CNN slashes Anderson Cooper’s program as network hopes to make room for anti-Trump Chris Cuomo

In an embarrassing setback for Vanderbilt family scion Anderson Cooper, CNN announced Thursday that Cooper’s in-house rival, Chris Cuomo, will be taking over its ratings challenged 9 p.m. hour.

The shake up -- coming as CNN struggles badly in its ratings war with MSNBC -- cuts Cooper’s airtime in half. Cooper will now only host between 8 and 9 p.m. ET.

“This move is likely hard for Anderson Cooper to accept. He is the face of CNN and is now being downsized while CNN brass looks for a magic solution,” Media analyst Jeff McCall told Fox News.

Cooper and Cuomo, who intersected as undergraduates at ultra-exclusive Yale University and later as anchors at ABC News, are both children of enormous privilege and fame. Cooper is the son of socialite Gloria Vanderbilt and part heir to the family’s colossal fortune. Cuomo is the son of Democrat icon Mario Cuomo and younger brother of New York’s powerful governor, Andrew. Both men made the jump to CNN after their careers had foundered at ABC.

CNN will slash Cooper’s “AC 360” into a one-hour program, as opposed to airing from 8-10 p.m. Cuomo will shift from CNN’s struggling morning show “New Day” to the 9 p.m. slot where he will go head-to-head with liberal ratings behemoth Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

CNN hasn’t made changes to its prime-time lineup since 2014 despite regularly finishing behind MSNBC by most measures. CNN finished the month of February as the 12th most-watched cable network, averaging 979,000 prime-time viewers. Fox News finished atop the list averaging 2.8 million and MSNBC finished second with an average prime-time viewership of 1.8 million. “AC 360” was CNN’s only show to finish Feb. among the Top 10 most-watched cable news programs among the key demographic of adults ages 25-54, while MSNBC had three and Fox News had six.

When it comes to total viewers, CNN finished even worse with only "AC 360" cracking the Top 25 most-watched cable news shows last month.

Cooper’s defenders claim the millionaire star is not irked by his demotion.

“He is not unhappy at all,” a CNN insider told Fox News of Cooper, pointing to the fact that the 9 p.m. hour of “AC 360” is frequently bumped for special events and original series.

Mediaite columnist Joseph Wulfsohn told Fox News that cutting into Cooper’s two-hour block “makes sense” and it “shocking they didn’t do it sooner” as Maddow regularly dominates the time slot in terms of liberal cable news shows.

“This move is basically an acknowledgement by CNN that its highest profile personality, Anderson Cooper, just can't compete at the 9 p.m. time slot with MSNBC or Fox,” McCall said. “CNN had to do something to shake things up or settle for drifting along in a distant third place for the foreseeable future. It is a bit surprising, however, that CNN is betting on Cuomo, who has failed to generate solid ratings in his morning time slot.”

Their privileged backgrounds aren’t the only things Cooper and Cuomo have in common. They’re also two of the most anti-Trump personalities on television.

Cuomo, 47, has fully embraced CNN boss Jeff Zucker’s anti-Trump programming strategy and his older brother Andrew is known to harbor presidential aspirations.

“CNN might believe Cuomo can attract serious news hound viewers who don't want the political advocacy that is so apparent with Maddow and Hannity at 9 p.m. That is unlikely, it would seem, because Cuomo himself is rather partisan in his news anchoring. Nobody will confuse him with Frank Reynolds in terms of being impartial,” McCall said, referring to the late and beloved ABC News anchor.

While Cooper is typically sophisticated in his anti-Trump rhetoric, Cuomo attacks the president with more zeal. While co-hosting “New Day,” Cuomo became known for his bizarre questions and frenetic interviewing style. The result has been frequent combative interviews with members of the Trump administration and its supporters. Cuomo is often accused of bullying Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, who has gamely continued to appear on “New Day” despite how Cuomo treats her.

Last August Conway even called him an “amateur climatologist” when Cuomo insisted on talking about climate change during an interview about Hurricane Harvey disaster relief.

Insiders say that behind the scenes at CNN, Cuomo’s eccentricities had become a major source of friction at the morning program. It’s hoped that things will be smoother in prime time where he has less airtime and no co-anchors to rankle.
In recent memory, Cuomo has also urged Americans to “get woke” while denouncing Trump’s border wall and referred to a viewer as a “lemming” during a nasty Twitter spat.

One big difference between Cooper and Cuomo may be salary. Cooper is believed to make more than $7 million a year, while Cuomo is believed to make far less.

At “New Day,” Cuomo will be replaced by John Berman, a levelheaded Harvard graduate (and also an ABC veteran) who, by all accounts, is easy to work with. A CNN insider described Berman as “the opposite of Chris Cuomo.”

“Why is CNN a retirement home for failed people from ABC News?” the insider added.

'Angel families' want to see Oakland mayor prosecuted for thwarting ICE raids

The parents of children killed by illegal immigrants are demanding that the Trump administration take a tough stance against a California mayor who thwarted a federal immigration raid this month -- urging that she face consequences and even jail time.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf sparked national outrage when she pre-empted the raid in Northern California by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials by announcing it on Twitter.
“How dare you!” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a speech last week in which he also announced a lawsuit against California for its "sanctuary" policies -- which limit local law enforcement officials from complying with federal immigration authorities' access to illegal immigrants.
“How dare you needlessly endanger the lives of our law enforcement officers to promote a radical, open borders agenda,” Sessions said.
Striking a similar tone of outrage, President Donald Trump said in California on Tuesday, "What happened in Oakland was a disgrace to our nation.”
While the raid picked up hundreds of illegal immigrants, ICE officials say hundreds more evaded capture -- including hardened criminals.
Since then, a number of California Democrats have backed Schaaf, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., slammed the raid as "unjust and cruel." The Department of Justice is reviewing Schaaf’s actions.
As for those who have lost children due to the actions of illegal immigrants -- so-called Angel Families' -- they say it’s vital that the administration do something.
Don Rosenberg, an "Angel Dad" whose 25-year-old son, Drew, was killed in San Francisco in 2010 when an illegal-immigrant driver from Honduras hit his motorbike, says that Sessions’ DOJ needs to have Schaaf prosecuted.
“Put her in jail, you’ll see this stuff stop,” Rosenberg told Fox News. “These people aren’t willing to sacrifice their lives and careers for people who are here illegally. They’ll be like cockroaches scattering when you turn the light on.”
Rosenberg said his son was killed after the driver attempted to flee the scene, driving over Drew again in the process. Although the driver entered the country illegally, he had been given Temporary Protective Status (TPS).
Schaaf and other liberal Democrats have claimed that they are working to make communities safer, partly by encouraging those here illegally to cooperate with authorities about more hardened criminals.
"It is Oakland’s legal right to be a sanctuary city and we have not broken any laws," Schaaf said in a statement last month. "We believe our community is safer when families stay together."
Rosenberg rejected that argument outright:
“It’s a great line, sounds good, but it’s total bull---t.”
Sabine Durden, whose son Dominic was killed in Moreno Valley, Calif., in 2012 when his motorbike was hit by an illegal immigrant with priors including two DUIs, echoed Rosenberg's sentiment, saying that something must be done about rogue Democratic lawmakers.
“When I first heard, I was beside myself, fuming, infuriated and completely outraged about the lawless, reckless and very dangerous behavior of that disrespectful mayor," she told Fox News. "Not only did she endanger ICE agents and law enforcement, but all the citizens not just in her community, but all over near and far."

“If the mayor of Oakland would have opened the back door to a prison or jail and let out dangerous felons, she would have been immediately arrested,” she added. “Why not in this case?”

While the loss of a child is the ultimate nightmare for any parent, in these families' cases the grief is compounded by anger at what they say are regular snubs by Democratic politicians. These politicians, the Angel Families say, ignore their stories and then push legislation that the families insist will only lead to more deaths of American citizens and residents at the hands of people who have no right to be in the country in the first place.
"I wonder if [Schaaf] would defend illegals if one of them had hurt or killed one of her loved ones," Durden said. "The self-serving, unlawful and very disturbing stance and actions of that mayor is a prime example why California is sliding down the edge of insanity."
Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son Jamiel Jr. was murdered in 2008 in Los Angeles by a Mexican gang member living in the U.S. illegally, has repeatedly expressed his frustration with California. Last week he tweeted an image of a Democratic State Senate candidate's call to "Disobey Trump."
"This is what we have to put up with in California. The Dems' campaign platform is to disobey law and order," he tweeted.
Mary Ann Mendoza's 32-year-old son, Police Sgt. Brandon Mendoza, was killed in 2014 in Arizona by an illegal immigrant who was driving the wrong way while drunk. That driver, who was also killed in the crash, had been living illegally in the country for at least 20 years and had criminal convictions dating from 1994. She says that Democratic lawmakers have tried to ignore her advocacy.
“They don’t even want to look us in the face, they avoid us at all costs,” Mary Ann Mendoza told Fox News. “It would squash their agenda and what they are trying to achieve; they want to act like it doesn’t even exist and that’s why so many of us keep fighting.”

Rosenberg said he was a lifelong Democrat, but was abandoned by people in his party as he says they have become increasingly focused on prioritizing illegal immigrants.
“I was a Democrat my entire life, but they don’t follow Democratic principles, they’re just vote hoarders,” he said. “What message are you sending when you will shut down the entire government to protect DACA recipients?” he added, referring to the illegal immigrants brought to America as young children by their parents.
And by promoting so-called sanctuary policies, the families say they are not promoting safety, but rather allowing more threats onto the streets to put law-abiding families in danger.
“Where is the sanctuary for law-abiding citizens?” said Durden, herself an immigrant who arrived legally from Germany in the 1990s. “Where was the safe place for my only child?”

Laura Wilkerson has pushed for the U.S. to keep Americans safe from illegal immigrants after her 18-year-old son, Josh, was murdered by an illegal immigrant classmate in 2010 in Texas. Josh was tied up, tortured, strangled and beaten until he died, before his body was set on fire.
Wilkerson grilled Pelosi last year at a CNN town hall, where she asked Pelosi which one of her family members she would sacrifice for an illegal immigrant.
"If you need to go home tonight and line up your babies as you say, and your grandbabies, which one of them could you look in their eyes today, and tell them that they're expendable for another foreign person to have a nicer life?” a tearful Wilkerson asked. “Which one would you look to say, you, my child, are expendable for someone else to come over here and not follow the law and have a nicer life?"
Wilkerson told Fox News that Sessions and the DOJ need to act, noting that Schaaf’s actions also put law enforcement in danger, as well.
“Jeff Sessions has been very quiet and I am hoping that he does more than a war of words; it’s time to do something,” she said. “He’s a good man but we have to take action and show that we are going to stand up to lawbreakers.”
“It makes me angry and it’s time for us to fight now,” she said. “If we lose to this, what else is next?”
But while the families are angry at what they have seen, many of them said repeatedly that they are not motivated primarily by anger or vengeance, but instead to make sure that no mother or father has to endure the heartbreak and grief that they have had to go through.
“I don’t want anyone else to know what this 24/7 nightmare feels like,” Durden said.

Democrat Republican Cartoons

Openly atheist Dem trumped by Republican landslide in special election in Tennessee

Gayle Jordan, an openly atheist Democratic candidate lost in Tennessee's 14 district on Tuesday.

Openly atheist Democrat Gayle Jordan lost a special election on Tuesday to fill a vacant seat in the Tennessee Senate.
Republican Shane Reeves won in a landslide, according to unofficial results from the Tennessee secretary of state. He received 13,139 votes compared to 5,179 votes for Jordan.
Reeves will fill a seat vacated by Republican Jim Tracy after he resigned to serve as state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office.
Jordan is executive director of Recovering from Religion, a group that supports people who wish to leave their faith behind. She is a former Southern Baptist who left the denomination 10 years ago “when her then-teenagers began asking questions she could not answer.”
WILL ATHEIST DEM HAVE A PRAYER IN DEEP-RED TENNESSEE’S SPECIAL ELECTION
Reeves, a Murfreesboro-based businessman, made Jordan’s open atheism an issue in the election, telling the Tennessean that her “views are radical” and “out of touch with the district."

Facebook  (Shane Reeves, a Republican candidate in the district, won in a landslide on Tuesday's special election.)

He argued that Jordan was unsuited for the state Senate because faith shapes one’s worldview and affects the decisions one makes.
“I'm a Christian and that is going to serve as a filter, serve as a moral compass and how I look at things, if I'm fortunate to get elected," Reeves said, adding that many people with whom he had spoken could not believe the Democratic candidate is an atheist.
At a campaign party Tuesday, Jordan admitted she hoped for a different outcome, despite running in a state that President Donald Trump won by 26 points in 2016.
"We're disappointed in the results but we couldn't be prouder of the campaign that we ran," she told the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro.
Senate Speaker Randy McNally, who previously called Jordan a “dangerous” candidate, said in a statement Tuesday night that Reeves’ win showed that “any blue wave will hit a big, red seawall in Tennessee."
State Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden said the election "shows that voters see the results of Tennessee's Republican leadership — increased economic opportunity, expanded access to education, and record low unemployment rates."

Pelosi no longer sees Tillerson as 'friendly' with Russia now that he's been fired

Was ousted U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “friendly” with the Kremlim, or was he a strong leader willing to stand “against Russian aggression”? House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appears to think he was both.
In 2016, when Tillerson was first nominated to be America’s top diplomat, Pelosi branded him “an oil executive friendly to Vladimir Putin,” and said his nomination “sends a disturbing signal about President-elect Trump’s priorities.
“The Secretary of State should champion American values, American security and American interests,” the California Democrat said then. “Fawning over Putin is poor preparation for being the top diplomat of the United States of America.”
But now that President Donald Trump has shown Tillerson the door, Pelosi seems almost sorry to see him go.
“Secretary Tillerson’s firing sets a profoundly disturbing precedent in which standing up for our allies against Russian aggression is grounds for a humiliating dismissal,” Pelosi said Tuesday.
What changed in the interim?
Pelosi’s reaction to Tillerson’s firing may have been inspired by those who pointed out that the departure came just hours after he said the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain was “a really egregious act” that had “clearly” been ordered by Russia.
In other words, his recent criticism of Russia may have been more in line with the Democrats’ anti-Trump narrative.
Trouble is, Tillerson’s firing was the subject of speculation in the news for months.
And as for pointing the finger at Russia, Trump echoed Tillerson’s remarks about the spy’s death Tuesday, telling reporters that he agreed with British Prime Minister Theresa May that Russia was likely involved.
“It sounds to me like they believe it was Russia and I would certainly take that finding as fact,” Trump said.

Democrat Lamb declares victory in Pa. special election determined too close to call

Democrat Conor Lamb declared victory early Wednesday in Pennsylvania’s special House election that was officially too close to call but seen by some political observers as a clear message to Republicans prior to November’s midterm elections.
The most recent results — with 99 percent of the precincts reporting — show Lamb up by fewer than 900 votes over Republican Rick Saccone. State officials said there were about 3,900 absentee ballots that still needed to be counted.
The final result may be determined by a recount.
Still, the unofficial results showed Lamb riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm in a district that President Donald Trump won 16 months ago by 20 points. The result was expected to raise Democratic hopes of taking back the House in November.
“It took a little longer than we thought,” Lamb, a former Marine, told supporters. “We followed what I learned in the Marines – leave no one behind. We went everywhere; we talked to everyone; we invited everyone in.”
Saccone appeared more cautious after polls closed. He told an audience that he doesn’t give up. He thanked the crowd that he called “the salt of the earth” and vowed that he is going to keep fighting.
To be sure, Democrats wasted little time to celebrate the outcome.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee both issued statements late Tuesday declaring victory.

This is a local race ... I don't think it has anything to do with the president.

“These results should terrify Republicans. Despite their home field advantage and the millions of dollars outside groups poured into this race, Republicans found that their attacks against Conor, including their unpopular tax scam, were not believable,” Ben Ray, the DCCC chairman, said in a statement.
Tom Perez, the DNC chair, praised the “victory,” saying the upset was for “hardworking families of Western Pennsylvania and a victory for Democrats across the country.”
Lamb, a 33-year-old former federal prosecutor, ran up big margins against Saccone, 60, in wealthy Allegheny County and was holding his own in GOP-leaning Westmoreland, Washington and Greene counties.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Wanda Murren told Fox News the race would not have a mandatory recount. Under state law, three voters in each precinct must petition for a recount and petitions must be filed five days after each county completes its tally.
Lamb insisted that Trump was not the main issue in the race. But the close margin was another setback for the president following Democratic Sen. Doug Jones' victory in Alabama's special election in December.
“We were executing a plan that we came up with a long time ago that had nothing to do with the president,” Lamb told reporters after voting Tuesday morning. “This is a local race. … I don’t think it has anything to do with the president.”
By contrast, Saccone had vowed that he would be Trump's "wingman," telling Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" that the president "needs some help down there [in Washington]."
The president visited the district twice to campaign for Saccone, once in January and again on Saturday night in a rollicking rally that recalled Trump’s own 2016 campaign.
In a bid to lock up that key voting bloc, Democrats called in former Vice President Joe Biden to stump for Lamb.
“You said you want your piece of the sidewalk,” Biden, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, told a group of union workers last week. ”Hell, you own the sidewalk.” Biden has also said that Lamb reminds him of his late son, Beau, an Iraq War veteran and former Delaware attorney general who died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.
Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, which stretches from the affluent Pittsburgh suburbs into deep Pennsylvania steel and coal country, had been held by Republican Tim Murphy since 2003. But Murphy was forced to resign in October amid revelations of an extramarital affair in which he urged his lover to get an abortion when they thought she was pregnant.
Lamb and Saccone could face off again in November – though they may not meet in the same district. In January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state’s congressional district boundaries were unfairly gerrymandered to aid Republicans.
The Democrat-controlled court has drawn a new map that puts Saccone and Lamb’s homes in separate districts. However, the matter is now in the hands of a three-judge federal panel, which is considering an appeal by Republican lawmakers.

Stephen Hawking, famed physicist, dead at 76

Stephen Hawking, the famed theoretical physicist who defied a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to live virtually his entire adult life with the disease – in a wheelchair and paralyzed but making constant contributions to a world few could understand – has died at age 76, a family spokesman said.
Although Hawking may have been incapacitated physically, he managed to write books, including the best seller "A Brief History of Time," teach physics and mathematics, deliver speeches and even float in zero gravity, all while working in the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity.
He was not modest about what he wanted to do. "My goal is simple," he once said. "It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

"My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is, and why it exists at all."
- Stephen Hawking

Hawking reached his eighth decade, but was forced to miss a scientific debate to mark his 70th birthday in January 2012 because he was discharged from a hospital only two days earlier. His personal assistant told the Daily Telegraph at the time his speech was getting noticeably slower, sometimes only a word a minute.
As part of the events surrounding his birthday, Hawking gave a rare interview to New Scientist magazine and declared there was still one puzzle left for him. Asked what he thought about most during the day, Hawking replied, "Women. They are a complete mystery."
In earlier interviews, Hawking was frank about his physical restrictions. "I'm sure my disability has a bearing on why I'm well known," he said in an interview with the BBC. "People are fascinated by the contrast between my very limited physical powers, and the vast nature of the universe I deal with.
"I'm the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct. At least I'm obviously physically challenged. Whether I'm a genius is more open to doubt."
Hawking was married and divorced twice. His first wife, Jane Wilde, was a fellow student at Cambridge to whom he was married for 28 years. He then married his nurse, Elaine Mason, whom he was with for 11 years before they separated.
He is survived by three children from his first marriage, Robert, Timothy and Lucy.

Stephen Hawking with Nelson Mandela in an undated photo.

Stephen William Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. He had two younger sisters and an adopted brother.
Hawking developed an early interest in science and mathematics, and when he was old enough his father, a medical researcher, encouraged him to apply to Oxford.
While there, Hawking began his studies in physics, and developed an interest in thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics.
After graduating from Oxford, Hawking studied at Cambridge, where he was diagnosed with ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, ALS is a fatal, motor neuron disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and atrophy.

Stephen Hawking with Pope Benedict XVI.

He later said the diagnosis prompted recurring dreams in which he would sacrifice his own life to save others.
"After all, if I were going to die anyway, it might as well do some good," he said. "But I didn't die. In fact, although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before."
Shortly after earning his PhD, Hawking became a professor at Cambridge, working as a research fellow then a professorial fellow before becoming the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. That same position, which he held from 1979 to 2009, was held by Isaac Newton in 1669.
Hawking was awarded 12 honorary degrees and was elected one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974. He was later made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and a Companion of  Honor in 1989. He is also a member of the US National Academy of Science and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
Hawking's research focused on cosmology and the basic laws of the universe. Along with Roger Pemrose, he applied a new model to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The model showed that space and time are infinite, and they would begin with the Big Bang and end with black holes.
He also concluded that black holes should emit radiation, and that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time.
Hawking was never afraid to voice his opinion, even if it could be considered controversial.
Using a mathematical basis, he said he was almost certain that alien life existed in other parts of the universe. "The numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said. "The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

Stephen Hawking with Bill Gates.

He also took a jab at religion, saying, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
In 2007, Hawking became the first quadriplegic to float in zero-gravity when he took a flight in a NASA aircraft used to train astronauts. When asked why he was taking the flight, he said, "First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

"I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."
- Stephen Hawking

Hawking – or his animated lookalike -- appeared on numerous television shows, including "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," and "Dilbert." In some instances he appeared as himself, while in others animated characters were created to resemble him.
A 2014 biopic, “The Theory of Everything,” examined the courtship, marriage and eventual separation of Hawking and his first wife,  Jane. The movie, which was directed by James Marsh, starred British actor Eddie Redmayne as the famous physicist.
In order to communicate, Hawking used a computer system attached to his wheelchair. He used a switch to select words printed on a screen, and as he formed sentences they were sent to a speech synthesizer.
His accent was described as Scandinavian, American, or Scottish. Hawking began using the voice synthesizer in 1985, when he contracted pneumonia and had an emergency tracheotomy.

Russian Collusion Cartoons

Trump is reorganizing the public land Leviathan - and DC bureaucrats are not happy

This July 15, 2016, file photo, shows the "Moonhouse" in McLoyd Canyon which is part of Bears Ears National Monument, near Blanding, Utah. President Donald Trump decided to reduce Bears Ears -- created December 2016 by President Barack Obama -- by about 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante -- designated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton -- by nearly half. 

Not since the Reagan administration has the Secretary of Interior received so much attention. Then Reagan’s interior secretary, James Watt, without the aid of a Twitter account, polarized the electorate saying there are “liberals and Americans.” That and other provocative statements led Time Magazine to include him in its list of the “Top 10 Worst Cabinet Members.”

President Trump’s Interior secretary Ryan Zinke’s language may not be inflammatory enough to get him on the list, but his policies certainly have kept the agency that manages 700,000 square miles in the headlines. After locking horns with environmentalists and outdoor equipment suppliers over his recommendation to reduce two huge Utah national monuments from 3.2 million acres to 1.1 million acres, Zinke proposed reorganizing his department giving more authority to regional offices. His reasoning was that managers with their feet on the ground have the most knowledge of their resources in order to foster multiple use management, the mission of the Department of Interior. This decentralizaiton explains a lot of the pushback in Washington and from environmental groups who have had and want to maintain their power.

Secretary Zinke is in good company with his proposed reorganization. In 1889, John Wesley Powell, the famous explorer of the Colorado River and the first European to float through the Grand Canyon, was asked to address the Montana Constitutional Convention. He suggested that the counties should be organized around drainage basins because people of the drainage basin “are more interested than any other people” in how the resources will be managed. When he added that “the government of the United States should cede all of the lands of that drainage basin to the people who live in that basin,” Powell was greeted with thunderous applause.
Zinke has not gone quite as far as Powell suggested, but his reorganization is definitely aimed at putting more decision making power at the local level. Believing that the Department of Interior is “mismanaging and squandering our assets through a layered bureaucracy,” Zinke wants to move assets and decision making authority “to the front lines,” something western state and local officials have wanted since the Sage Brush Rebellion in the late 1970s. He hopes the reorganization will improve recreational access, simplify environmental reviews, and speed up the permitting process for everything from energy development to proactive steps for managing timber to reduce the threat of wildfires.

Rather than expanding the bureaucracies that manage the one-third of the nation’s land owned by the federal government and forcing environmental regulations on those who bear the costs, the Trump administration seems to have an ear outside the Beltway.

This reorganization proposal fits a pattern for natural resource and environmental management that is evolving under the Trump administration. Call it environmental federalism. In downsizing Utah’s national monuments, Trump has called for local management to include Indian tribes, arguably the people with the biggest interest in preserving the region’s antiquities. When President Obama created Bears Ears National Monument, he pledged management consultation with Native Americans. Trump, however, wants the Monument Management Plan to include one member each from the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, and Zuni Tribe.
By “moving assets to the front lines” Zinke means to shift a significant number of 70,000 bureaucrats in the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service from Washington, D.C., to locations where the agencies’ lands are located. Not surprisingly, agency employees are skeptical of the reorganization. As Sally Jewell, former Secretary of Interior under Obama, sees it, the reorganization is “not as an attempt to streamline, but an attempt to downsize.”
Similarly, environmental groups headquartered in D.C., where they have had a stranglehold on western resource issues, don’t want to see their power base move west. Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s public lands program, called the reorganization “a solution in search of a problem.” The fear is that any movement of management to areas where people actually live on the land will favor multiple use as opposed to preservation. Sharon Buccino, senior director for lands at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “Virtually everything Secretary Zinke has done to date has been to advance fossil fuel interests — above the stewardship of our public lands, preservation of wildlife and protection of clean air and water.”
Environmental federalism may be the conservation legacy of this administration. Rather than expanding the bureaucracies that manage the one-third of the nation’s land owned by the federal government and forcing environmental regulations on those who bear the costs, the Trump administration seems to have an ear outside the Beltway. In addition to downsizing national monuments and reorganizing land management agencies, President Trump has rolled back more than 60 executive order environmental regulations ranging from Obama’s clean power plan to his delay of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Environmental federalism will not only inject more on-the-ground knowledge into land and environmental management, it could also reduce polarization by bringing opposing parties face-to-face in the coffee shops that are the heart of rural America.
Terry L. Anderson is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and at the Property and Environment Research Center, Bozeman, Montana. His most recent book is Free Market Environmentalism for the Next Generation (2015).

Trump touts House Intel findings of 'no evidence of collusion' between campaign, Russia

President Donald Trump trumpeted the House Intelligence Committee's report that it found "no evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians" in an all-caps Twitter post Monday night.

"THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," wrote Trump, reiterating the main finding from the panel's 150-page draft report. 

“We didn't find any evidence of collusion and I don't think [special counsel Robert Mueller] will either,” Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway, who led the bipartisan investigation, said on “Special Report.”

"We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians."

The top Democrat on the committee, California Rep. Adam Schiff, responded to Trump with tweet saying that the panel's Republicans "lack the courage to stand up to a President of their own party when the national interest necessitates it."
The committee's investigation was based on four topics: Russian active measures against the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. government's response to the attack, links between Russians and the Trump and Clinton campaigns, and purported leaks of classified information.
“We believe we've got the information necessary to answer those for the American people,” Conaway said.
The report also noted that based on its investigation which lasted more than a year, the committee disagreed with the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “supposed preference” for then-candidate Donald Trump.

Rep. Mike Conaway, right, with Rep. Adam Schiff.  (AP, File)

“We disagree with the Intelligence Community’s position that Putin favored Trump,” Conaway told Fox News. He said he had “no contact” with the White House during the probe.
The majority staff on the committee is expected to send the draft report to the minority staff on Tuesday. Once the draft report is adopted by committee Democrats, the report will be submitted to the intelligence community for a declassification review, and following that process, it will be released to the public, officials said, though the timeline at this point is unknown.
“The report’s completion will signify the closure of one chapter in the Committee’s robust oversight of the threat posed by Moscow—which began well before the investigation and will continue thereafter,” Conaway said.
Schiff, however, fought back. “While the Majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch. By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its actions harshly,” the Democratic lawmaker said.
The draft report included 40 other findings, including how Russians used social media to “sow discord” in 2015 and 2016, a “lackluster” pre-election response to Russian measures, how “anti-Trump research” made its way from Russian sources to the Clinton campaign, and “problematic contacts between senior Intelligence Community officials and the media.”
The report also included more than 25 recommendations for Congress and the executive branch to improve election security, U.S. government response to cyberattacks, campaign finance transparency, and counterintelligence practices related to political campaigns and unauthorized disclosures.
“Campaign finance disclosures ought to be a little more wholesome,” Conaway said on “Special Report” referring to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee's filing of payments for “opposition research” leading to the anti-Trump dossier as legal matters.
The report's recommendations on handling leaks are serious, according to Conaway.
“Leaks of classified information are criminal," he said. “Leaks can get people killed."
A committee source told Fox News that the “investigation” portion of the probe was complete, meaning the committee would not interview any additional witnesses as part of its effort.
“I’m sure [committee Democrats] will disagree with bringing the interview phase to a close,” Conaway told Fox News. “I’m sure they will have specific folks they wanted to interview.”
Conaway said that the Republicans on the committee wanted to interview former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but said Schiff “wanted to delay us.” Once Manafort was indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the committee decided not to call him for an interview.
Conaway also said that he did not “anticipate” pursuing contempt proceedings against former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon or any other witnesses who did not respond favorably to the committee's questioning.
Conaway took over the probe when House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., stepped down in April 2017 after he was accused of making “unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law regulations, or other standards of conduct,” according to the House Ethics Committee which investigated the allegations. Nunes supporters at the time said that it was a “clever political trick” by the Democrats.
“After more than a year, the Committee has finished its Russia investigation and will now work on completing our report,” Nunes said in a statement Monday. “I’d like to thank Congressmen Trey Gowdy, Tom Rooney, and especially Mike Conaway for the excellent job they’ve done leading this investigation. I’d also like to recognize the hard work undertaken by our other Committee members as well as our staff. Once the Committee’s final report is issued, we hope our findings and recommendations will be useful for improving security and integrity for the 2018 midterm elections.”
“When we began our investigation into what occurred leading up to the 2016 elections, our ultimate goal was to make timely recommendations for Congress, the executive branch and for states to improve election security in advance of the 2018 election. The clock is ticking,” committee member Tom Rooney, R-Fla., said. “We’re now nine months out, and the threat of Russian interference has not diminished. Make no mistake: this is a close to just one chapter in the threat posed by Moscow – which began well before the investigation – but our work does not stop here, and this Committee’s oversight over Russian threats to the U.S. will continue.”
Republicans on the committee, though, have expanded their investigation of the Trump dossier, seeking answers from Obama administration officials, including a former staffer for Vice President Joe Biden. Nunes sent a questionnaire to the former Biden staffer, whose husband worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier, seeking answers to when the administration was made aware of the dossier.