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'Suck it up': Lawmaker wants to cut funding for schools coddling students over Trump

Lawmaker wants to cut funding for schools with safe spaces

An Iowa lawmaker is looking to slash funding for public colleges spending money on grief counseling and other kid-glove treatment for students upset over last week’s presidential election results -- telling snowflakes everywhere: “Suck it up, buttercup.”
Since Donald Trump’s upset victory last Tuesday, colleges across the country have brought in therapy dogs, canceled exams and held “cry-ins” on campus.
But Republican state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann says he will introduce a “suck it up, buttercup” bill in January when the Iowa State Legislature resumes, in a bid to fight back against campus coddling.
The bill would hit taxpayer-funded state universities with a budget cut for double the amount they spend on such election-related activities. Kaufmann emphasized that existing therapy and mental health services are not being targeted.
“I saw schools with rising, skyrocketing tuition costs where they are also finding money and expenditures for things such as cry rooms. I heard reports of rooms where you can play with Play-Doh, where you can color on books and talk about your feelings, and I was hearing reports of some schools that were bringing in ponies to be able get students through the election,” he told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday.
After receiving hundreds of emails of support from across the country, Kaufmann also has set up a website where supporters can "Adopt a Trump protester" and get a "suck it up, buttercup" hat for $17.76. He says he hopes other states pursue similar legislation.
"I believe I'm the first," he told FoxNews.com, when asked if other lawmakers were following his example. "I wanted to fire a political warning shot."
The kind of creative counseling that concerns him extends well beyond Iowa campuses. Kaufmann isn't the only one worried about the post-election feel-gooderies either.
The University of Michigan law school canceled a “Post-Election Self-Care with Food and Play” event this week after inevitable Internet ridicule. The event offered students the chance to work out their Trump anxiety with “stress-busting self-care activities” including coloring, blowing bubbles, sculpting with Play-Doh and “positive card making.”
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CANCELS PLAN TO HELP STUDENTS 'COPE' WITH TRUMP
But Kaufmann says that’s a waste of money, and can actually hurt students as it doesn't prepare them for the real world.
“And in life, when your car breaks down, your kids get sick or you have to take a second job to pay your mortgage, you don’t get to go to a cry zone, you don’t get to pet a pony, you have to deal with it,” he said.
However, at least one state university has pushed back against the bill, saying it’s important for students to be able to express themselves about election results
“I think universities are the perfect place to have these types of conversations,” Scott Ketelsen, director of university relations at the University of Northern Iowa, told the Des Moines Register. “It’s where people learn. It’s where they share ideas. I don’t consider it coddling.”
The bill also establishes new criminal penalties for protesters who shut down highways. Kaufmann cited a recent anti-Trump protest that shut down a highway in Iowa City.
“I encourage protest, I encourage dissent. But you don’t have a constitutional right to block the constitutional rights of others,” he told "Fox & Friends."
Some lawmakers in other states have taken the opposite approach. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called on Monday for more disruption in the city, which has seen some of the highest-profile protests since Trump was elected.
“We have to recognize that all over this country, the more disruption that’s caused peacefully … the more it will change the trajectory of things,” he said in a radio interview on Monday.

Report: Medicaid enrollment, costs swell under ObamaCare expansion

To many apples on the tree..

Adult enrollment in ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion has more than doubled expectations in states across the country -- pointing to ballooning costs that threaten budget dollars for priorities like education and infrastructure, according to a report released Wednesday by The Foundation for Government Accountability.
Newly obtained data from 24 of the 29 states with Medicaid expansions show at least 11.5 million able-bodied adults have enrolled. The FGA says adult enrollment for all these states exceeds projections, by an average of 110 percent. Some states have signed up more than four times as many adults as they expected would enroll.
“A lot of folks on the left will say that this is a huge sign of success -- look at all of these people who need coverage and help,” Nicholas Horton, senior research fellow at FGA and co-author of the report, told FoxNews.com. “My response is that it is not success when you have able-bodied adults who are being trapped in welfare and reducing their incentive to work.”
The swelling enrollment also points to potential budget problems for the states.
TRUMP WILLING TO KEEP PARTS OF OBAMACARE
Starting in January 2017, states’ share of Medicaid expansion costs will increase to 5 percent and, as noted in the FGA’s report, those costs gradually will rise to 10 percent by 2020. With costs rising more quickly than ObamaCare advocates projected, the FGA expects state budgets to take a hit.
“We’ve used deficit spending to pay for these people in federal dollars, and come January, states are going to have to use state dollars to pay for the program,” FGA senior fellow Josh Archambault said. “The one caveat in this is that every state dollar spent on able-bodied adults in a Medicaid program is one less dollar that can be spent on other programs. This is essentially eating up tons of funds at the state level.”
The FGA report also claims that Medicaid expansion makes welfare for able-bodied adults a higher priority than services for the nearly 600,000 seniors and children with developmental disabilities, individuals with brain injuries and others on waiting lists for additional Medicaid services.
But according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a division under the federal Department of Health and Human Services, these waiting lists are unrelated to the Medicaid expansion and pre-date ObamaCare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
Before ObamaCare, Medicaid eligibility extended mostly to low-income, disabled adults and some pregnant women and children. Under the Affordable Care Act, the program now allows coverage for most low-income Americans under age 65 in states that OK’d the expansion -- while other families not qualifying for Medicaid can still receive premium subsidies on the ObamaCare exchanges.
House Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, told Fox News that ObamaCare as a whole “is a welfare program masquerading as health care reform.”
“Enrollment projections were nothing but fantasy, cost estimates little more than wishful thinking, and positive health outcomes were grossly overstated,” he said.
But according to CMS, the Medicaid expansion has had major positive health and economic benefits for citizens and states.
“Medicaid expansion does not trade off against coverage for people with disabilities,” CMS spokesman Aaron Albright told Fox News. “In fact, Medicaid expansion has allowed many eligible individuals with disabilities to get coverage.”
The future of ObamaCare – including the Medicaid expansion and other myriad elements of the sprawling program – remains in doubt now that Donald Trump has been elected president. He has vowed to “repeal and replace” the law, and has the support of congressional Republicans who kept their majority in last week’s election.
“Our path forward is clear: we must repeal this unsustainable burden and replace it with real reforms that improve access to quality health care at lower prices,” Flores said.

Trump transition team announces five-year lobbying ban for appointees

Appointees to President-elect Donald Trump's administration will be asked to sign a form barring them from being a registered lobbyist for five years after they leave government service, officials announced Wednesday.
Republican National Committee chief strategist Sean Spicer said on a conference call with reporters that the prohibition would help to ensure people won't be able to use government service "to enrich themselves."
In addition, Spicer announced that Trump transition team members would be barred from lobbying about the issues they had worked on for six months after their departure. He did not immediately explain how either ban would be enforced.
The new Trump transition policy is one of several aimed at curbing the influence of lobbyists. During the presidential campaign, Trump vowed to institute a five-year lobbying ban for all departing members of Congress and their staff, in addition to executive branch officials.
His original transition team, assembled under New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, was packed with lobbyists and interest advocates. In recent days, Trump put Vice President-elect Mike Pence in charge of transition, and he is changing some of the people who are involved.
Pence is "making good on President-elect Trump's promise that we're not going to have any lobbyists involved with the transition efforts," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said Wednesday. "And this is, when we talk about draining the swamp, this is one of the first steps. And so, the bottom line is, we're going to get the transition team where we need it to be."
In a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday, Trump said he'd had no choice but to initially rely on lobbyists in Washington because "the whole place is one big lobbyist." He vowed to "phase that out."
His White House predecessors have made similar promises.
On the campaign trail in 2007, Barack Obama frequently condemned the "revolving door" of Washington in terms strikingly similar to Trump.
When Obama won the presidency the following year, he banned practicing lobbyists from participating in transition activities and banned those who had been a lobbyist in the previous year from joining the administration to work on issues they handled as lobbyists. Obama's transition team participants were also barred from lobbying the White House for a year after their departures.
With government influencers still firmly entrenched, Obama won re-election in 2012 after a second campaign that included almost no talk about the revolving door.

Outgoing California Sen. Boxer introduces bill to scrap Electoral College

Retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced long-shot legislation Tuesday to scrap the Electoral College, in the latest protest from Democrats following last week's election where Hillary Clinton appeared to win the popular vote despite losing to Donald Trump.
Trump, as with all presidential election victors, won the election because he garnered the most Electoral College votes.
But he likely will be the fifth president in American history to do so while losing the popular vote. The last president to win the presidency in such a manner was President George W. Bush, who beat Democrat Al Gore in 2000 despite Gore gaining more overall votes.
“This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately,” Boxer said in a statement.
The legislation is almost certainly doomed in a Republican-dominated Congress. In the unlikely event it passed, the measure would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states within seven years of passage, as it would seek to amend the Constitution.
Boxer noted that in 2012, Trump had tweeted his dislike of the Electoral College. Trump said in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday that he would be fine seeing the college replaced by a vote that favors “simple votes.” He later tweeted that if that were the case, he would have campaigned differently and still beaten Clinton. He also called the Electoral College “genius.”The Los Angeles Times notes that Boxer has co-sponsored bills to abolish the Electoral College  before, and none have been considered by Congress.

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Foul-mouthed, anti-Trump professor accosts U.S. Senator on hiking trail

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) was hiking in the woods near his home in Chattanooga – enjoying the outdoors – minding his business – when he was accosted by a foul-mouthed anti-Donald Trump Biology professor.
University of the South professor David Haskell and several companions were hiking on Stringer’s Ridge when they came upon Sen. Corker (who happened to be traveling alone).
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“Professor Haskell began shouting at Senator Corker in a profanity-laced tirade while pointing a finger in his face and told the senator that he was embarrassed to live in a state where the citizens voted to overwhelming elect Donald Trump,” Corker spokesperson Micah Johnson said in statement.
Haskell, who was a Pulitzer Price nonfiction finalist, admitted in a blog post that he had a potty-mouth, but denied he was overly aggressive.
“I’m afraid my profanity was no match for that of Mr. Trump and I showed no aggression,” he wrote. “Anger, for sure, but I stood at a respectful distance and listened to Corker. First Amendment speech is not aggression, it’s a right. Grabbing women, punishing them for abortions, egging on rallies toward violence: now that’s aggression.”

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Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter @ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

Some New York City students allowed to skip class to join in Trump protests

'Here's Something New': Anti-Trump protesters didn't vote

History teachers at an elite New York City high school reportedly allowed their students to skip class Tuesday to join protests at the Trump Tower despite objections from fellow educators.
Sources told the New York Post reported that about 200 kids from Beacon High School in Manhattan joined other students in the city to demonstrate in front of Trump Tower.
However, English teachers at the same school firmly opposed the history teachers’ decisions. The students’ English teachers told them that they’d be penalized if they skipped out on their class.

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Department of Education officials told the paper that no students were officially allowed to cut classes Tuesday and those who did leave school will face punishment. Sources said told the paper that parents weren’t alerted about the protest decision and only found out from their children.
“No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA!” some were heard chanting as they protested Donald Trump’s election.
One student told the paper that they would’ve preferred to be in class.
“Kids are crazy,” she said. “They fail to realize that America voted for him.”

Immigration activists retool their push for reform, reach out to Trump and GOP

A new roster of moderate and conservative Latino groups could have a seat at President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policy table.
Trump, who campaigned on taking a strong stance against illegal immigration, and did better with Latino voters than expected – getting 29 percent of their vote, and more than 35 percent in some regions -- could find common ground on the issue with groups like the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and even conservative leaders who did not endorse him and have leaned toward a moderate approach to immigration.
Since the election, groups and Latino leaders around the country who vehemently denounced Trump for his calls for strict enforcement have called meetings to strategize how to tailor their push for immigration reform to the new political landscape that few expected to see in 2017. Many have reached out to Trump’s transition members to arrange meetings or pledge to work together – despite differences of opinion -- to move forward the long-stalled plan to fix the immigration system.
TOP TRUMP ADVISER PREDICTS SWIFT CHANGE ON IMMIGRATION
Their efforts have been unfolding at the local, state and national levels, though they have generated little attention compared to the spotlight on protests against Trump and warnings by some advocacy groups about mass deportations.

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Palomarez backed Hillary Clinton, but now hopes to influence Trump's immigration policies.

“By the will of the people, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, that is the fact of the matter,” said Javier Palomarez, president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, to FoxNews.com “Just as we asked Donald Trump to adhere to the election results, to be respectful of the process, we, as Latinos, must do the same in return. Now we need to come together as Americans and put aside differences.”
Palomarez, who had been a vocal critic of Trump and who endorsed Hillary Clinton, said he called Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump, to express his desire to work with the president-elect on immigration and other issues of concern to Latinos.
“We both agreed to let bygones be bygones,” Palomarez said of his conversation with Cohen the day after the election. “Our job is to remove the emotion, do what’s right for this country, and offer ourselves to the extent that we can add value.”
“We’re in favor of an economic approach to immigration,” Palomarez said to FoxNews.com “For us and the 4.1 million Hispanic-owned firms in the United States, immigration reform has always been an economic imperative.”
A feasible approach to immigration reform, Palomarez said, would continue to fuel the entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to hard work that “make businesses stronger and advance the American Dream.”
Palmorez said that he and other leaders will be closely watching Trump’s steps to gauge how open he will be to ideas about how to deal with immigrants here illegally who have not committed crimes.
“Can we advise him on his policies before he acts or pushes for policy changes?” Palomarez asked rhetorically. “Can we collaborate with him on areas of mutual interest?”
On social media, many immigrants without documents have been debating how to move forward – whether to try to legalize their status and take a risk, whether to hide, whether to return to their homelands, whether to keep protesting.
Many have posted comments assailing Obama, saying that in eight years he did nothing to advance comprehensive immigration reform, and instead deported nearly 3 million people. Many say they hope that Trump deports criminals and people who pose a threat to national security.
Daniel Garza, executive director of the conservative group Libre Initiative, funded by the Koch brothers, said that immigration must be dealt with on a piecemeal basis, not comprehensively. Garza said that most Latinos agree with the need to secure the nation’s borders and enforcing immigration laws.
“There’s a consensus for permanent immigration reform,” Garza said, adding that Libre has opposed the Obama administration’s executive actions to give a temporary shield from deportation to immigrants brought to the United States illegally as minors.
“No president can undermine the constitution,” Garza said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t move quickly on immigration reform, it has to be the first order of business.”
Garza’s group is planning to focus its efforts in the next few weeks to pushing for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who qualified for the executive action program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) from being deported.
Trump has denounced DACA as executive overreach by Obama, and his immigration advisers says it is one of the Obama administration’s executive actions the president-elect plans to rescind.
Garza said that DACA was an unconstitutional stopgap by Obama, but that those who qualified for it – and therefore were able to obtain work permits and driver’s licenses – should not be punished for coming forward.
“I worry a lot about the DACA kids, we need to protect them, they’re vulnerable, we will push to move quickly toward immigration reform. “We’re concerned about kids who came forward because the president promised them protection and exposed them to quick deportation. That’s not fair.”
Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which advocates for more lenient policies, said that many Republicans support allowing some people who meet strict criteria a chance to legalize.
Many activists groups see these Republicans as a conduit between them and the new administration.
“We’re going to have meetings with House and Senate Republicans,” Noorani said. “We can have a functional legal immigration system, and effective and humane enforcement.”
Trump’s tough talk on immigration dominated the headlines. He vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as step up interior enforcement by going after criminals, making sure they are not released back into the community, and deport them.
At the same time, several times – including in a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity – Trump said that he was mindful of people who, other than breaking civil immigration laws, were hard-working, have built lives and raised families here, and were eager to legalize their status.
Trump said that he would determine how to handle this population after the borders are secure.
“He said he was going to deport only those involved in nefarious activities – the rapists, murderers and drug traffickers,” said Reverend Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who met with Trump during the campaign.
“Donald Trump spoke at some of our churches,” Rodriguez said.
“He acquired the support of 30 percent of the Latino community, the reason is because Latinos are people of faith and Hillary failed miserably. Donald Trump can grow that 30 percent if he engages the community with compassion.”
“I don’t want Latinos living in fear,” he said.
“He must build a wall, but also a bridge,” the pastor said, noting that he is seeking another meeting with Trump to discuss working together. “I want to make sure he’s faithful to his commitment” to help minorities gain access to better education and job opportunities.
Rodriguez said he wants to help -- through his vast network of multicultural faith leaders and congregants -- bring people together and stop the vitriol pervading social media.
All told, Palomarez said: “One thing I’ve learned in last 12, 13 14 months is to not underestimate Donald Trump.”
“I think he will bring that same grit, that same drive, to his policy agenda and get a lot of what he plans done,” he said. “He may not do it the way others would, but by God he gets it done.”

Pence removing lobbyists from Trump transition team

Lobbyists are being purged from official roles in President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, sources told Fox News late Tuesday.
The move to get rid of lobbyists in key roles was one of the first decisions made by Vice President-elect Mike Pence in his role overseeing the construction of a Trump administration.
One source said the decision to remove the lobbyists "makes good on [Trump's] vision of how he wants his government constructed."
Tuesday evening, Pence formally signed a memorandum of understanding putting him in charge of the transition team. A similar document had been signed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who spent months running transition operations before his demotion last week.
The switch slowed Trump's ability to coordinate the transfer of power with the Obama administration. White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine told the Associated Press the administration was waiting on more documents required by law before agencies could begin sharing information with the transition team.
Pence ignored questions from reporters Tuesday, both as he entered Trump Tower with a thick binder tucked under his arm, and as he left six hours later.
A person familiar with the transition efforts told AP different factions in Trump's team "are fighting for power."
"That organization right now is not designed to work," according to the person close to the efforts, who like others involved in the transition, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal process.
The group organized by Christie had featured a litany of lobbyists, former bureaucrats, academics and corporate lawyers. That caused consternation from Trump, who won cheers on the campaign trail for his repeated promises to "drain the swamp" in Washington.
It had also drawn the attention of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who repeatedly attacked Trump during the campaign on behalf of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, Warren called on Trump to replace more than 20 members of his transition team with ties to Wall Street firms and other corporations.
"If you refuse," Warren wrote, "I will oppose you, every step of the way, for the next four years. I will champion the millions of Americans you will fail to protect. I will track your every move, and I will remind Americans, every day, of the actions you take that fail them."
Among those who departed Trump's transition team Tuesday was former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Christie recruit and a respected Republican voice on national security issues. The Wall Street Journal reported that Frank Gaffney, a former defense official in the Reagan administration, had been brought in to assist on national security issues, along with Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and former Rep. Pete Hoekstra.
Former GOP national security official Eliot Cohen blasted Trump's team on Twitter, calling them "angry, arrogant." Cohen opposed Trump during the campaign, but in recent days, he said those who feel duty-bound to work in a Trump administration should do so. But he said Tuesday that after an exchange with Trump's team, he had "changed my recommendation."
Trump's transition team was also reviewing secretary of state candidate Rudy Giuliani's paid consulting work for foreign governments, which could delay a nomination or bump Giuliani to a different position, according to a person briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Giuliani founded his own firm, Giuliani Partners, in 2001, and helped businesses on behalf of foreign governments, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. He also advised TransCanada, which sought to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and helped the maker of the painkiller drug OxyContin settle a dispute with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Businessman Carl Icahn disclosed on Twitter, based on conversations with the president-elect, that Trump was considering Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, and Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor, to lead the Treasury and Commerce departments.
Trump himself broke with protocol Tuesday night by leaving Trump Tower without his press contingent. The transition team had told reporters and photographers there would be no movement by the president-elect for the rest of the day and night, but less than two hours later a presidential-style motorcade rolled out of the building, suggesting that Trump was on the move and leaving reporters scrambling.
Trump turned up at Club 21, a midtown Manhattan restaurant where he was having dinner with his family. Reporters were not allowed inside, and Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks asked that they respect that he was having an evening out with his family.
A short time later a tweet appeared on Trump's account: "Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!"