriotism should be.

It’s a wonder that such efforts at teaching nonpatriotism have left any resistance. However, reactions to this latest move by Nike shows how there is a potent and growing element of opposition to corporate virtue signaling—and there very well may be a financial price to pay.

I stopped buying @Nike products long ago and won't ever again. Good for Arizona to take this step. But don't stop here. Cancel all the other taxpayer-funded incentives you're giving to these corporations! https://t.co/IV0pfNeN44

— Rob Bluey (@RobertBluey) July 2, 2019

Nike thinks American flag is symbol of oppression? What planet are you on? Nike gladly allows Chinese Communist Party to tell it what products to sell while building its business around sweatshop labor. Nike is anti-American, pure & simple. https://t.co/AgHkCnVi33

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 2, 2019

The post Nike’s Betsy Ross Flag Freak-Out Shows Moral Inconsistency of Left appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Internal Revenue Service seized $446,000 from the bank accounts of brothers Jeffrey, Richard, and Mitch Hirsch in 2012, claiming a “structuring” violation against the owners of Bi-County Distributors Inc. for making multiple bank deposits of less than $10,000.

The government never charged them with a crime, nor gave them a hearing to enable them to contest the seizure, but after intense national media attention to the case, the government returned the funds. 

The case was among many that highlighted an abuse by IRS agents known as legal source structuring that allowed the tax collection agency to use a law, the Bank Secrecy Act, intended to combat money laundering, to seize assets.

President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill Monday to force greater accountability on the IRS in the property seizures, as well as protect taxpayers from identity theft, boost whistleblower protections, and modernize the tax agency.

“We just finished signing, the important signing, of the Taxpayer First bill, the IRS Taxpayer First, which is a tremendous thing for our citizens having to deal with the IRS,” Trump told reporters after the signing. “It streamlines and so many other changes are made. That was just done and signed. It’s been made into law. So we are all set on that.”     

The new law, the Taxpayer First Act, requires the IRS to show probable cause that the smaller transactions were made in order to evade financial reporting requirements. 

Legal source structuring laws kick in when large financial transactions are broken up into smaller transactions, which sparks suspicion from the IRS. If dividing up transactions is done with the intent to evade bank reporting requirements, it’s illegal, and the IRS can seize assets.

A 2017 audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found no evidence of underlying crimes in 91% of the structuring cases examined in a sampling.

The inspector general’s report further noted that the IRS frequently ignored reasonable explanations business owners have for deposits.

The IRS used the power in 2,500 cases between 2005 and 2012, gobbling up $242 million in assets, according to the Institute for Justice, a public interest legal group. Of those, one-third involved only allegations of structuring, and not other alleged wrongdoing, the institute found. 

The provision of the Taxpayer First Act largely codifies rules the IRS had already made in response to public pressure, but unlike laws, regulations can be overturned administratively.

The new law further requires a hearing within 30 days of an assets seizure.  It also establishes an independent office of appeals within the IRS for taxpayers. 

“This is a long time coming,” said Jason Snead, senior policy analyst at the Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage Foundation. “There have been many noted abuses in cases not derived from illegal behavior. I hope this is the beginning of a longer process to reform the civil forfeiture laws.”

At a time when Congress has had a tough time agreeing to any major legislation, the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-controlled House voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation.  

“This bipartisan, bicameral bill represents years of hard work and consensus building,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement after its Senate passage. “It’s a big first step toward strengthening taxpayer protections and turning the IRS into the customer service organization it ought to be.”

The new law authorized the IRS internal investigators to communicate with whistleblowers who are, during the processing of their claims, reporting bad behavior within the agency if doing so would be helpful to the investigation. The internal investigators, usually the inspector general, would also notify the whistleblowers on the status of the investigation, under the new law.

The law further extends anti-retaliation provisions to the IRS whistleblowers currently afforded to whistleblowers in other agencies. 

It requires the IRS to submit to Congress a plan to make the agency more efficient by modernizing technology, and to enhance cybersecurity to protect taxpayer data. 

The law further includes a provision to help prevent identity theft. It also expands to all taxpayers an existing program that previously only allowed victims of tax ID theft to obtain a personal identification number (PIN) that better secures their identity.

“Americans interact with the IRS more than any other federal agency,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, adding:

Passage of the Taxpayer First Act will modernize the agency, allowing it to better serve taxpayers.

Our bill includes critical provisions to improve customer service, protect personal data, preserve tax-preparation services and shield low-income taxpayers from abusive private debt collectors.

The post Trump Signs Law Making It Harder for IRS to Seize Money From Americans appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For months, Democrats denied the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border, with Sen. Chuck Schumer, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, going so far as to accuse President Donald Trump of working to “manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.”

The president, on the other hand, has made the situation on the southern border a top priority, in January declaring it both a “humanitarian and security crisis,” and stressing it ever since.

So how bad is it? The Daily Signal rounded up some of the most striking statistics to explain the current crisis.

The post These 8 Graphics Explain How Bad the Illegal Immigration Crisis Really Is appeared first on The Daily Signal.