Pres. Trump Signs Executive Order On Job Training

President Donald Trump holds up an Executive Order he signed that establishes a National Council for the American Worker, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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UPDATED 4:08 PM PT — Thurs. July 19, 2018

President Trump signs an executive order promoting job training at a Pledge to America’s Workers event at the White House Thursday.
The executive order establishes a national council for U.S. workers and aims to equip students and workers with skills they need to thrive in the modern economy.
The council will help ensure Americans have access to affordable and relevant job training.
A number of company representatives at the event, including General Motors and Lockheed Martin, signed a pledge to help advance workforce development.
The president says the pledge will help provide nearly four million new job opportunities to American students workers over the next five years.

California's Supreme Court thinks the people of my state are irrelevant – We can't even vote on a breakup

The right of Californians to self-government and democracy suffered a serious blow Wednesday when the state Supreme Court ordered that a proposition asking voters if they want to break the most populous state in the nation into three states must be removed from the November ballot.
The state’s highest court ruled that while ballot measures can be used to amend the California constitution, more significant revisions to the constitution require action by the state Legislature.
Ruling on a lawsuit by an environmental group seeking the block the vote on breaking up the state, the court wrote that “the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election.”
But in fact, it appears that the proposition was yanked off the ballot because it was too big a threat to the established power structure of state government in Sacramento.
Consider the irony. The initiative easily qualified for the ballot – with over twice the number of required signatures, from every county in the state – because many voters believe they don’t have a say in how they are governed, and believe their elected representatives don’t represent them. It’s clear they are right.
The elites in Sacramento were afraid of their failures being exposed and couldn’t face the scathing rebuke they could have received from voters in November. So they flexed their political muscle and went running to the courts to avoid the light being shined on the truth.

The elites in Sacramento were afraid of their failures being exposed and couldn’t face the scathing rebuke they could have received from voters in November. So they flexed their political muscle and went running to the courts to avoid the light being shined on the truth.

That truth is that the state Legislature has failed the people of California. Here are 10 reasons why:
1)      Californians no longer have a say in how we are governed. We are pawns in the hands of a few powerful elites that don’t have our best interests in mind.
2)      State government takes in record amounts in taxes, and rewards the average Californian with oppressive regulations, failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and unaffordable housing.
3)      The state prides itself on being the fifth-largest economy in the world, yet that means nothing to people living in bankrupt towns and to citizens in communities where they can’t drink water out of their taps.
4)      While the state continues to build an expensive, unwanted high-speed rail to nowhere, the average Californian is just trying to get to work every day on roads that are in disrepair and in areas where unchecked growth has created utter gridlock.
5)      Our urban areas suffer from crime, homelessness, filth and human waste on the streets. U.S. News & World Report recently ranked California 50^th in overall quality of life.
6)      People are leaving California in record numbers – in search of lower taxes, greater opportunity and futures that are successful and sustainable.
7)      Businesses are departing California seeking business-friendly states where they can invest and expand.
8)      Many retirees can no longer justify staying in California, where their fixed incomes aren’t sufficient. Housing and other costs of living are lower in other states such as Florida, Nevada and Texas.
9)      Millennials – our future – love the California weather and lifestyle, but can’t afford to stay in the state. So they are taking their dreams, their talents, their ambitions and their future family roots elsewhere.
10)   California will remain ignored in presidential elections because candidates will assume whoever the Democrats nominate will carry the state. Candidates for federal office on both sides of the political aisle will continue to come to the state to throw their parties and pick our pockets, not really caring what our problems or ideas are, and with no intent to take solutions back to Washington. Electoral relevance was another goal of the ballot proposition that will not be realized.
In spite of all the “what-ifs” about the proposition to break up the state, they pale in comparison to all the “what is” in California. Right now we have utter failure. And the trail of responsibility leads right back to the halls of the state Capitol.
State officials knew they couldn’t answer for these failures or risk this threat to their power, so they went to the courts, cried “foul” and won. The state Supreme Court has, in effect, deemed the people of California irrelevant.
But the people of California see this for exactly what it is. It is the validation that we were on to something truthful. That we were accurate in knowing that Sacramento does not have our best interests in mind. We were right. And this ruling proves it.
Opponents of the ballot proposition believed a question like this should more appropriately be handled in the courts and via the legislative process. They said this was too important an issue to trust to the hands of the voters. They couldn’t be more wrong.
I trust my neighbors and fellow citizens in California far more than the ruling class in Sacramento to know what the needs and priorities of my community are. I trust those who love this state like I do to know how to improve it, to address its problems and to find practical solutions for the problems that state government has created. I trust I’m not alone in believing that California can do better.
Six judges just silenced California voters. I, for one, will not forget this injustice and hope my fellow Californians won’t either. They have been wronged. And they should be outraged.
When the courts usurp the rights and the voice of the people it is a dark day for democracy. Liberties that are revoked are rarely reinstated.
The author served as a spokesperson for the ballot initiative to break California into three states.
Peggy Grande is author of "The President Will See You Now", a keynote speaker and a specialty project consultant. She was the executive assistant to president Ronald Reagan from 1989 – 1999.

Trump invites Putin to Washington despite U.S. uproar over Helsinki summit

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, Finland July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Grigory Dukor July 20, 2018

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington this autumn, the White House said on Thursday, a daring rebuttal to the torrent of criticism in the United States over Trump’s failure to publicly confront Putin at their first summit for Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Four days after Trump stunned the world by siding with Putin in Helsinki over his intelligence agencies, the president asked national security adviser John Bolton to issue the invitation to the Russian leader, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.
What happened at Monday’s one-on-one between Trump and Putin with only interpreters present remained a mystery, even to top officials and U.S. lawmakers who said they had not been briefed.
Trump’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, said in response to a question at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado: “Well, you’re right, I don’t know what happened at that meeting.”
The coveted invitation was sure to be seen as a victory by Putin, whose last official visit to the United States was in July 2007, when he spent two days at the Bush family compound.
Both Trump and Putin earlier on Thursday praised their first meeting as a success and blamed forces in the United States for trying to belittle its achievements, Trump citing discussions on counterterrorism, Israel’s security, nuclear proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace and North Korea.
In one Twitter post, Trump blamed the media. “The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media.”
In Moscow, Putin said the summit “was successful overall and led to some useful agreements” without elaborating on the agreements.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer criticized the invitation. “Until we know what happened at that two hour meeting in Helsinki, the president should have no more one-on-one interactions with Putin. In the United States, in Russia, or anywhere else,” he said in a statement.
Coats, who on Monday roundly defended the intelligence agencies’ findings of Russian meddling, also advised against a one-on-one meeting with Putin, saying he “would look for a different way of doing it.”
An official visit by a Russian president to the United States is a rare event: the last time was in June 2010 with Dmitri Medvedev, now Russian prime minister.
A senior White House official said Bolton extended the official invitation to Putin on Thursday via his Russian counterpart. No date has been set and it was unclear whether it would be timed for the U.N. General Assembly in late September.
REJECTION OF PUTIN PROPOSAL
The week was one of the toughest for Trump since he took office 18 months ago as aides struggled with damage control and convincing Americans that the president did not favor Russian interests over his own country’s. Forty-two percent of registered voters said they approved of Trump’s overall job performance, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll taken after the summit.
Bolton on Tuesday laid out four talking points for the crisis-hit White House, according to one official: that Trump stress he supports U.S. intelligence agencies, that there was never any Russian collusion with his campaign, that Russian meddling is unacceptable and the United States is doing everything it can to protect elections in 2018 and beyond.
With Trump under fierce criticism in the United States, the White House on Thursday rejected Putin’s proposal that Russian authorities be present for the questioning of Americans it accuses of “illegal activities,” including a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow.
It was the latest about-face in a week of multiple reversals. Critics complained that Trump was given ample opportunity at a joint news conference on Monday to scold Putin over Russian interference in the election but instead accepted Putin’s denials over the word of American intelligence agencies.
Trump on Tuesday said he misspoke during the news conference. On Wednesday, Trump answered “no” to a reporter’s question on whether Russia was still targeting the United States, only to have Sanders say later he was saying “no” to answering any questions – not to the question itself.
Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers grappled with Trump’s conflicting statements as they discussed ways to show their opposition to what they saw in Helsinki, including strengthening sanctions.
On Monday, Putin described the proposal when he was asked about the possible extradition of 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted in the United States on charges of interfering in the 2016 election by carrying out cyber attacks on Democratic Party networks.
Putin indicated he would permit American law enforcement officials to observe questioning by Russian officials of the indicted Russians and vice versa for Russian investigations. He mentioned London-based financier Bill Browder, a onetime investor in Russia who said he exposed corruption there. Standing alongside Putin, Trump called the idea “an incredible offer.”
Sanders on Thursday said, “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it,” a day after saying the proposal was going to be discussed by Trump’s team. “Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.”

As upstart Ocasio-Cortez hits campaign trail with Bernie Sanders, high profile spurs fears of Dem rift

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hitting the national campaign trail this week with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to stump for other left-wing candidates, even as the upstart 28-year-old democratic socialist's rising profile continues to rankle top Democrats.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are expected to campaign on July 20 for two congressional candidates seeking to unseat Republican incumbents in Kansas: James Thompson in Wichita, and former Sanders delegate Brent Welder in the suburbs of Kansas City.
But Ocasio-Cortez is also set to support several progressives seeking to supplant Democratic incumbents elsewhere -- alarming Democratic leaders and pundits who worry that her rising national profile and far-left politics might fracture the party ahead of critical midterm elections.
DEFEATED 10-TERM INCUMBENT JOE CROWLEY SEEKS TO EASE TENSIONS AFTER OCASIO-CORTEZ'S SHOCK WIN
On July 28 and 29, Ocasio-Cortez will visit Michigan to lend her national spotlight to Abdul El-Sayed, 33, a progressive candidate for governor. She will travel throughout Michigan, stopping in places including Grand Rapids, Flint and Detroit.
El-Sayed is Detroit’s ex-public health commissioner, and looks to upset Democratic former State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer.
"Alexandria’s victory was a proof of concept for campaigns like ours,” El-Sayed told The Washington Post.

"If her win makes her into ... the new face of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party's not going to have a very bright future."
- Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman

Ocasio-Cortez has also endorsed other progressives seeking to take down incumbent Democratic lawmakers, including and Delaware Sen. Tom Carper and Reps. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Adam Smith of Washington, and Michael Capuano of Massachusetts.
WATCH: JOE LIEBERMAN SAYS DEMS WON'T HAVE A 'BRIGHT FUTURE' IF OCASIO-CORTEZ IS THEIR MODEL
In Kansas' Republican-leaning 4th District, where Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will team up Friday, Thompson came close to winning in a special election last year, and is taking his second shot at unseating GOP Rep. Ron Estes.
Meanwhile, far-left Welder is running against GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder, whom President Trump endorsed on Twitter this week as someone who has voted for "$5 BILLION for Border Security" and who "loves our Military and Vets."
Welder, who worked as a labor lawyer and wants a $15 minimum wage and touts a "Medicare for All" platform, has polled ahead of Yoder, and his 3rd District went to Hillary Clinton by a slim margin in 2016.
Primaries in both Kansas and Michigan take place Aug. 7.
“It’s a huge boost to our campaign to welcome Senator Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to Wichita,” Thompson said in a statement. “The interest and enthusiasm here has been electric.”
But even as the progressive pair seek to export their brand of progressive politics to the Sunflower State and beyond, top Democratic leaders have increasingly sounded the alarm.
Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., charged this week that Ocasio-Cortez was overly idealistic.
"Meteors fizz out,” Hastings said. “What she will learn in this institution is that it’s glacial to begin with, and therefore no matter how far you rise, that’s just how far you will ultimately get your comeuppance.
“You come up here and you’re going to be buddy-buddy with all the folks or you’re going to make them do certain things?  Ain’t happening, O.K.?” Hastings added.
And Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., said that Ocasio-Cortez's decision to pubicly feud with longtime Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., even after she defeated him in a shocking primary contest last month was upsetting Democrats in the House.
"She’s not asking my advice,” Pascrell said. "I would do it differently, rather than make enemies of people.”
Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo. -- who is facing a primary challenge from the left by community activist Cori Bush, who has Ocasio-Cortez's backing -- was more direct.
“Once an election is over and you win, why are you still angry?” Clay asked. “I think it’s a lack of maturity on her part, and a lack of political acumen, for her to be that petty."
That sentiment was echoed by former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was the Democratic Party's candidate for vice president in 2000, in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
"When I see somebody who really says she's a socialist -- she's a very captivating, charismatic candidate -- when you look at those policies, those policies will not be supported in many places across America," Lieberman said.
"If her win makes her into what Kellyanne Conway called the new face of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party's not going to have a very bright future," he added.
Lieberman wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for voters to reject Ocasio-Cortez in the November elections.

Spicer harbored doubts about taking press secretary's job

"Sean, we're getting killed in the media."
With those words, President Trump told his press secretary that while it wasn't his fault, "we need to change some things."
And the change agent was to be Anthony Scaramucci. Sean Spicer's immediate reaction was that bringing him in to run the communications office, with so little experience, "was like asking a student pilot with one lesson to take the stick of an F-22 in mid-flight."
That moment in a small dining room of the Oval Office would end Spicer's tumultuous six-month tenure, which he recounts in a new book, "The Briefing: Politics, The Press and The President."
Hours later, after consulting his wife and mother, Spicer handed Trump his resignation letter, saying the office needed a "fresh start." The president said he needed Sean as part of the team. But Spicer told him that "I have become the story." Fairly or unfairly, he writes, "I had been defined. There was no potential for a do-over."
Spicer makes clear he is no Mooch fan. When they overlapped, there was the "faux 'man hug.'" There was Scaramucci’s threat to start firing people to root out leakers. Spicer, while showing no emotion publicly when Scaramucci himself was fired, now exults that "the president thought he had hired an ace when, in fact, he had hired a kamikaze pilot." (Spicer, a Navy veteran, loves these combat metaphors.)
It is now clear, from the enormous flak aimed at Sarah Huckabee Sanders, that being Trump's spokesman is a nearly impossible job. But the book is not primarily a score-settling venture, although there are numerous shots at the press. There is also some soul-searching about his strengths and weaknesses, which played out on a very public stage.
During the transition, Spicer admits, "I knew in my heart that I was better suited to take on the role of communications director," but the offer of being at the podium was "too tempting to turn down." He also had to cope with the fact that his father, who had been ailing during the campaign, died during the transition, prompting a warm condolence call from Trump.
Spicer offers his fullest account of that disastrous first day on the job, when Trump told him to push back on television reports that his inaugural crowd had been smaller than Barack Obama’s. Spicer stretched the truth in part by throwing in digital audiences, and Trump told him he was not happy—with his performance, with his failure to consult in advance, with his ill-fitting light suit.
"I should have lowered the temperature and not so broadly questioned the media's motives ... I had made a bad first impression," Spicer now concedes, and looking back, that was "the beginning of the end."
During his tenure last year he was frequently asked about Trump’s nonstop tweeting. In the book, Spicer points to Trump's fury at criticism from the "Morning Joe" duo and his attacks on "Psycho Joe," "low I.Q. Crazy Mika" and her purported plastic surgery.
After such outbursts, he says, "the media often expected me to be an ombudsman if not an outright apologist for Donald Trump's tweets." But Spicer insists his job was to communicate the president's views, not to "interpret" them or "massage" them or "tweak" them.
In this case, Spicer acknowledged, Trump blunted the momentum from a successful speech to Congress: "Sometimes he's cutting up the opposition and sometimes he's cutting up his own best messages."
The Briefing deals with other missteps, from his mangled response about Syrian chemical attacks and Hitler's "Holocaust centers" to his surprise demand that all his staffers turn in their cell phones in an effort to root out leakers. Trump's response: "Sean, what were you thinking?" Of all his experiences with the president, he says, "that one was the worst."
Spicer devotes considerable space to media mistakes, media bias and what he sees as media unfairness to his former boss. He singles out some journalists by name--CNN's Jim Acosta and two CNN contributors, radio reporter April Ryan and Playboy columnist Brian Karem--for trying "to become a cable star by generating fake controversy and outrage."
But Spicer also calls Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, with whom he often clashed, "a smart and tenacious reporter with good sources ... Over time—a therapist could have made a fortune from the amount—Maggie and I have learned how to hear and listen to each other."
By Spicer's last few weeks in the spring of 2017, he had become disenchanted with the daily briefings and moved more of them off camera. He says he and Sanders were frustrated that "the briefings had turned into rituals in which reporters asked the same questions about Russia-related issues—over and over—knowing that they would get no different answers but upping the volume and emotion with each pass." The media, Spicer says, "wanted the briefings to be news and sought out any possible misstep as a 'gotcha' moment."
Well, that has been true for every president since the advent of regular on-camera briefings in 1995 (though in no other administration have they been televised as regularly as in the Trump era). The frustration may well have reflected the increasingly combative nature of his own dealings with the press. As Spicer says in describing that time period, "I knew my relationship with the press was radioactive, and I told the president and Reince that I would happily support the appointment of a new press secretary so that I could focus on being the director of communications." The problem was that they couldn't find anyone, and when Sanders took over, the audio-only briefings were largely banished.
What emerges in the book is a combative and yet more thoughtful press secretary than the Melissa McCarthy caricature on "SNL." And yet there were moments when he just seemed snakebit.
The day after Spicer played defense when Trump fired James Comey, he was scheduled to fulfill his Naval Reserve duty at the Pentagon. The next day his wife told him about the CNN breaking-news banner: "SPICER TO MISS PRESS BRIEFING DAY AFTER COMEY WAS FIRED."
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke in nation's most expensive Senate race; reports

Although Texas is a predominately red state, it appears incumbent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz may have his hands full come November when he squares off against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.
The congressman from El Paso has out-fundraised Cruz by more than $10 million since joining the race, according to reports.
But according to the Cruz campaign, O'Rourke may have erred this week in calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump following the president's Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"At this point there is certainly enough there for the case to proceed," O'Rourke said, according to the Dallas Morning News.
But Cruz's camp noted that O'Rourke was "the only major party candidate in America" to take an impeachment stand.
"Elizabeth Warren hasn’t done it. Bernie Sanders hasn’t done it. Nancy Pelosi hasn’t done it. This is a fringe candidate in the Democratic Party,” Jeff Roe, Cruz's campaign manager, told the newspaper.
Since April 1, 2017, O’Rourke has raised $23.1 million, compared to Cruz’s $12.9 million, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Overall, however, Cruz still has a slight advantage – having raised a total of $25.9 million since late 2012, according to the paper.
The combined total for the two candidates has reached nearly $50 million, with nearly half of that total already spent, making their race by far the most expensive U.S. Senate campaign in the country, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Cruz has surpassed the fundraising totals for any other Republican seeking a Senate seat, while U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has raised the most of any Democrat, with nearly $27 million available for her re-election bid, the Chronicle reported.
Warren is just one of several Democrats believed to be interested in making a presidential run in 2020.
With November's midterm elections nearing, O’Rourke currently holds a cash advantage over Cruz, with reserves of just under $14 million compared to about $10.2 million for Cruz, the Morning News reported.
However, O’Rourke still struggles with name recognition in parts of Texas, the paper notes, while Cruz, who is seeking his second term, is well-known across the state -- and in Washington.
With Democrats making a heavy push to regain control of the House of Representatives, Cruz is not taking re-election for granted, as evidenced by a recent comment.
“The news is BAD. VERY BAD.... We need to step up," Cruz said, urging donors to contribute to his campaign as O'Rourke's fundraising numbers continue to rise, the Morning News reported.
"No doubt we have been outraised this year because the far left is very engaged in this election," Emily Miller, a spokeswoman for the Cruz campaign said last week, according to the paper. "Some will see the polls and fundraising numbers as reason for alarm, while others see them as a wake-up call to voters who are being too complacent going into midterms. Either way, we are making sure that Texans who value freedom will know the current stakes."
Cruz currently holds about an 8 percentage point lead over O’Rourke, which is relatively low compared to his 16 percentage point margin of victory in 2012 and for a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1994, according to the Morning News.
Despite O’Rourke’s push to be a legitimate contender in November, Cruz is still considered the favorite – but that could change in the coming months.
Democrats need to win 28 seats to control the Senate, compared to only 9 for Republicans, the New York Times reported. As for the House, Democrats need to flip 24 Republican-held seats. 

Interior Department watchdog investigating real estate deal involving Ryan Zinke

Ryan Zinke, pictured in September 2017, has previously been the focus of several investigations by the Interior Department's watchdog.  (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

The Interior Department's internal watchdog has opened an investigation into a real estate deal involving Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the head of the Hallburton energy company.
The investigation was first reported by Politico and confirmed to Fox News by Nancy DiPaolo, a spokeswoman for the inspector general's office.
The investigation centers on a foundation Zinke established to build a park in his home state of Montana. In September of last year, Zinke's wife, Lola, signed an agreement allowing a group of developers -- including Halliburton Chairman David Lesar -- to use its land to build a parking lot for a development in Zinke's hometown.
Zinke spokeswoman Heather Swift has said he did nothing wrong and that Zinke resigned from the foundation's board of directors prior to the land deal.
Last month, Zinke affirmed he had met with Lesar and his son at the Interior Department in August of last year. However, he insisted that he provided them only with background on the nonprofit and the land it owned.
Democrats had called for Zinke to be investigated in order to determine whether the deal violated conflict-of-interest rules.
"Secretary Zinke doesn’t seem to take his responsibility to the public seriously," Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., told Politico on Wednesday. "He's turned it into the Ryan Zinke show, which is more about waving his own flag above the building and doing personal business deals with his friends instead of protecting public lands and improving our environmental quality. This formal investigation is one of many he’s managed to pile up in his short and undistinguished tenure, and I join my Democratic colleagues in seeking the transparency and accountability that Republicans have so far not provided."
Zinke, a former Montana congressman, has not commented to Fox News on the opening of the investigation.

John Stossel: The absurd hysteria around plastic straws

Want to sip a refreshing beverage this summer?

If environmental zealots and sycophants get their way, you won’t be allowed to sip it through a plastic straw.

Actress Nina Nelson and other celebrities made a video claiming that plastic straws kill sea life: “In the USA alone, over 500 million straws are being used every single day, most of which are going into our oceans.”
“I will stop sucking,” vowed the celebrities.
In obedient response, Seattle banned plastic straws, and other places plan to follow. Starbucks, Hyatt and Hilton are all abandoning straws.
Katy Tang, of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, says, “We are no longer going to allow for plastic straws here.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio agrees: “Their time has come and gone.”
But before politicians ban things in the name of saving the world, I wish they’d take the trouble to actually study what good the ban would do.
Plastic garbage in oceans is a genuine problem. But most of the pollution comes from Asia. A small amount does come from America, but only a tiny fraction of that is plastic straws.
Banning straws “might make some politicians feel good,” says the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Angela Logomasini in this week’s Stossel TV video, “but it won’t actually accomplish anything good.”
But what about that scary “500 million” figure that celebrities, politicians and news anchors constantly cite? It turns out that number came from a 10-year-old who, for a school project, telephoned some straw makers.
Because the boy is cute, the media put him on TV. Now the media, environmental activists and politicians (Is there a difference?) repeat “500 million straws used daily … many end up in oceans,” as if it were just fact. The real number is much lower.
Still, activists like talk show host Ethan Bearman tell us, “If we can reduce something that easy -- something that gets stuck in turtles’ noses and damages the environment -- let’s do that. Sometimes, we do need a little gentle guiding hand from government.”
But government’s guiding hand is neither “little” nor “gentle.” Government action is force. In this case, the politicians will either ban straws or order us to replace plastic straws with more expensive ones made of paper or bamboo.
Bearman calls that an advantage, telling us, “Plastic doesn’t actually biodegrade, unlike paper, which breaks down into other components.”
But that’s exactly the problem. Paper straws don’t only break down in dumps, they also break down while you’re using them. They get soggy. They leak.
“That’s the beauty of plastic. It’s enduring,” says Logomasini.
She also points out that paper and bamboo straws aren’t environmentally pristine. “Paper products take more energy and effort to produce. And paper doesn’t degrade in a landfill, either. Everything (in landfills) is essentially mummified.”
Also, paper straws cost eight times more to make than plastic straws.
The activists and politicians don’t worry that their ban will raise costs for businesses and their customers. New York City Councilman Barry Grodenchik told us, “Maybe people won’t use straws.”
Ethan Bearman added, “If it’s $1.79 to get the fountain drink at Joe’s Corner Deli (and) now it’s $1.83, I don’t see that being a huge difference.”
“This is what environmentalists say about every policy they put out -- a few cents here, a few cents there,” says Logomasini. “But eventually, it begins to be a burden. Banning straws isn't going to do anything for the environment. So what they're trying to do is take away my freedom for nothing in return.”
Taking away freedom for nothing in return is now a specialty of the environmental movement.
After our environment got cleaner -- thanks to technological innovation and some useful government-imposed requirements (like scrubbers in smokestacks and pollution limits on cars) -- the zealots moved on to demand bans on pipeline construction, mining and oil drilling. They require lots of pointless recycling (though often garbage you separate is never recycled) and all sorts of feel-good policies that make no real difference.
EPA should stand for “Enough Protection Already!”

John Stossel is the author of "No They Can't! Why Government Fails -- But Individuals Succeed." Click here for more information on John Stossel.

Warren backing tribe's luxury casino plan -- over cash-strapped town's rival bid

Pocahontas

Brockton, Mass., is known as the birthplace of boxing legend Rocky Marciano. But with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushing for a $1 billion Native American casino less than 20 miles away, struggling blue-collar Brockton's competing casino bid might not stand a fighting chance.
Brockton Mayor William Carpenter slammed Warren’s bill on behalf of the Masphee Wampanoag tribe, which would override a federal judge's decision last year to block the tribe’s plan for a luxury gaming resort in East Taunton.
He says Warren seems to be acting on behalf of special interests instead of people like Brockton's struggling residents.

Mayor William Carpenter, of Brockton, Mass., stands near a statue of the city's favorite son, boxing legend Rocky Marciano.  (Facebook)

“Year after year we’re running multimillion-dollar deficits in our budget. We’ve laid off schoolteachers for three years in a row,” Carpenter told the Washington Times. “We desperately need the revenue."

“Year after year we’re running multimillion-dollar deficits in our budget. We’ve laid off schoolteachers for three years in a row. We desperately need the revenue."
- Mayor William Carpenter, Brockton, Mass.

Warren's bill is reportedly being lobbied by the Genting Group, which has already poured $400 million into the tribe’s First Light Resort and Casino project – but could lose it all if the federal government fails to grant the land to the tribe, the Times reported.
Brockton’s bid for a casino was rejected two years ago by the state gaming commission over concerns that the market could become oversaturated if the tribal casino wins federal approval. The town has since made the bid again.
The Interior Department could also block Brockton’s bid as it started looking into other legal ways the land could be taken in trust on the tribe’s behalf.
Meanwhile, some residents in East Taunton say they don't even want the luxury casino built in their town.
Michelle Littlefield, of East Taunton, is waging a legal challenge together with other 25 residents to block the tribal casino project, claiming the Interior Department’s actions are “designed to give a special-interest group special preference.”
“We are up against a foreign company that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Littlefield told the Times. “It’s a bottomless well on the other side. From day one, we’ve been the underdog, and the only thing we’ve ever had on our side was the law,” she added, blasting the attempts to override the ruling blocking the project.

“We are up against a foreign company that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s a bottomless well on the other side. From day one, we’ve been the underdog, and the only thing we’ve ever had on our side was the law.”
- Michelle Littlefield, East Taunton, Mass., resident who opposes luxury casino plan

David Tennant, attorney for the East Taunton residents, said “there’s been this kind of perpetual, ‘Hey, maybe the tribe can get qualified in some other way, maybe on remand with Interior, maybe Congress can step in and do something for them.’
“And all of this is to the detriment of Brockton, which lined up its ducks years ago and had somebody ready to go. This kind of perpetual preference for a tribal casino is now running well past the clock that the federal court said would be an equal protection violation,” he added.
Mayor Carpenter says that while the East Taunton residents are skeptical of the project, his struggling town would happily welcome it.
“It’s a blue-collar immigrant city where two years ago, 80 percent of the students in our school system qualified for free or reduced lunch,” he said. “Our unemployment rate runs about 50 percent above the statewide average historically, and we’re a majority-minority city.”
He campaigned on behalf of his town this week on Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to oppose the Warren-backed Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act.
It might not be enough, however, as the legislation has gathered support from 18 lawmakers in the House, though only Warren and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., have endorsed it in the Senate, according to the Enterprise News.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is reportedly set to grant only three casino licenses in total, all in different regions of the state. Brockton and East Taunton are less than 20 miles apart, meaning if one town wins the license, the other won’t be able to pursue plans for a casino.
Carpenter said he’s annoyed that his town could lose out to a casino license because of unfair “special treatment” of the tribe.
“The whole thing just seems unfair to me,” he told the Times. “I don’t know if Brockton will ultimately be granted the license or not from the state gaming commission, but I know our opportunities should not be taken away by a piece of special-interest legislation.”

“The whole thing just seems unfair to me. I don’t know if Brockton will ultimately be granted the license or not from the state gaming commission, but I know our opportunities should not be taken away by a piece of special-interest legislation.”
- Mayor William Carpenter, Brockton, Mass.

Warren, who previously opposed legalized gambling in her state, began championing the bill amid concerns about her unproven Native American ancestry, which were amplified by President Donald Trump.

Senator Elizabeth Warren Cartoons

Anti-Trump Democrats seek to block appointment of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director

Kathy Kraninger, President Trump’s nominee to become director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), deserves swift Senate confirmation, despite Democratic attempts to block her appointment. Her confirmation hearing will be held Thursday before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
The CFBP is was created in 2011. From its inception, the agency was more of a pet project of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., than it was an agency to actually protect consumers. It quickly became a powerful regulatory hammer in the service of Democratic Party interests.
Now that there is a Republican president in the White House, the political shoe is on the other foot. It is clear that the battle for control of the agency that ensued last November will likely continue for the remainder of this year. It is a fight that has very little to do with the day-to-day tedium of CFPB policy.
Instead, the fight to control the agency is between its Democratic creators – who want more political power and government regulation – and Republican reformers who demand accountability and transparency for what was formerly a rogue, partisan operation.
Only after the departure of the CFPB’s first director, Richard Cordray – now running as the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio – were we able to identify just how widespread the abuse and mismanagement was at the agency under his leadership.
First, there were revelations made by former CFPB Enforcement Attorney Ronald Rubin that a Democratic advertising firm that worked for both President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s election campaign was “the sole recipient of the CFPB’s $43 million advertising expenditure since 2013.”
Then there were the news stories about exorbitant cost overruns related to the renovation of CFPB’s Washington headquarters for about $215 million.
Even the Federal Reserve Board’s inspector general said of that project that "the approval of funding for the renovation was not in accordance with the CFPB’s current policies for major investments” and that “a sound business case is not available to support the funding of the renovation.”
Finally, there were the millions of dollars the CFPB doled out of its Civil Penalty Fund – collected from fines levied on corporations for alleged financial abuse – that went to third-party “consumer advocacy” groups tied to Democrats.
When Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney became acting director of the CFPB in November – following Cordray’s resignation to begin his race for governor in Ohio – Mulvaney started instituting immediate reforms. These included requesting zero dollars for the agency for the second quarter of the 2018 fiscal year and putting a 30-day freeze on new regulations.
It was no surprise that Sen. Warren and other Democrats were outraged. Now they are taking out their anger on Kraninger, opposing her nomination to head the CFPB.
Kraninger is a talented and trusted associate of Mulvaney at the Office of Management and Budget and clearly qualified to lead the CFPB. After President Trump nominated her for the job, Sen. Warren immediately went on the attack and has threatened to hold up her nomination  over, of all things, Kraninger’s suspected role in promoting President Trump’s immigration policies.

FILE -- Kathy Kraninger, President Trump’s nominee to become director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.  (AP)

What does this have to do with the mission of the CFPB? Warren is just seizing on any excuse to oppose a Trump nominee in her effort to politicize the CFPB.
At her confirmation hearing Thursday, Kraninger will no doubt face tough questions from Warren and others about her experience and ability to lead one of the most powerful agencies in the federal government. The CFPB is led by a single, autonomous director who is difficult to remove, has no oversight from Congress, and isn’t held accountable to the companies it fines or the public it is entrusted to protect.
No doubt, Warren will try to viciously smear Kraninger. The recent attacks Democrats have leveled against Kraninger are only a prelude to their fight to keep an iron grip on an agency that serves as a political slush fund for their allies.
However, Warren’s Senate colleagues and the public would be wrong to take the bait. For Warren, the fight over the CFPB isn’t about policy at all. It is a tantrum being thrown over the prospect that she may lose her stranglehold over an agency that, in her eyes, belongs to her.
In a response to Warren’s attacks, Mulvaney noted to the senator: “You originally conceived of this agency as one that should be ‘free of legislative micromanaging’ and recently reiterated that ‘the whole idea’ of the Bureau was to ‘insulate it from political influence to the extent possible,’ but I think most folks would interpret that exactly as I am suggesting: less accountable and less transparent.”
The CFPB is a highly political agency. I personally believe it should be abolished; but while it still exists it needs strong, market-oriented, and fiscally sane leaders who can cut it down to size and restore some form of transparency and constitutional accountability.
Kathy Kraninger is a believer in a limited and constitutionally accountable government, as are Mick Mulvaney and President Trump. What we need now isn’t political posturing. We need a strong and steady administrative hand to continue cleaning up the mess created by Elizabeth Warren and Richard Cordray. 
Colin Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring, a conservative nonprofit based in Pennsylvania. Their website is LetFreedomRingUSA.com.

Lieberman slams Ocasio-Cortez, urges voters to pick Joe Crowley

January 31, 2012: Sen. Joe Lieberman at a news conference on Capitol Hill. He recently came out swinging against New York Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, urging voters to elect defeated top Democrat Joe Crowley who will appear on the ballot of the Working Families Party in November.  (AP)

Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic senator, appealed to voters in New York's 14th Congressional District on Tuesday to vote in November for top Democrat Joe Crowley and not the Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In a scorching article for the Wall Street Journal, Lieberman, who’s now an Independent, criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s agenda as “more Socialist than Democratic” and said her presence in Congress will “make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems.”
“Thanks to a small percentage of primary votes, all of the people of New York’s 14th Congressional District stand to lose a very effective representative in Washington,” he wrote.
Ocasio-Cortez won last month in the Democratic primary against Crowley, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus who was thought by some to be a future Speaker of the House.
She ran on the platform of abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Democratic Socialist agenda, earning endorsements from several left-wing groups, including MoveOn and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
FEUD ERUPTS BETWEEN DEM SOCIALIST OCASIO-CORTEZ AND DEFEATED REP. JOE CROWLEY
But now she faces pushback from moderate voices who fear her firebrand Democratic Socialist brand may actually hurt the party’s future prospects.
“[House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] knows that if Democrats are to regain a majority, it will be by winning swing districts with sensible, mainstream candidates. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is making that task harder across America,” Lieberman wrote.
“Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic. Her dreams of new federal spending would bankrupt the country or require very large tax increases, including on the working class,” he continued. “Her approach foresees government ownership of many private companies, which would decimate the economy and put millions out of work.”

"Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic."
- Joe Lieberman

Lieberman also took a shot at Ocasio-Cortez views on international politics. “Ms. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t speak much about foreign policy during the primary, but when she did, it was from the DSA policy book—meaning support for socialist governments, even if they are dictatorial and corrupt (Venezuela), opposition to American leadership in the world, even to alleviate humanitarian disasters (Syria), and reflexive criticism of one of America’s great democratic allies (Israel),” he wrote.
OCASIO-CORTEZ STARTS CONTROVERSY WITH COMMENTS ON ISRAELI ‘OCCUPATION,’ ADMITS SHE’S ‘NOT THE EXPERT’
Ocasio-Cortez recently flip-flopped in the span of a few days on the issue of Israel and Palestine. On Friday, she asserted the Jewish state’s right to exist but raised eyebrows after incoherent statements about Israel’s “occupation of Palestine.” She insisted she’s “not the expert at geopolitics on this issue.”
But during a town hall style sit-down with Democracy Now on Monday, she balked at repeating her support for the two-state solution and thus Israel’s right to exist. “This is a conversation I’m sitting down with lots of activists in this movement on and I’m looking forward to engaging in this conversation,” she said.
There are increasing calls for Crowley to step up and run in the general election against Ocasio-Cortez, giving an actual choice to voters in the district where opposition has been non-existent for decades.
Crowley will appear on the ballot of the Working Families Party.
Last week, Ocasio-Cortez accused Crowley of still running against her in the general election. “.@repjoecrowley stated on live TV that he would absolutely support my candidacy,” she tweeted. “Instead, he’s stood me up for all 3 scheduled concession calls.”
Crowley responded to the accusations, saying he’s not actively running in the general election. “Lots questions about WFP line. Was honored to have their support. I’m not running. For record you can only be removed from the ballot if 1) you move out of NY; 2) die; 3) be convicted of a crime; 4) accept a nomination for another office (in a place I don’t live),” he tweeted.
Lieberman ends the article with a ringing endorsement of Crowley, saying his re-election would show that “that Democrats are capable of governing again,” noting that Crowley is a progressive “bridge builder and problem solver, which is exactly what Congress needs more of in both parties.”
“For the sake of Congress and our country, I hope Joe Crowley will give all the voters of his district the opportunity to re-elect him in November—and I hope they find his name on their ballots,” he added.

Trump endorsement helps Rep. Martha Roby win Alabama runoff

When it comes to President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Martha Roby – a Republican now in her fourth term representing Alabama’s 2^nd Congressional District – hasn’t always been full-throated in her endorsements.
In October 2016 Roby called on the former New York real estate developer to quit as the GOP presidential candidate after the leak of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump boasted about groping women.
There’s little room for hurt feelings in politics, but people somehow manage to make space for them anyway. So when Roby drew an opponent in the GOP primary who accused her of being insufficiently loyal to President Trump and his agenda, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. What was surprising was that the criticism was coming from Bobby Bright, a former Democratic House member whom Roby defeated to win her seat in 2010.
For Bright – who voted for liberal California Democrat Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House during his single term there – the conversion was enough to get him into a runoff with Roby, whom he held to less than 50 percent of the vote in the June primary election.
But it wasn’t enough to go the distance in the runoff, when Roby was declared the winner by a margin of better than 2-to-1 Tuesday.
Solidly conservative Alabama is used to party switchers. The state’s senior senator, Republican Richard Shelby, served as a Democrat in the House and was a Democrat when elected to the Senate in 1986. He switched parties after the 1994 GOP Contract with America landslide.
Alabama is a place where ideology generally means more than party identification – the aberrant election of Democrat Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate last year against an opponent accused of sexual misconduct notwithstanding.
Alabama is also Trump country. Trump carried the state in 2016 with a little better than 60 percent of the vote – so Roby’s apparent lack of support for him could have made her extremely vulnerable.
At least that was Bright’s calculation. In the end it was the wrong path to go down, especially after the president tweeted his support for Roby on June 22, writing: “Congresswoman Martha Roby of Alabama has been a consistent and reliable vote for our Make America Great Again Agenda. She is in a Republican Primary run-off against a recent Nancy Pelosi voting Democrat. I fully endorse Martha for Alabama 2nd Congressional District!”
The Trump endorsement – along with Roby’s strong record of service to her constituents, her consistent focus on issues of importance to the district, and the political advantages that accrue with incumbency – was enough to get her safely through the runoff and into a spot on the November ballot.
Roby is expected to be easily re-elected in a heavily Republican District when she faces Democrat Tabitha Isner, a business analyst and minister.     
Roby could have been another Rep. Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican who lost his primary bid for re-election in June after becoming a frequent critic of President Trump.
But Roby supported much of President Trump’s agenda in the House and didn’t join Republicans who are experiencing one of the worst cases of buyer’s remorse ever recorded – though, to be fair, they’d probably claim they never “bought” in the first place.
Roby, who says she still stands by the criticisms of candidate Trump that she made what seems like a lifetime ago (and in politics the last election is a lifetime ago) moved on. She put her time and energy into the job the people of her district sent her to Washington to do. In this case that turned out to be the right move.