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President Trump is thinking about dispatching more troops to Afghanistan. Given his past insistence on withdrawing American forces, one might have expected this switcheroo to raise eyebrows in Washington and the media. Yet it hasn't.

It's viewed instead as another instance of Trump's deference to the generals in his administration. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster are backing the request for 3,000 to 5,000 more troops by the top American commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson.

It's a tiny increase by the standard of 2011, when more than 100,000 American soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan. Currently, there are only 8,500 U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

But Trump's contemplation of sending troops overseas is significant despite the small numbers. It's an example of his habit of reversing himself and taking a Republican position he had earlier attacked. Mere consideration of a buildup of any size, even if he nixes it, is a change.

Trump's populist and isolationist riffs have fueled fears he would shrink America's role as the world's superpower and defender of freedom, human rights, open sea lanes, and free markets. His kind words about Russian president Vladimir Putin added to the anxiety.

The opposite has happened. He's reversed President Obama's embrace of Iran and instead backs a Middle East alliance in opposition to the Iranians and their Russian allies. He ordered the bombing of Syria for using chemical weapons. He supports NATO after calling it "obsolete" in last year's campaign, though he made Europeans nervous when he didn't explicitly endorse the obligation of NATO countries to defend any member under attack.

"This is starting to look like a more conventional Republican foreign policy than campaign rhetoric suggested," columnist Michael Barone writes. Yes, it is.

There's more. We learn from Josh Rogin of the Washington Post that Trump told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March that he wouldn't get involved in the Ukraine crisis. Two months later, his administration, led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, is seeking to negotiate an agreement ending Russian interference in Ukraine.

On trade, killing the North American Free Trade Agreement was a staple of Trump's stump speech. But now that he has an opportunity to do so, he's balked. This came after he reversed himself on currency manipulation by China, claiming the Chinese have stopped their tinkering.

Back here, Trump was always close to Republican on taxes and spending. But he's grown closer. He and Republican congressional leaders are putting together a single plan for tax reform. They also agree on deep cuts in the budget for 2018.

While the president endorsed repealing and replacing ObamaCare in the campaign, he didn't have a plan for carrying it out. So he's attached himself to House Speaker Paul Ryan's proposal.

The list goes on. Anyone who expected Trump to insist on mass roundups and deportation of illegal immigrant must be disappointed. Trump has allowed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to establish sensible rules, with deportations at roughly the rate as occurred under President Obama.

Just this week, Trump received praise for his latest round of well-regarded judicial nominations.

How did all this happen? The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein has a good explanation. Trump, once elected, found himself "with few potential appointees steeped in his agenda and few other party power centers committed to its most distinctive elements, like the reconsideration of free trade and international alliance," Brownstein wrote. Trump, "as if through magnetic force, is finding himself pulled by this power imbalance toward the agenda that dominated his party before he arrived."

I have a simpler explanation. Trump didn't have anywhere else to go for an agenda. It had to be traditional Republican policies. There was no alternative.

***

The rallies and protests against congressional Republicans attract large crowds. And while thousands show up at town halls to ask about health care, they seem more interested in harassment. But the real focus of their anger is Trump. They're still mad at candidate Trump, less so President Trump.

So here's a question: Does the left-wing uproar mean the likelihood of a wave election is growing and will doom Republicans in the next year's midterm election? It's quite possible, but I have my doubts.

We've seen bands of furious voters before. The anti-Vietnam war demonstrations looked like world-changing events at the time. Nixon won the presidency in 1968 and 1972 anyway. The Tea Party uprising on the right didn't seem to be as big a deal in 2009 and 2010. Thus it was a surprise when Republican won 63 seats and captured the House in 2010.

Will linking Republican candidates to Trump next year be sufficient? In 2016, Republicans could choose how to deal with Trumpembrace him, ignore him, or split from him. All three postures worked. It won't be that easy in 2018.

***

In his new book Understanding Trump, Newt Gingrich writes about the "antelope and chipmunk" theory of political leadership. He says it explains Ronald Reagan's approach to governing. "It's one I have shared with President Trump and his team," Gingrich writes. It goes like this:

The president must be a lion. Lions cannot hunt chipmunks, because even if they catch them the lions will starve to death. President Reagan was a lion. He was focused on three things: defeating the Soviet Union, growing the American economy, and reviving the American spirit. Those were his antelopes, and he refused to get bogged down in chipmunks.

Every time a chipmunk ran into his office, President Reagan would listen patiently, and then say, 'Have you met my chief of staff?' That's how Jim Baker amassed the largest chipmunk collection in the world.

I have been encouraged to see that President Trump, as commander in chief, is focused on the antelope and is not getting drowned by the chipmunks. One of his first actions as president was to give more authority to military commanders to conduct strikes against terrorist targetsHe doesn't need to add an extra layer of decision making.

Meanwhile, when President Trump uses his voice to discuss national security, he has mostly kept the focus on the big picturedefeating radical Islamic terrorism, as well as standing for American values.

This is a pretty good explanation of how Trump operates. Except for one thing: It doesn't account for his daily bombardment of tweets. They hunt chipmunks.

***

Recommended reading. How Bob Dylan learned to write great songs. He read great books.

Good advice for those who obsess on Trump.

Read the rest here:
Trump Is Behaving More Like a Republican - The Weekly Standard

A team of veteran Republican operatives is taking its talent for under-the-radar political muckraking to an unlikely place: The liberal-leaning, Democratic-donating, Donald Trump-hating tech epicenter of Silicon Valley.

The newest startup setting up shop in the Bay Area is Definers Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based outfit that seeks to apply the dark science of political opposition research to the business world. Their mission: To arm companies with ammunition to attack their corporate rivals, sway their government overseers and shape the publics opinion on controversial issues.

To the GOP-led political venture, Silicon Valley is a natural target for their so-called oppo efforts. The tech industry is characteristically hyper-competitive, with boardroom squabbles, takeover attempts, and legal wars over employees and patents and regulations. Definers hopes to supply some of its future tech clients with the gossip, dirt and intel to win those fights.

But the firms new Oakland-based operative Tim Miller, who previously served as communications director to GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush plans to do it with a decidedly Republican bent.

The regions tech heavyweights have long struggled to form relationships with GOP candidates and causes, so Miller and crew are pitching a way for those companies to leverage the power or outrage of the countrys most influential, vocal conservative groups to defeat their political or corporate enemies.

Given the spotlight that is on their industry, Miller told Recode in an interview, the Valleys biggest brands should invest more to ensure you have positive content pushed out about your company and negative content thats being pushed out about your competitor, or regulator, or activist groups or activist investors, that are challenging you.

There might be some companies that are more willing to engage in that, Miller said, but increasingly, as [Silicon Valley] companies mature, I think they may recognize the need to do that.

Definers launched in 2016 as the brainchild of some of the Republican Partys most seasoned campaign hands: Matt Rhoades, the former campaign manager for Mitt Romneys presidential bid, and Joe Pounder, who led research for the Republican National Committee. Already, the firm has aided the likes of Anthem and Cigna, two health insurance behemoths, as they worked quietly to discredit a government official investigating their proposed mega-merger last year.

If that sounds like the stuff of traditional Washington backbiting, thats because it is: The firm itself is an outgrowth of America Rising, the powerful, official research and attack arm of the Republican Party.

And Miller, for his part, is a veteran of political rabble-rousing, too. A founder of America Rising, he had been one of the chief architects of a push before the 2016 Republican convention to scuttle Trumps nomination as president.

For now, Definers wont reveal any of its tech clients, citing the fact it has signed nondisclosure agreements with them. The firm doesnt officially lobby government officials, Miller said, but its pitch is to help connect [tech] with the Republican and conservative ecosystem and [help] them with messaging about how to talk to red-state voters.

That network of right-leaning groups like the Heritage Foundation, for example, or the American Conservative Union, which produces the annual CPAC conference historically has been supremely influential among Republican policymakers. The organizations have the power to boost or kill bills in Congress and nominees for key government posts, and when whipped up, they can rally droves of conservative-leaning voters to make noise or take action online and off.

Of course, tech companies long have tapped their well-stocked public-relations shops to declare war on their rivals think Microsofts legendary battle with Google as the search giant fended off an antitrust probe by the U.S. government.

But Millers new post in the Bay Area with Definers could pave the way for a dramatic escalation from those efforts as the hardscrabble stuff of national politics invades a tech industry that has angled to avoid such tactics.

In the eyes of other Republicans, at least, Silicon Valley certainly could use all the help it can get.

Theres a cultural disconnect between Silicon Valley and red America, said Alex Conant, a former aide to presidential candidate Marco Rubio who now works as a partner at a GOP-leaning firm, Firehouse Strategies. They speak different languages, have different values and generally have a different worldview.

For all their attempts to support Democrats and Republicans in equal measure, the tech industrys leading players are associated most closely with Democrats. Top executives like Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Googles parent, Alphabet; and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook have donated frequently and generously to Democratic candidates. And they and others had been staunch allies of former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then channeled their support to Hillary Clinton four years later.

At times, though, those close Democratic ties have stoked conservatives worst suspicions. Deep-rooted doubts about the political intentions of Facebook, for example, bubbled to the surface last year following accusations that the social giant had stifled right-leaning news sites from appearing in its trending news feed. The arrival of Trump in the White House certainly hasnt helped the Valley win new Republican allies, either. Instead, the likes of Apple and Facebook have publicly challenged the presidents approach to issues like immigration and climate change.

Even in Trumps Washington, however, the tech industry retains a robust political agenda. They want or need infrastructure or tax reforms, and they must fend off scrutiny from tech-focused agencies in the still-forming Trump administration.

Enter Miller and his firm Definers, as they try to offer Silicon Valley an edge with conservatives and reap a business opportunity in the process.

From an opposition research standpoint, this tension between the companies business interest and the employees ideology is something that can be exploited by rival companies or people in other industries, he said, in order to create a chilling effect any time a tech company wants to more aggressively advocate a more conservative posture.

That sort of behind-the-scenes political grunt work sound a little foreign in a place like the Bay Area, which long has snubbed such political activities as cynical. Miller, however, sees it as long overdue.

Tech companies are surprisingly unsophisticated at using the communications tools they created in order to advance their public affairs and communications interests, he said.

See more here:
Republican political operatives want to sell the dark arts of opposition research to tech companies - Recode

Sarah Palin (remember her?) is adjusting nicely to her new role as a full-time Internet troll.

After a very brief stint as a campaign surrogate for Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Palin spends most of her time now on social media posting inflammatory memes and lengthy commentaries on whatever happens to be in the news cycle.

And like a good troll, she is sloppy and lazy.

"Don't be Fooled! The Paris Climate Accord is a SCAM," read a cheap-looking meme posted to her Facebook wall this week. "They pretend it's about fixing our environment but it's really about stealing Billions from the American people and giving it to foreign companies, countries and lobbyists!"

The post included a photo of several well-dressed men cheering in what appeared to be a legislative chamber.

Palin's post came in reference to the president's announcement last week that he would pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, a major accord aimed at curbing climate change.

One glaring problem with Palin's anti-Paris Agreement note was that the included picture didn't feature climate change lobbyists. It featured several current Republican members of the Florida House of Representatives, according to Politico's Marc Caputo.

Though Palin deleted the Facebook post shortly after Politico pointed out her mistake, it wasn't before Florida Republicans noticed. And, boy, did they have something to say about it.

"I'm appalled," Republican State Rep. Scott Plakon, who was featured in the now-deleted Facebook post, said as a joke.

He then added, "As the owner of a publishing company, I find it appalling that she would use a low-res picture like this when a high-res picture is readily available."

"I was almost in tears with laughter," he added. "I'm not sure what she's saying. Are we cheering for Paris or against it? I think she's saying we're celebrating Paris."

Former Republican State Rep. J.C. Planas wrote on Palin's Facebook wall prior to the photo's deletion, "That is a picture of REPUBLICAN Florida Legislators. Hahahahahahaha!!!! You are such an idiot!!!"

Former State Rep. Seth McKeel told Politico that he "assumed it was some idiot who found a random pic."

"Are they really suggesting Will and I took some vote on the Paris Climate Accord?" he asked.

Remember: It wasn't too long ago that Palin's endorsement meant the difference between winning and losing an election. Now current and former lawmakers are going on the record mocking her.

How things change.

You don't hear about Palin much these days. When you do, it's rarely, if ever, for something flattering.

She was able to cling to relevance after her vice presidential bid thanks to reality TV and a contributorship on Fox News. Both deals eventually ran dry, leaving her to rely on the right-wing public speaking circuit as her primary platform. That has also dried up for her.

The last time Palin enjoyed any sort of influence was in 2016 when she endorsed Trump in the GOP presidential primaries. She even appeared onstage with the Queens businessman at rallies. However, that brief burst of relevance was also short-lived, as she quickly disappeared entirely from Trump's rotation of preferred campaign surrogates. A spot in his administration was out of the question.

It has been a long road for Palin. From governor, to vice presidential candidate, to GOP kingmaker, to reality TV star, to right-wing Internet troll. She has come a long way.

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Sarah Palin, what did the Florida Republican Party ever do to you? - Washington Examiner

By Lawrence Hurley | WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Republican officials from 16 U.S. states led by Texas said on Tuesday they have come to the defense of President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, telling the Supreme Court the order did not unconstitutionally single out Muslims and was needed to protect national security.

The officials filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court as it mulls whether to take up the Trump administration's appeal of lower court rulings blocking the travel ban signed by the Republican president on March 6 and let it go into effect.

In the states' brief, filed on Monday, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller wrote that the executive order does not mention religion at all and distinguishes people based only on nationality.

"The executive order therefore is emphatically not a 'Muslim ban,'" Keller wrote.

Keller added that courts should be careful when second-guessing a president's national security determinations, an argument that echoes the administration's view that the judiciary should defer to the president on such matters.

The brief said the order did not violation the Constitution's ban on the government favoring or disfavoring any particular religion or its guarantee of due process.

The filing came after the administration asked the high court last Thursday to allow the order to take effect. [nL1N1IZ03Q]

Aside from Texas, the officials were Republican state attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia, as well as Mississippi's Republican governor.

Three Republican attorneys general came from states with Democratic governors: Louisiana, Montana and West Virginia. Most of the states had also backed Trump earlier in the litigation.

Many Democratic state officials have opposed the ban in lower courts.

The high court is due to review legal papers filed by the ban's challengers, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, before acting. The briefs are due on Monday.

A key issue before the justices in whether Trump's comments during the 2016 president campaign, including calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," can be used as evidence that his order was intended to discriminate against Muslims.

The administration filed emergency applications with the justices seeking to block lower court rulings that went against Trump's order barring entry for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the U.S. government implements stricter visa screening.

Trump's order also called for suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days.

The move comes after the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge's ruling blocking the order. [nL1N1IR1FY]

Potentially making it harder for his lawyers to win at the Supreme Court, Trump again commented on the case on Monday, tweeting complaints that his own administration had issued a "watered down, politically correct version" of an earlier order he signed on Jan. 27 that also was blocked by courts. [nL1N1J209L]

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday faulted North Carolina again in a racially tinged voting rights case, upholding a lower court's ruling that Republican lawmakers mapped state legislative districts in a way that diluted the clout of black voters.

WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that church-affiliated hospital systems do not have to comply with a federal law governing employee pensions, overturning lower court decisions that could have cost the hospitals billions of dollars.

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Republican officials from 16 states back Trump in travel ban fight - Reuters

Former Vice President Joe Biden will join Mitt Romney and other prominent Republicans at an annual summit in Utah this week.

Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, will interview Biden, on Friday as part of the three-day summit, the Associated Press reported .

"Biden is attending because he believes in bipartisanship and the importance of keeping good lines of communication open across the aisle," Biden spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield told the AP.

The event comes about a week after Biden launched a political action committee (PAC) called "American Possibilities," dedicated to encouraging and aiding Democratic candidates to run for office.

The invitation-only Experts and Enthusiasts (E2) Summit in Park City, Utah, will feature a number of prominent Republicans, including Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain , both vocal GOP critics of President Donald Trump , and House Speaker Paul Ryan , who was Romney's running mate in 2012.

The event will also feature former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former CIA Director Mike Morell and Microsoft Chairman John Thompson, Politico reported.

Trump declined the invitation, according to the AP.

Biden is not the first Democrat to attend Romney's annual summit. Democratic strategist David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, participated in the discussion.

At the summit last year, Romney, then a "Never Trump" Republican, told the crowd that Trump's nomination as the Republican candidate "is breaking my heart for the party."

Biden, a longtime politician who is now 74 years old, spurred speculation in recent months that he would run for president in 2020, though he has not officially announced any intention to do so.

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Joe Biden Will Speak At Republican Summit Hosted by Mitt Romney - Fortune