Northwest Indiana Discussion

Trump Plans Executive Order For Historically Black Colleges



Doing more than Obama ever did.



Donald Trump is set to unleash a new series of executive orders in the next few weeks aimed at education, specifically about Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

Reality star and aide to the President, Omarosa Manigault is working with Trump on a new executive order to aid ailing HBCU. According to Buzzfeed News, the President was shocked to find out how some schools have been suffering during the Obama administration.

Jarrett Carter Jr., an HBCU advocate, wrote on HBCU Digest that Trump might be able to accomplish more in regards to higher education for black students than President Obama was able to do during his entire tenure.

Ya...this is normal:

Donald Trump says 'we'll destroy his career' after being told of senator's policy he dislikes

...and tell me how this is making America better? If you think this is making us better then you have given me the green light to slam you and try to destroy your career (since I do not like your personal policies)

White House Preparing Executive Order To Send ISIS Detainees To Guantanamo Bay



And Trump's been in office less than three weeks. Barack who?



The White House is finishing an executive order that would instruct the Pentagon to send Islamic State detainees to Guantanamo Bay.

The Obama administration notably refused to send ISIS fighters captured in the fight to the detention facility, but for President Donald Trump, it’s imperative to take high-level radical Islamic terrorists out of the fight, The New York Times reports.

For some, the order could function as a de facto tripwire because it could allow federal judges to rule on whether the war against ISIS is actually legal, since Congress has declined to offer any explicit authorization. Instead, the Obama administration has relied on war authorization granted in 2001, saying that the fight against ISIS is just a continuation of the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Such a claim is tenuous at best, mostly because while the seeds of ISIS first arose through al-Qaida, the group has since become so utterly different from its patriarch that it makes sense to distinguish them as two separate organizations. And if the organizations are deemed separate, it’s unclear how the 2001 war authorization would extend to ISIS, experts say.

“It raises huge legal risks,” Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith told The New York Times. “If a judge says the Sept. 11 authorization does not cover such a detention, it would not only make that detention unlawful, it would weaken the legal basis for the entire war against the Islamic State.”

An Army captain tried to sue former President Barack Obama in 2016, arguing that the war against ISIS is illegal, but his complaint was dismissed by a federal judge who said that he lacked standing for his lawsuit.

Jeff Sessions Confirmed As US Attorney General



Great day and step forward to fixing the damage Obama wrecked on the DOJ.


The Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions to be President Trump’s attorney general on Wednesday night, over sustained but ultimately futile Democratic complaints that Sessions worked against minority interests when he was a U.S. attorney for Alabama, and that he’s too close to Trump to enforce the law independently from the White House.

Democrats changed the rules in 2013 so that only a simple majority is needed to approve a president’s Cabinet nominees. Under those rules, the Senate easily confirmed Sessions in a party-line vote, and was helped by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who had said he would support Sessions’ nomination.

The vote is a vindication for Sessions that was decades in the making, as Democrats constantly sought to remind the public that Sessions was rejected for a federal judgeship in 1986 over charges that he worked to resist civil rights changes in his home state. Democrats made a point of noting that Sessions during his confirmation hearing said the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is “intrusive.”

Trump Moves To Fulfill Campaign Promise Of ‘Law And Order’ His Third Week In Office



He’s done more in three weeks than Obama did his whole presidency.



President Donald Trump signed executive orders designed to fight crime and oversaw the swearing in of Jeff Sessions as attorney general in his third week in office. These actions, along with meeting with law enforcement leaders, were intended to fulfill his campaign promise of “law and order.”

In President Obama’s last year in office, there was a bipartisan initiative to reduce sentencing for drug criminals. This effort, much like people’s hope for a “libertarian moment” in the 2016 election, seems to be put on hold during the Trump administration.

Trump Could Remake The Federal Judiciary: There Are Still 117 Court Vacancies To Be Filled



Let's hope he waters down the most liberal courts, like the 9th.

President Donald Trump’s influence on the federal judiciary goes further than just filling one seat on the Supreme Court. The president needs to fill 117 vacancies on various federal courts.

On Jan. 31, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. While this was certainly an important seat to fill, more than 13 percent of all lifetime judiciary positions remain vacant.

The U.S. Court of Appeals currently has 18 vacancies, the District courts have 91, the Court of International Trade has 2 vacant seats, and the Court of Federal Claims has 6. Many of these picks would have the potential to change the balance of several U.S. courts.

Trump Targets The First Lady’s White House Staff For Cuts



All these things are going to add up in the end. He's not taking a salary, forgoing some of the income in his hotels and making these kinds of cuts. Not taking vacation on the tax payers dime. So refreshing. He's tight wad! I like it.



President Donald Trump is eyeing first lady Melania Trump’s office for some staff cuts, as he makes good on a campaign promise to save taxpayers money.

As his wife continues to live in New York City with son Barron, the president is considering reducing the number of jobs in her office, which had grown to 20 employees, reported McClatchy, citing three sources aware of the proposal, but unable to speak about it on the record.

So far, the first lady has only hired two people to be on her staff – Chief of Staff Lindsay Reynolds, an alumna of the George W. Bush administration and White House Social Secretary Anna Cristina Niceta Lloyd, an events planner who has worked on the last five inaugurals and for both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state.