Beltway Insider: Trump/Priebus; ObamaCare Survives; MS-13/Immigration; North Korea; Detroit

President Trump announced, via Twitter, the appointment of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as his new Chief of Staff, after wide spread speculation that his once closest ally, Reince Priebus, was the source of press leaks.

 

According to Gallup, President Trump's job approval, over the past week, remained consistent at 38% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President decreased one percentage point to 57%. 

Trump's Closest Ally Reigns

Reince Priebus, the former White House Chief of Staff, submitted his resignation to the President July 27, 2017 effectively ending his tenure and becoming the only person in history to leave the position after six months.

Preibus, who also helmed the Republican National Committee, was a champion of President Trump, and when the glory days began January 20, 2017, Preibus was first in line and the only choice for then President-elect Trump. The two were confident in each other and believed each would execute a pre-determined vision.

Trump's rocky road has led to repeated terminations and resignations, with the White House Human Resources office seeming more like a revolving door then 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, once the most sought after employment any person could earn.

Within minutes of Preibus' July 27, 2017 resignation, Trump announced Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly would be offered the opportunity. He accepted.

Priebus has been caught in the crosshairs of the Wild West Wing mud-slinging with shots fired from both Team Trump et all and Team Bannon.

As Chief of Staff, Preibus had autonomous control over who enters the Oval office and who does not, even at the President's request, Preibus could slow, stop, stall or delay entrance. He reigned with wind, whim, or will. Many challenged his leadership style and finally decided the only way to have him removed was to accuse him of leaks as that would pit his boss against him making the position unbearable.

In a question poised to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on July 27, 2017, she was asked "Anthony Scaramucci was on CNN today talking about Reince Priebus.  He said, "If he wants to prove he's not a leaker, let him do it."  I can't imagine that you would speak on Anthony's behalf, but if you would, does he think that Reince Priebus is a leaker?  Or does the White House, does the President think that Reince is leaking?"

Answering a similar question she stated "We all serve at the pleasure of the President, and if he gets to a place where that isn't the case, he'll let you know."

Preibus, apparently, did not desire to wait out President Trump's vacillating waves and hear the words that made him famous, so he resigned. 

Scaramucci Begins his WH Tenure With Scandal 

White House Communication Director Anthony Scaramucci's wife, who was nine months pregnant, filed for a divorce three weeks ago leaving the newly appointed Trump spokesperson.

She has since had her son. Communications Director Scaramucci has not seen the child and remains estranged from both. He is set to begin his position with the President Monday.

ObamaCare Survives

In a vote that surprised the world, the Affordable Care Act survived thanks to three Republicans, including Senator John McCain from Arizona who went blue on this one. Siding with the Senior Senator were Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins who voted along with the democrats.

This effectively killed the bill, labeled a "Skinny Repeal" and left the Trump Administration with essentially no victories in its first six months of legislation.

President Trump has vowed to revoke health care benefits for congress until they pass legislation that repeals Obamacare.


Beltway Insider: Trump/Pardons; Spicer Resigns; McCain/Cancer; Minneapolis; Illegals Suffocate; Grenfall Tower; John Heard


MS-13 – Trump Takes On The Mexican International Cartel/Gang

President Trump announced Friday from Suffolk County Community College Campus, on Long Island, New York, one day after he received word 113 members had been arrested, his intent to bring down the international drug cartel MS-13, where in the area alone seventeen lives in the past eighteen months have been brutally murdered.

"Since January '16, think of this, MS-13 gang members have brutally murdered 17 beautiful, young lives in this area on Long Island alone.  Think of it.  They butcher those little girls.  They kidnap, they extort, they rape and they rob.  They prey on children.  They shouldn't be here.  They stomp on their victims.  They beat them with clubs.  They slash them with machetes, and they stab them with knives.  They have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful, quiet neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields.  They're animals," the President said.

MS-13, a notorious gang that has taken over the Crips and Bloods on the gang war hierarchy as the most lethal, dangerous and ruthless. Ms-13 has gathered strength and notoriety in the past decade, as their brutalities have become more widely known through the United States. Members are predominately from South American with the majority of the 70,000 members originating from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Over the last 18 months in Suffolk County, Long Island, one of the highest tax bracketed zip codes in the United States, MS-13 has been responsible for 17 murders and has become a safe haven with the South Shore and the Ronkonkoma area, interior Long Island, home to many migrated illegals and nationals.  

Stephen Miller, Senior Policy Adviser addressed the media in a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on the approaching MS-13 event Friday. While covering the litany of border control tools and management needed to stop the flow of illegals especially those form Central America, he also indicated the bottle neck simply isn't stopping entry, the bottle neck narrows to a trickle in the judicial stage.

"We need to get expedited removal for illegal migrants from Central America. So you don't have a situation where you get an NTA, a notice to appear, and then you just sort of disappear.  That also means we need to get the court backlog down; it's about 6,000 cases right now.  So we need more immigration judges, and more prosecutors so you can actually put MS-13 and other cartels in jail," Miller said.

The President has proposed a "Get Tough" position to the media which results in more deportations and according to multiple media sources, the deportations result in expedited recruitment within the nationals own homeland.

The Los Angeles Times reported one high ranking member of MS-13, also known as the Sinoloa Cartel, Jose Abrego was deported four times. Meaning he was able to reenter the United States each time the government deported him.

"The Los Angeles Times contends that deportation policies have contributed to the size and influence of the gang both in the United States and in Central America. According to the 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment, "The gang is estimated to have 30,000 to 50,000 members and associate members worldwide, 8,000 to 10,000 of whom reside in the United States," according to Wikipedia.


 

Beltway Insider: President Pressured by Border Kids Crisis; Israel/Gaza Cease Fire; Ukraine Crash Site


 

Trump Dumps Immigration Problems On Obama

As with all issues brought to the table in the early days of President Trump's presidency, the effort to overturn policy of the last eight years and to tarnish the legacy of the past president and the issue of immigration is no different.    

Immigration policy throughout the Obama Presidency also had its challenges, Border Kids Crisis, which was thought at the time to be the undoing of the former President and brought the Presidents of the same Central American nations, President Perez Molina of Guatemala, President Hernandez of Honduras and President Sanchez Ceren of El Salvador to the table to assist the United States in handling the ever growing Border Kids Crisis.  

"President Obama's immigration reform policy is exhaustive and as this phase deals with post-entry and interception at the border his concerns especially as the surge is children the policy is facing editing to adapt to  "this surge of individuals that we've seen from Central America, and to ensure that their basic humanitarian needs are met.  That is a requirement that is in line with the law; it is in line with the values of this country, particularly when we're talking about children," then White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, as reported in The Beltway Insider, July 27, 2014 edition.

The Obama Administration also met with then Governor Rick Perry to discuss the Rio Grande Valley as it is the most vulnerable and highly used access point used by smugglers.

At that meeting Perry, now President Trump's Department of Energy Secretary, discussed four areas  of concern: The number of border agents directly on the border, positioning some agents too far from the border to be effective,, the lengthy process for children coming from countries other than Mexico and the length of administrative processing within the immigration judicial system.

Talk About a Bottleneck

At that time, July 28, 2014, three years ago at the request of then Governor Perry, President Obama sent a request to Congress for 100,000 more border agents.

In 2014 the Senate was known for being the least effective in history as Congress also had one goal to derail the Obama legacy and were united in stopping funding.

On July 28, 2017, Stephen Miller, Senior Policy Advisor, said, "If Senate Democrats try to block the funding we need to protect our nation from criminals, drug dealers, cartels, and terrorists, it will cause an uproar from the American people.  And they will pay a steep political price."

Immigration Position

Granted Obama's Border Kids Crisis and MS-13 are not the same issues and fundamentally the Sinoloa Cartels as they all do recruit children as couriers.  MS-13 is a violent street gang, whose motto is "Mata, viola, controla" -- which means "kill, rape, and control."  

The boldness and viciousness of the attacks and the sheer size of the gang, that includes hierarchy, make this organization particularly challenging. With a type of Mafioso loyalty, MS-13 members are short-tempered, heavily tattooed, used sign language incorporated in to the organization and with a belief and filter of invincibility they take every word as a challenge, an opportunity to seek a revenge kill over anything, even a simple social media reply.

They seek to live up to this motto through truly shocking acts of violence designed to instill fear.  Vicious machete attacks, execution-style gunshots, gang-rape, and human trafficking.  They use whatever they can get their hands on -- guns, knives, machetes, baseball bats, tire irons, or their fists and feet -- not just to inflict violence.  They use violence to shock, to send a message, and to control territory here in the U.S. and in Central America.

"The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security are coordinating our anti-gang efforts to ensure that we bring both criminal and immigration laws to bear in the fight against transnational gangs. We continue our critical partnerships with state and local law enforcement around the country whose brave men and women are truly on the front lines in the fight against MS-13.  And we work, of course, hand in glove with our law enforcement partners in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. They are helping us take the fight to MS-13 on its home turf," said Rob Hur, the Principal Deputy Attorney General. 

"If you're a gang member, we're going to find you and we're going to remove you.  You don't have to have to additional items on your record.  If you're a gang member and you're here illegally, then you're going home," he said.

North Korea Tests Second ICBM

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has announced his nation has tested its second intercontinental Long Range Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and now his nation has the ability to strike the mainland of the United States.

"North Korea's test launch today of another intercontinental ballistic missile, the second test in less than a month, is only the latest reckless and dangerous action by the North Korean regime. The United States condemns this test and rejects the claim that these tests, and these weapons, ensure North Korea's security. In reality, they have the opposite effect. By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people. The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region," President Trump said.

Allies in the region China, Japan, Australia have all condemned the testing and bullying tactics of the regime's leader, Kim Jong Un.

Australia, who does not have a missile defense system is particularly vulnerable and has called for China, as has the United States, to police North Korea and apply pressure on the leader.

"Australia will join military action against North Korea if the rogue nation fires a nuclear warhead at the United States, acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has confirmed.If North Korea was to deliver a warhead into the United States of America then the ANZUS alliance would be called in," the news.com.au reported.

Detroit

Kathryn Bigalow, the Academy Award director who gave us The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty has released the emotionally riveting Detroit, a jarring reminder of an America not so far in the past that its actions don't resonate across America today.

The film, which opens nationally August 4th, 2017, bridges the factual events gathered through historical documents, personal account and testimony, with creative license to create a continuity.

The film for those not old enough to remember or those who would rather forget, America in the 1960's especially after the assassination of President John Kennedy,  began to convulse with revolt against the establishment or elected officials who sent our sons, brothers, husbands, lovers off to war and carried them home in caskets; Against the status quo, which no longer mattered as pictures from America's own Civil War, the rights of the Negro, rivaled Vietnam for the headlines and evening news. 

Bigalow, narrows the national focus to the Detroit Riots of 1967, and narrows the film even further to a single, horrific and shattering night where the Detroit Police had autonomous rule and a group of Negros and two white girls from Ohio, broke and not willing to call home, were having a party at the infamous Algiers Hotel.

She has documented the events with masterful authenticity remaining truthful to days, times, seasons and events. Validating those long dead, the entire cast brought a depth to their performances that came from somewhere unknown and gave life to this appalling and shocking injustice with a genuine legitimacy.

Detroit is now playing in select cities. It opens across the nation August 4, 2017. Don't miss it.

To donate to the London Community Foundation: https://artistsforgrenfell.com/

For more information on President Donald Trump: www.whitehouse.gov

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Wikipedia.com, 

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