Friday’s jobs report announced that businesses created 98,000 jobs, underperforming expert predictions, and showing the weakest gains in almost a year.
It appears that the “Trump bump,” based on confidence from President Donald Trump’s election, has subsided as job creators await Washington’s next concrete steps on taxes or trade.
On the positive side, the jobs report shows that the unemployment rate dropped to 4.5 percent (the lowest since 2007) from 4.7 percent last month, the number of people who were working part time but preferred full-time jobs fell by 151,000 to 5.6 million, and wages rose 2.7 percent from last year.
Of more concern is the labor force participation rate, which factors in people who have given up looking for work, and which remained unchanged at a low 63 percent. This suggests that tens of millions of Americans are still having a hard time connecting with the workforce.
Long-term unemployment—which accounts for those who are jobless for 27 weeks or more—is also still a problem, accounting for 23.3 percent of those currently unemployed. This number, however, is trending downward over the last few months.
Though the payroll survey found only a small increase (due to weather conditions) in construction job hiring, it also found that retail trade (-30,000 jobs) and general merchandise stores (-35,000 jobs) continue to cut jobs, most likely from the increase in online competition.
Taking a broader look at the economy, while this report did not fully meet expert predictions on jobs numbers, various reports do show that business—especially small business—has the highest optimism in decades. This is no doubt due to the change in tone from the White House.
To continue instilling economic confidence, it is imperative that words are backed up with action.
The Trump administration and Congress have made a good start on rolling back excessive regulation, and need to follow up with tax reform that lowers rates on both small and large businesses and allows for immediate expensing for new job-creating investments.
This will bolster confidence for years to come. There are several reasons why the jobs report didn’t meet expectations. But one thing is certain: Employers hire and grow when they have a predictable, friendly business climate.
If conservatives band together and act on the regulatory and tax reforms they campaigned on, the “Trump bump” can become the new “business as usual” in Washington.
“For seven long years, we have been suffering from the rising costs of Obamacare.”
That’s the opening sentence of the letter a Texas grassroots coalition has sent to President Donald Trump this week, in the wake of the House health care bill’s failure to pass and Trump’s criticisms of the House Freedom Caucus, which was opposed to aspects of the legislation.
The letter was signed by 92 conservative Texans, including JoAnn Fleming, executive director of Grassroots America; Dana Hodges, state director of Concerned Women for America; and many other Texas GOP committee members and local tea party organizers.
This is similar to a letter sent by Ohio conservatives last week. Both coalitions were critical of Trump’s recent actions regarding the House Freedom Caucus in the health care debate, yet remained steadfast in their support of his presidency. The Texas coalition reaffirmed its support for Trump, writing:
We, the House Freedom Caucus, and Senate conservatives, are your greatest allies should you sincerely aim to end the decades of Big Government cronyism in D.C. Mr. President, Texas grassroots conservatives are praying for your success as you work to rebuild our nation. Let’s do it together.
However, the letter called on Trump to stop attacking the House Freedom Caucus.
“[W]e urge you to work with, and ally with, the House Freedom Caucus, not actively attack it, and undermine it,” the letter said.
Trump criticized the House Freedom Caucus on Twitter after the health care bill failed to pass.
The coalition also expressed its disappointment in House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and the House health care bill, known as the American Health Care Act.
“To our dismay, the ‘repeal and replace’ plan put forward by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan did nothing to address the core regulatory infrastructure of Obamacare,” the letter said.
Referring to the health care bill as “retain and reform” instead of “repeal and replace,” the group praised Freedom Caucus members for opposing the bill, writing that they had the “American people on their minds and in their hearts when they opposed the [American Health Care Act].”
The letter also held Trump accountable for one of his biggest campaign promises.
“Grassroots conservatives worked tirelessly to give Republicans the House, the Senate, and you, sir, the presidency,” the letter said. “They did so based upon several promises—a major promise being the full repeal of Obamacare.”
After the House health care bill stalled and failed to come up for a vote on March 24, Trump told reporters in a statement: “I think what will happen is Obamacare, unfortunately, will explode.”
The next day, Trump tweeted: “Obamacare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!”
The Kaiser Family Foundation runs a monthly tracking poll on health care topics, including Obamacare, that provides those involved in the raging U.S. health care debate some helpful regular check-ins with public sentiment.
The April edition has gotten some increased attention in light of the recent repeal attempts in the U.S. House of Representatives.
This headline gives a false impression of reality. Reasonable readers would be led to believe that Americans, even Trump supporters, want President Donald Trump to focus on repairing and improving Obamacare rather than repealing it.
That’s not at all what the poll findings say.
The question only gave respondents two narrow options—a false choice that no one on Capitol Hill is facing. The two options were (1) for Congress to help make Obamacare work, or (2) “do what they can to make the law fail so they can replace it later.”
This is a false and unrealistic choice. The real choice is between fulfilling campaign promises to repeal and replace the bill, and reneging on those promises by leaving it in place.
What is news here is that 38 percent of Republicans are so opposed to Obamacare that they see forcing it to fail as a better option than living indefinitely with the law. Frustration among many Republicans is running high.
CNBC also reported that 64 percent of people said it was good that the GOP leadership’s bill did not pass, which is true. However, this disapproval of the Republican bill does not equal support for Obamacare.
CNBC left out that about half of those people (29 percent of the total) said they support efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, but had concerns about the bill itself.
That means just 31 percent of the people opposed to the GOP bill in this poll oppose it because they want to keep Obamacare. Meanwhile, a majority (58 percent) support repeal efforts.
The Kaiser Family Foundation also explored the reasons why the GOP bill failed to pass.
Seventy-four percent of Democrats think the bill failed because it went too far in cutting programs. That’s not surprising, because some Democrats like Obamacare and don’t want it changed.
However, 58 percent of Republicans say it failed because it didn’t go far enough in repealing Obamacare—twice as many as those that said it went too far (29 percent).
When it comes to who to blame for the bill’s failure, Republicans are more likely to blame Democrats (47 percent), and Democrats are more likely to blame the president (43 percent).
That’s nothing surprising. People tend to be partisan when it comes to assigning blame. Similarly, Republicans are more likely to say the problem was with disagreements between the Republicans and Democrats (61 percent), than internal disagreements in the party (35 percent).
Don’t let that distract you though. When Democrats are taken out of the equation, blame falls pretty equally among the House Freedom Caucus (27 percent), House Speaker Paul Ryan (27 percent), and moderate Republicans (22 percent).
Moderate and liberal Republicans are more likely to blame “the conservative Freedom Caucus” (34 percent).
But tellingly, conservatives are more likely to blame Ryan (30 percent) for failing to stand by them and lead than blame moderate Republicans (18 percent) for causing divisions over conservative policies that cost the bill votes.
So what’s next?
Obamacare remains unpopular. After a few months of Kaiser’s poll tracking favorability of Obamacare marginally higher than unfavorability for the first time in years, the two measures have once again converged at 46 percent.
With 61 percent of Americans now saying that Republicans own the still-unpopular bill and its consequences moving forward, and with Obamacare’s problems only multiplying as premiums rise and insurers continue to pull out of state exchanges, a public opinion disaster seems to be looming on the horizon.
Eighty percent of Republicans say they are confident Trump will be able to deliver on his campaign promise to get better health care at lower costs. It’s dropping off slightly from December (85 percent), as expected, but that’s still high.
Seventy-five percent of Republicans also say Congress and the administration need to keep working on a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. The road forward is clear. They just need to walk it.
Political opponents have been quick to suggest that Susan Rice committed a crime in her waning days as national security adviser to President Barack Obama in the way she handled intelligence reports related to those close to the incoming president, Donald Trump.
But to have broken federal law, national security experts told The Daily Signal, Rice would have had to purposefully leak such information to the media or knowingly place it in the hands of someone not entitled to possess it.
These experts said Rice likely did not commit a crime by asking to see the names of persons close to Trump whose communications were captured after the election in surveillance of foreigners by U.S. spy agencies.
That’s because, under federal law, government officials such as Rice have broad powers to request and receive information about Americans permitted by eavesdropping rules that civil liberty advocates long have viewed as overly expansive.
“I don’t see any illegal activity here,” said Patrick Eddington, a former CIA analyst who is now a policy analyst in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “What this does do, however, is raise a larger question, which is whether the U.S. government should be allowed to collect and retain Americans’ data for any amount of time in the course of incidental collection, unless there is a real, legitimate investigative predicate for doing so.”
Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, intelligence agencies frequently monitor the conversations of foreigners—including officials with allied or hostile countries—in what supporters view as one of the key government tools to keep the country safe.
Americans whose communications are incidentally captured—meaning somebody else was the target—in surveillance of foreigners generally are not named in intelligence reports unless there is a specific request to reveal, or “unmask,” their identities.
Under FISA, the standard required to ask for a name to be unmasked is easy to meet—it has to be necessary to understanding the value of the intelligence—meaning it’s unlikely Rice did not follow the rules if intelligence officials ultimately granted her requests.
“There is a set of procedures in place whenever a policymaker wants to have specific data unmasked to make a determination on its significance and whether further action is required,” Eddington said.
“The only way we really determine if those rules were not followed [in cases involving Trump associates] is when we have all the data out, proper interviews have been conducted, and ideally, there is a public hearing where all of this gets fairly hashed out.”
Determining Criminal Activity
In a Wednesday interview, Trump told The New York Times that he thinks Rice may have committed a crime. The president did not provide evidence for his claim, or expand upon what he thinks Rice specifically did wrong.
Experts note that any requests Rice made would have had to be granted by the intelligence agency that produced the report. The intelligence agencies say that once they receive a request, a small group of analysts and lawyers adjudicate it.
National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, in testimony before the House intelligence committee last month, said 20 people at the NSA have the authority to grant a request, including himself.
“Susan Rice did not unmask anything,” Elizabeth Goitein, who co-directs the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “She asked the NSA or whoever the source agency is to unmask. So even if it were a crime to unmask, it wouldn’t be one she committed. There is absolutely no reason to even be talking about criminal activity here.”
Experts say it could be a crime, though, if Rice leaked the name of any American caught in surveillance reports. Rice denied doing so in a Tuesday interview with MSNBC.
In an interview last month with “PBS NewsHour,” though, Rice appeared to deny that conversations involving Trump officials were incidentally collected during surveillance.
The government has a range of criminal statutes it may use against leakers, including the Espionage Act of 1917, which prohibits the improper accessing, handling, or transmitting of “information respecting the national defense” with the intent of injuring the U.S. or aiding a foreign nation.
Another related statute prohibits disclosure of classified information, including information “concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government.”
It’s also possible Rice abused her lawful authority, the national security experts told The Daily Signal, although there is no evidence she has done so.
An example of this would be if Rice sought the names of Trump transition or campaign officials and then spread the information in an improper way.
The Times reported in March that Obama’s aides sought to preserve intelligence on Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, and about potential ties between Russian officials and Trump.
As part of that effort, the Obama administration in its final weeks allowed this type of information to be distributed more widely across the government.
“She might not necessarily be the leaker, but she could pass the information to unauthorized people who may have a security clearance, but who don’t have a ‘need to know’ status,” David Shedd, an acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama who also served in the George W. Bush administration, said of Rice in an interview with The Daily Signal.
“Those people could then pass the information on to people who do the leaking,” added Shedd, who is now a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “There is still no evidence that this is what happened, and she could easily defend herself by saying she had no way of knowing information would be leaked.”
Leaks about Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and his pre-inauguration conversations with the Russian ambassador forced his resignation after less than a month on the job. The Wall Street Journal reported that Rice was not the person who requested Flynn’s name to be unmasked.
Ongoing Probes
The FBI, in addition to the House and Senate intelligence committees, is currently investigating Russia’s interference in the presidential election, including whether Trump campaign or transition officials colluded with Moscow.
The Journal reported the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence wants Rice to testify as part of its investigation.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of that committee, temporarily recused himself from the investigation Thursday after critics said he is too close to the White House to lead the probe impartially.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Tuesday his panel could be interested in interviewing Rice as well.
The FBI generally does not confirm the subjects of its investigations.
Shedd said the FBI, NSA, and other government agencies keep logs of unmasking requests.
He said investigators likely will review Rice’s requests to get a better understanding of whether she and intelligence officials followed proper procedures. Whether the compilation of those requests provides circumstantial evidence of her intent would be difficult to prove, he said, because of the natural overlap of national security and politics.
For example, Rice could have been concerned Trump transition officials communicated with foreign governments and tried to interfere with diplomatic relations under the Obama administration, thus violating the Logan Act.
No one ever has been convicted of violating this 1799 law, and the Trump administration has said such conversations were a normal function of a presidential transition.
“Let’s say Rice for a variety of reasons was worried that somebody in the Trump campaign was attempting to violate the Logan Act, meaning they were trying to undermine the existing foreign policy of the Obama administration,” Shedd said.
“That has political and national security implications. If Rice is requesting names to just kind of keep tabs on who Trump transition officials are talking to, that’s different. But proving that is what she is doing it for would be hard, because you have to prove it didn’t have a national security purpose.”
(BPT) - Get eight hours of sleep at night, eat your vegetables, and an apple a day keeps the doctor away – these are all common health sayings you’ve heard and probably believe to be true. While commonly told health myths may have some truth to them, there are some that don’t hold up to further examination.
1.) Starve a cold and feed a fever. This one has been told for years, though most people can’t remember which one you starve and which you feed. However, according to WebMD, the best advice is to starve neither. You’ll recover from the flu or a cold more quickly with a healthy, balanced diet, so eat sensibly and you’ll be yourself again in no time. 2.) Small and soft toothbrushes make for an ineffective clean. This one isn’t true. The American Dental Association actually recommends using a small brush head with soft bristles. Using a brush like Oral-B’s new Compact Clean provides a small brush head that can get to those hard-to-reach places and provide a precise clean. Because of its unique ultra-dense feathered bristles which offer multiple cleaning tips per filament, Compact Clean will also gently remove plaque in a comfortable, effective way. “As a hygienist, one of the biggest obstacles my patients face is finding the balance between using a brush that is soft enough and achieving an effective clean,” says Andrew Johnston, RDH. “Compact Clean's design allows you to remove plaque while keeping your teeth and gums safe against toothbrush abrasion.” 3.) Cold weather increases your chance of catching a cold. It seems to make sense, but it’s not true. There is no proof colder temperatures increase your chances of catching a cold, according to LiveScience.com. Instead, research shows the spike in colds during the winter months is actually due to people spending more time indoors, around one another, making it easier for the cold to spread from one person to the next.
4.) Reading in poor lighting is bad for your eyes. While it certainly makes it more difficult to focus on what you're reading, there is no evidence that reading under such conditions will cause any permanent structural or long-term damage to your eyes according to WebMD.
5.) An aerobic workout will significantly boost your metabolism all day long. Nope, but you will enjoy a nice boost while you’re actually doing the workout along with a small boost throughout the day, though only about 20 extra calories according to WebMD. If you want improved all day benefits, strength training is actually the better way to go because it conditions your body to burn calories more efficiently.
So the next time you’re tempted to starve your cold, or only read a book with lights blazing, remember that these five commonly held health myths are now debunked! To learn more about how Compact Clean can lead to powerful results, visit www.oralb.com.
(Family Features) Although retirement is a milestone for all working adults, decades of hard work may not pay off if you haven’t planned for your financial needs once a regular paycheck stops coming.
According to research by the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), millions of Baby Boomers stepping into their retirement years have unrealistic expectations and lack a full understanding of the danger of running out of money during retirement. However, the challenges do not stop with Baby Boomers. A recent study indicated 47 percent of Gen-Xers and more than half of Millennials believe a secure retirement is beyond their reach.
“Most people recognize the need to grow their wealth before retirement, but getting there isn’t always a clear path,” said Cathy Weatherford, IRI president and CEO. “Starting early and taking a holistic approach to financial planning is truly essential for a safe and dignified retirement.”
Experts generally concur that it’s never too early to begin planning for retirement, but depending on your stage of life, your approach may vary. Consider this advice from the experts at IRI to get on a path toward financially secure retirement.
Student
Forming good money habits can set you up for a lifetime of success. An act as simple as putting spare change in a jar can help you start saving. Talk to adults you trust about how to create a budget and work toward a financial goal. Auto insurance and cell phone bills are important expenses to factor into your budget.
Building a career
Once you have a solid budget, stick to it and set aside some money to save. Compound interest adds up over time and the earlier you start compounding, the better. Credit will also start to play more of a factor in your life, as major expenses like buying a house or car, or starting a business rely greatly on your credit.
Mid-career
At this stage, your employer may offer a retirement savings plan. Whether you have various investments to manage or not, you should start to look at your building your portfolio and retirement plan. This mid-career life stage is a good time to set a retirement savings goal, and now is also the time to consider hiring a financial advisor.
A professional can help you explore less understood but worthwhile approaches to holistic retirement planning such as annuities. Annuities are essentially insurance contracts that come in different types and offer several options to meet a variety of financial objectives. They are a guarantee of income as you age.
Late career
At this stage, you probably have a better idea as to when you will be able to retire, but it’s important to review your savings on an annual basis and make adjustments, if needed, to stay on track. As you approach retirement, you’ll want to research Social Security, Medicare and long-term care options to ensure you have a comprehensive view of your future finances.
Ready for retirement
If you haven’t already done so, the time has come to better research your Social Security benefits (and when it’s best to start accessing them), Medicare coverage and long-term care options. This is the time to start making some choices, such as whether you will downsize your home and how to eliminate as much debt as possible. One of the more complex aspects surrounding retirement can be determining which of your accounts to tap and in what order, and a professional can help guide you.
Explore more resources and tools to aid your retirement planning at retireonyourterms.org.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative activist groups that generally support Republicans but oppose a pro-export, anti-import Republican tax proposal, released a study on Thursday estimating its impact on individual U.S. states, underscoring the party's division over taxes.
With taxes at the top of Republican priorities, the two groups, backed by the wealthy Koch brothers, reported that seven states won by President Donald Trump in November's election would be among the 10 hardest hit by the proposal.
Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity, both based in the Washington area, said the "border adjustment tax," or BAT, would harm all 50 states, but that those heavily dependent on imports could suffer most.
The report predicted economic harm to Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas - all states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. The list of hard-hit states also includes California, New Jersey and Illinois, which were carried by Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The study was sharply criticized by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican who intends to include the BAT in tax reform legislation this spring.
"That so-called study will be easily discredited and probably fits the definition of fake news," Brady told reporters. "It takes one provision, pretends the economy freezes ... applies it in our current tax code and comes up with fantasy figures."
BAT, billed as a way to boost U.S. manufacturing, would exempt export revenues from federal tax, while ending the deductibility of import costs by corporations, making imports for production or resale costlier.
The plan is part of a tax reform blueprint supported by House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump is also working on a tax plan.
Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch have funded both groups behind the study. The Kochs exert strong financial and ideological influence on the Republican Party.
Opposition to BAT from the Kochs and import-dependent industries suggests a rocky road ahead for Trump's stated priority of tax reform.
The proposal is also opposed by a number of Senate Republicans who could prevent its passage, should the House approve a tax reform bill that contains it.
Koch organizations, including the brothers' privately held conglomerate Koch Industries, have warned that BAT could devastate the U.S. economy by raising prices on consumer goods, including gasoline. Refineries owned by Koch Industries rely on oil imports from Canada.
The Koch groups say they support tax reform but oppose BAT.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Dan Grebler)
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans generally agree that politicians should not enrich themselves while running the country. Yet most think it is okay for President Donald Trump to do so.
Democrats largely support the idea of government-run healthcare. But their support plummets when they learn that Trump once backed the idea.
At a time of already deep fissures among American voters on political, cultural and economic issues, Trump further polarizes the public as soon as he wades into the debate, according to the results of a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The poll suggests any effort to reach a consensus on key policy issues could be complicated simply by Trump's involvement.
The survey from Feb. 1 to March 15 of nearly 14,000 people asked respondents to consider a series of statements Trump has made on taxes, crime and the news media, among other issues. In many cases, the data showed that people will orient their opinions according to what they think of Trump.
Republicans, for example, were more likely to criticize American exceptionalism – the notion that the United States holds a unique place in history - when told that Trump once said it was insulting to other countries. They were more likely to agree that the country should install more nuclear weapons, and they were more supportive of government spending for infrastructure, when they knew that Trump felt the same way.
Democrats moved in the opposite direction. They were less supportive of infrastructure spending, less critical of the judiciary and less likely to agree that urban crime was on the rise when they knew that those concerns were shared by Trump.
“I’m basically in disagreement with everything he says,” said Howard House, 58, a Democrat from Jacksonville, Florida, who took the poll. “I’ve almost closed my mind to the guy.”
Trump is not the first president to polarize the public. A 1995 poll by the Washington Post found that Democrats appeared to favor legislative action when they thought it was then-President Bill Clinton’s idea, and a 2013 survey by Hart Research Associates showed that both positive and negative attitudes about the 2010 Affordable Care Act intensified when called by its other name, Obamacare.
But previous presidents were more popular than Trump at this point, according to the Gallup polling service, and they may have been better positioned to address the public divide because of it. Gallup had Trump at a 42 percent approval rating on Tuesday. He was as low as 35 percent last week.
That leaves Trump facing a largely disapproving electorate, even as the White House signals that in the coming months it wants to pass a sweeping tax-reform package, a large infrastructure plan, and perhaps try again to supplant the Affordable Care Act.
The White House said that Trump has tried to reach out to those who did not support him during the campaign in an attempt to build political consensus.
“The door to the White House has been open to a variety of people who are willing to come to the table and have honest discussions with the President about the ways we can make our country better,” a White House spokeswoman wrote in an email.
THE HYPER-PARTISAN ERA OF TRUMP
Poll respondents were split into two groups. Each received nearly identical questions about statements Trump has made in recent years. One group, however, was not told the statements came from Trump.
The poll then asked if people agreed or disagreed with those statements. In a few cases, Trump made little to no impact on the answers. But most of the time the inclusion of his name changed the results.
A series of questions about conflicts of interest produced the biggest swings.
Some 33 percent of Republicans said it was okay if “an official” financially benefits from a government position. However, when a separate group was asked the same question with Trump’s name added in, more than twice as many Republicans – 70 percent – said it was okay.
When interviewed afterward, some respondents said they knew they were making special exceptions for Trump.
Susie Stewart, a 73-year-old healthcare worker from Fort Worth, Texas, said it came down to trust. While most politicians should be forbidden from mixing their personal fortunes with government business, Stewart, who voted for Trump, said the president had earned the right to do so.
"He is a very intelligent man,” Stewart said. “He’s proved himself to be one hell of a manager. A builder. I think he has the business sense to do what’s best for the country.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, House, the Democrat from Florida and a Hillary Clinton supporter, said he also made an exception for Trump. But in this instance it meant that House disagreed with everything Trump supported.
If Trump said the sky was blue, “I’m going to go outside and check,” he said.
It is impossible to say exactly what motivates people to answer a certain way in a political poll, said John Bullock, an expert in partisanship at the University of Texas at Austin.
Some respondents may have looked past the question and answered in a way that they thought would support or oppose Trump, Bullock said. But he said it was also likely that others simply have not thought deeply about the issue and are looking to Trump as a guide for how to answer.
“They think of him either as a man who shares their values or someone who manifestly does not,” Bullock said.
Amid the spectacle of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, there emerged that rare visitor to the U.S. Capitol: some nuggets of common sense. These nuggets came from Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and from the Supreme Court nominee himself. They addressed that feature of our constitutional design that most powerfully preserves and protects liberty.
That feature, which limits what the government may do, is it the Bill of Rights? The late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat on the Court Judge Gorsuch would fill, liked to point out, “Every tin-horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill of Rights.”
The very word “constitution” suggests not words but structure.
The most important feature of our Constitution is the design of the document itself. It divides the limited power of government vertically, between the states and federal government. And it distributes power horizontally, between the co-equal branches.”
Our constitutional bedrock is, in three words, separation of powers.
It was the French political philosopher Montesquieu, writing in the Age of Enlightenment, who was the chief proponent of the separation of powers. Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748, “was hailed as the first systematic treatise on politics since Aristotle” and was a major influence on our system of government.
Montesquieu identified three different powers or functions of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. Significantly, he treated the judicial power “as on a par, analytically, with the other two functions of government,” detached from the upper or aristocratic chamber of the legislature, and vested largely in the ordinary courts of the land. According to Montesquieu, each of these three functions should be exercised by a separate branch or body of the government, with its own distinct personnel.
Montesquieu further maintained that there should be checks and balances through, for example, the executive’s power to veto laws and the legislature’s power to impeach executive officers. Then each of the powers in a “moderate government” could better “counterpoise the other.”
In a system with checks and balances, where governmental powers are separated on a functional basis, individual liberty might best be protected. As Senator Grassley put it, “It’s this delicate balance of power, entrusted to competing factions, that ensures the liberty of the People will endure.”
Abuse of Power
For both Montesquieu and our Founders, the danger to be protected against was the abuse that the concentration of power invites.
[C]onstant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.”
Judge Gorsuch emphasized this point in weighing the legacy of, and quoting, Justice Scalia:
The genius of the American constitutional system is the dispersal of power. Once power is centralized in one person, or one part [of government], a Bill of Rights is just words on paper.”
Judge Gorsuch on Our Constitutional Design
What does Judge Gorsuch himself have to say on these matters?
On the separation of powers, it is ...the genius of the Constitution. Madison thought that the separation of powers was perhaps the most important liberty-guaranteeing device in the whole Constitution and this is a point of civics that I do think maybe is lost today: how valuable the separation of powers is. That you have an Article I: The people’s representatives make the law. . . . Article II, the President’s job, is to faithfully execute your laws. And our job, Article III, down at the bottom, is to make sure that the cases and controversies of the people are fairly decided. And if those roles were confused, and power amalgamated, the Founders worried that that would be the very definition of tyranny.
And you can see why. Judges would make pretty rotten legislators. We’re life-tenured, right? You can’t get rid of us. It only takes a couple of us to make a decision, or nine, or twelve, depending on the court. It would be a pretty poor way to run a democracy. And at the same time, with respect, legislators might not make great judges, because they’re answerable to the people. And when you come to court with a case or a controversy about past facts, you want a neutral, rigidly neutral, fair, scrupulously fair decision-maker. You want somebody who’s going to put politics aside.
So the separation of powers I don’t think has lost any of its genius over 200 years. In fact, it’s proven it.
Laura Bennett Peterson is an attorney and economist in Washington, D.C. She has worked as an associate professor of law and litigator, a White House and Treasury Department economist, and a Hoover Institution public affairs fellow and visiting scholar.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
Statement of Committee for Justice President Curt Levey:
While President Trump was admonishing the press about its fake news yesterday, the left-leaning Alliance for Justice published some fake news of its own, titled “The Gorsuch Record.” The Gorsuch opinions and other materials cited by the AFJ report are real, but the conclusions it draws are fake — very fake.
The report concludes that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch “has, throughout his life, been driven by an ultraconservative ideology … marked by four themes,” including hostility toward progress, indifference to Americans’ health and safety, bias in favor of corporations, and overlooking abuses of constitutional rights (see page one of the report). These four alleged themes are disturbing ones — until you take a closer look.
A close review of the report’s bases for its conclusions reveals that those conclusions are heavily clothed in progressive spin. To give you a more accurate picture of Judge Gorsuch’s record, we have translated AFJ’s four themes by removing the spin. Viewed in that new light (see below), the four themes turn out to be an excellent summary of why mainstream Americans should support Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Theme #1: Judge Gorsuch is “hostil[e] toward social and legal progress over the last century,” threatening to “take the country backwards” through his belief “that judges should ‘strive . . . to apply the law as it is.’”
Translation: Gorsuch believes social and legal progress should be accomplished democratically, rather than through unelected judges creating new rights. Accordingly, judges should focus on constitutional and statutory text rather than their personal vision of how the law should evolve.
Theme #2: Gorsuch is “willing[] to downplay abuses of constitutional rights by government actors.”
Translation: Gorsuch believes that judges should follow the law where it leads, regardless of whether the result is a ruling for the government or the individual. He also believes that judges should defer to the policy decisions of our elected representatives unless there is a clear constitutional violation. Finally, he believes law enforcement agents should be given the benefit of the doubt when performing their jobs in good faith.
Theme #3: Gorsuch “aggrandize[s] corporations over individuals.”
Translation: Gorsuch believes that both arbitration agreements and the legal requirements for class action lawsuits should be enforced, and that statutory text should be adhered to, regardless of whether a plaintiff’s claims have emotional appeal. He is skeptical of plaintiffs’ lawyers who use frivolous claims to get rich. And he does not believe that people forfeit their First Amendment rights to religious liberty and free speech when they go into business.
Theme #4: Gorsuch expresses “skepticism of the federal government’s role in protecting the health and safety of the American people and a desire to weaken important legal protections.”
Translation: Gorsuch believes that the regulations issued by federal bureaucrats are legitimate only insofar as they faithfully implement the democratically-enacted statutes that authorize the rules in question. He is concerned that ever-expanding, unaccountable federal bureaucracies can undermine democracy and believes that when Congress delegates virtually unlimited discretion to such bureaucracies, it runs afoul of the Constitution.
As I read the bitcoin news each day and see the price of bitcoin cycling up and down, I’ve been thinking about the different sides of the blockchain scaling debate, and wondering what the best solution is for miners. While I realize that many of us signal (via our pool) our support of one proposal or another, a stable consensus seems elusive. As support for one proposal shifts to another, the forces that represent one idea or another shift to a different adoption method, and that can be frustrating for those of us who have had to change pools and reconfigure, in some cases, many miners.
I consider myself a hobbyist. I have 20 or so miners, most of which only support SHA256, in a colo. But when I add things up, I easily have more than $30k invested in my mining hardware. If you say it out loud, it feels like a huge investment, and if bitcoin were to suddenly go insolvent due to a hard fork, or fundamentally, bickering, it would indeed be a huge loss to me and my family. This is why I think it so important for all of us to think very seriously about the future of bitcoin. People talk about all sorts of things—payment systems, etc.—but the thing that really matters, from my point of view, is the public ledger.
In my day job, I am in charge of enterprise architecture for a major corporation. This corporation, like so many others, invests capital in innovation and research, and blockchain technology is a focus of some of these investments. But no matter what types of blockchain tech you’re looking at, the “big” blockchain is bitcoin. For now. In order for bitcoin to maintain its dominance, it needs to scale to multiple applications—not just rest on its first “killer app,” which is the coin itself. When we look at off-chain scaling solutions, the big concern I have is how many alternative chains will exist. When those chains begin to pick up on the opportunity inherent in non-coin transactions, we, as miners, have lost the battle. The major source of fees in the long term will evaporate into the pockets of the people who run those alternate chains.
Last week, we all had the opportunity to hear what exchanges were going to do if there was a fork. Then Exchanges said that the document they had signed maybe didn’t look the same as it did when it was signed. Why was the document’s hash not published to the blockchain? Why weren’t the signatures cryptographic? Why can’t we have an irrefutable record of who signed exactly what? We can’t because there is no room. That document’s hash would have cost an unrealistic amount of money to embed due to current size restrictions and the ridiculous backlog of data waiting for a block.
Perhaps the exchanges could have used an alternate blockchain. I am sure Etherium would love to have that business. The truth though, is that business should be ours. With a variable block size, companies and individuals would have the ability to embed transactions of all types into the blockchain. Such transactions will just become more pervasive over time and along with the coin economy would drive huge fees due to volume, not scarcity, to our mining community. Anyone who has attached themselves to the scarcity wagon is in for a rude surprise. Someone is always willing to do something cheaper. Sometimes they can even do it cheaper and better. Let’s not give up our dominant position as the main blockchain that everyone wants their transactions written to. Take time, and make a choice—a choice that will promote our long-term position as the coin, and the blockchain for the future. If, as miners, we don’t act now, I assure you, someone will make a choice for us, and it won’t be the best long-term choice for our wallets.
The opinions expressed in this article are my own views and not those of my employer, Cisco.
Michael Myers is the Senior IT Director in Cisco’s Global Architecture and Technology Services organization, responsible for Enterprise Architecture. Mike has pioneered the use of Openstack in Cisco’s enterprise and managed Cisco’s private cloud stack. He partners closely with the Cisco Business team to integrate features into products and helps develop Cisco’s cloud strategy.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
A group of conservative leaders defended the House Freedom Caucus for sticking to its principles in the debate over the House health care bill on Friday.
“I urge the president to rethink these attacks on the Freedom Caucus,” said L. Brent Bozell III, a Republican advocacy leader, during a conference call filled with top conservatives defending the Freedom Caucus against President Donald Trump’s recent attacks directed toward the group.
“Not only is [Trump] going to need the Freedom Caucus in virtually every single fight to come, but, the irony is, the Freedom Caucus is going to be his strongest supporters in the battle ahead, so [Trump’s attacks need] to be reconsidered,” Bozell added.
The groups in the Friday conference call included Bozell’s ForAmerica, Tea Party Patriots, Heritage Action for America, FreedomWorks, Senate Conservatives Fund, Family Research Council, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.Bozell’s comments supporting the group came one day after Trump warned the Freedom Caucus members to get on board with his agenda, or else face possible consequences in 2018.
“The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!” Trump tweeted.
Additionally, Trump has already fired shots at two of the groups on the call for their involvement in the GOP health care debacle: Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, and Club For Growth—both groups voiced strong disapproval of the House health care bill, known as the American Health Care Act.
“Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!” Trump tweeted after the House leadership pulled its health care legislation last Friday due to lack of support.
Aside from defending House conservatives, the conservative speakers mentioned their disdain for the failure of Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and criticized GOP centrists who pushed what one speaker referred to as “Obamacare 2.0.”
These attacks from Trump against the leading conservative organizations and lawmakers are a mistake, claimed Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks.
“The House Freedom Caucus is Donald Trump’s No. 1 ally in draining the swamp. All we’re looking for is the GOP to keep their promise in repealing Obamacare, and then we can keep the agenda moving forward,” Brandon said.
Support for the Freedom Caucus’ resistance to the GOP health care bill was echoed throughout the call, as Mike Needham, CEO of Heritage Action, described the conservative congressmen as the only “grown-ups in the room,” compared to Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and other Republicans who promoted the American Health Care Act.
“I don’t think anybody could honestly call this bill good. The Republican Party has campaigned on bringing down premiums for seven years, yet this bill would keep them going up,” Needham said.
Andy Ross, vice president of the Club for Growth, harped on the point of campaign promises, saying, “The question isn’t why the Freedom Caucus is being so hard-nosed, they are the ones actually keeping their promise … the people breaking their campaign pledges to the American people are the moderates who are holding [Obamacare repeal] up.”
Ross also said that, after promising a full repeal of Obamacare, centrist Republicans in the House flip-flopped and now “actually support a lot of things that are in Obamacare.”
Centrist House Republicans in the Tuesday Group were slated to meet with the Freedom Caucus this week to discuss possible compromises on health care, but the meeting fell through after Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., signaled to the centrist caucus that it should avoid talking to conservative colleagues.
In response to Trump saying that Republicans should wait for Obamacare to “explode” and then act to replace it, Bozell warned that “the Republican Party will own health care” if that happens.
Anti-smoking nannies have pushed their crusade further and further, and in California, they’re increasingly reaching into peoples’ lives. Next up? They’re trying to prohibit smoking inside your own home.
In fact, the ordinance is so sweeping that it specifies the two places where smoking is not banned: inside of private cars and in single-family detached homes. Live in an apartment building? You’re out of luck. Own your own condo inside of a complex? Also out of luck. Smoking is prohibited almost everywhere else.
The ban is a natural extension of the extremist logic that has driven other smoking bans in California.
California was the first state to prohibit smoking inside of restaurants and bars, and the city of San Rafael was first to ban smoking inside of commonly-shared homes. This is an increasingly popular kind of regulation, but it’s based on junk science — studies have shown little relationship between second-hand smoke and cancer.
What’s worse, the Novato regulation prohibits e-cigarettes and vaping products in the same way. E-cigarettes and vaping products are frequently used by smokers to stop smoking, and have been shown to be safer than traditional tobacco products.
This isn’t strictly Novato’s fault: They’re following the misguided suggestions of California’s Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee, which advises that e-cigarette products should be prohibited everywhere traditional tobacco products are.
The regulations effectively outlaw smoking for people who aren’t extremely wealthy. As Steven Greenhut at The American Spectator reported:
The law targets lower-income people given that single-family homes are exempt in a city where the median single-home value is around $745,000. It acknowledges no difference between cigarette smoking, which is unquestionably dangerous, and the use of vaping products and other nicotine products that are far less dangerous to users — and have few discernible “externalities” that could inflict harm on others. It’s an affront to property rights since the law dictates the terms of leases and makes no distinction between private and public property.
If you don’t own a single-family home or car and your landlord doesn’t choose to provide a carefully designated smoking area that meets the city’s detailed rules, there is no legal place to use tobacco products in the entire city given that it’s banned virtually everywhere else.
As an additional justification, Novato’s ordinance cites “the failure of tobacco retailers to comply with all tobacco control laws, particularly laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors,” even though Novato is a remarkably compliant jurisdiction. According to the Food and Drug Administration’s random compliance checks, Novato has had only one violation in the last five years — a 98.2 percent compliance rate, according to the FDA’s database.
Novato’s incredibly stringent regulations are based on bad science and bad statistics. If policymakers want to implement evidence-based policymaking, they would do well not to follow the lead of nannies obsessed with controlling behavior.
From Watchdog.org. By Kevin Glass. Kevin Glass is Director of Policy and Outreach at the Franklin Center.
After a week of fallout from the failure to pass the GOP health care bill, disgruntled Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois took to the pages of the New York Times Friday to vent his frustrations.
His target? The House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative members that has borne the brunt of media shaming and ire from its colleagues for its opposition to the American Health Care Act. (It should be noted that Kinzinger is a member of the Tuesday Group, a collection of moderate Republicans, many of whom also failed to support the AHCA—a point neither Kinzinger or the New York Times seem keen on remembering.)
What, you may wonder, was the basis for the objections of the Freedom Caucus to the AHCA? What kind of impossible demands was it making on the rest of the GOP?
If you ask the members of the Freedom Caucus, they’ll tell you. They were simply trying to keep their promise to voters to repeal Obamcare. And the AHCA, contrary to Kinzinger’s claims, did not repeal Obamacare.
It’s a sad day when trying to keep a promise to the people who elected you has become the most vilified act in Washington.
Aside from improperly characterizing the AHCA as repeal, the rest of Kinzinger’s claims are simply baseless and petty—not to mention thoroughly unhelpful to a party that must work together to repeal Obamacare, or otherwise risk its hard-won majority.
Specifically, Kinzinger takes issue with the negotiating tactics of the Freedom Caucus, comparing it to Lucy in the cartoon “Peanuts”—always holding the football out to be kicked, and at the last minute, yanking it back.
Unfortunately, the facts don’t bear that out.
The Freedom Caucus was clear from the beginning—it would only support a bill that fully repealed Obamacare. The AHCA never did that, and despite the changes made by leadership (which were done only after the urging of President Donald Trump), it still did not accomplish full repeal.
Without repeal of Obamacare’s crushing regulations, the fundamental architecture of the law remained in place. Consider that these regulations are responsible for 68 percent of the average cost increases of health insurance across the nation—and up to 92 percent in cost increases for younger Americans.
You cannot call a bill “full repeal” if it doesn’t address these mammoth cost drivers. And, like it or not, full repeal is what Republicans promised their voters. (While Kinzinger and others may say that the regulations “couldn’t be repealed” using the reconciliation process, that, too, is simply untrue. James Wallner of The Heritage Foundation has an entire paper explaining why.)
These problems were obvious to more than just the Freedom Caucus. Conservatives across the spectrum widely panned the bill, and credited the Freedom Caucus for trying to get more. Avik Roy, a commentator at Forbes, even called the group’s requests “surprisingly pragmatic.”
It seems the wider audience understood what Kinzinger does not—Obamacare is a policy failure. The House Republicans’ approach of repairing and replacing it didn’t do nearly enough. The law has to go. Only then can true reform of the health care marketplace take shape.
The tackiest element of Kinzinger’s argument, however, is simply its breathtaking lack of self-awareness. Kinzinger and his Tuesday Group members voted more than 50 times to fully repeal Obamacare—when they knew it wouldn’t pass.
But when the Freedom Caucus pushed for the opportunity for repeal to become real—when push came to the literal shove—these guys willingly just went limp and fell off the cliff.
That’s not something Kinzinger should be proud of, because it’s not something his voters elected him to do.
Fortunately, there are members in the House that do understand this. Reps. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, and the members of the Freedom Caucus should be applauded for their willingness to go to the mat to defend the promises they made. If he stops naming and shaming long enough, maybe Kinzinger could learn a thing or two.
The undercover Planned Parenthood videos published in 2015 made one thing abundantly clear: Big Abortion skirts the law for its own gain, going to great lengths to hide its illicit activities not only from the public, but even from its own employees.
After such revelations, it seems like common sense that the government would defund Planned Parenthood. After all, taxpayer money should not go to fund abortions or the illegal practices going on behind the organization’s closed doors.
But abortion cronies seem to be on a different page entirely: Punish the journalists and protect the abortion giant that is lining their pockets.
First, they tried—and failed—to convict Center for Medical Progress investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt in Texas. But now, California wants a shot at it. This week, the state attorney general charged Daleiden and Merritt with 15 felonies.
Now Planned Parenthood said in a statement on the charges, “Planned Parenthood has done nothing wrong.” But if that’s true, the organization has nothing to fear from the Center for Medical Progress’ work.
In response to the charges, the Center for Medical Progress released a new undercover video featuring the former medical director of Planned Parenthood Arizona, DeShawn Taylor.
Taylor is shown on camera discussing what appears to be an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure and the illegal sale of baby body parts.
She also talks about intentionally avoiding an Arizona state law that requires abortionists to transport babies who show signs of life after an abortion to a hospital.
Then, she laughs.
“Well, the thing is, I mean the key is, you need to pay attention to who’s in the room,” she says.
Who is in the room also determines whether or not she can pull out intact “specimens” to sell to fetal tissue procurement agencies. She says she must be sensitive to her staff who might be uncomfortable if the aborted child comes out looking too much like a baby.
And by the way, don’t call it a “baby,” she says. “It’s creepy.”
It’s obvious that Planned Parenthood will stop at nothing to protect its abortion gold mine, even keeping secrets from their own employees. They wouldn’t want to make anyone in the room feel uncomfortable.
But what about the baby in the room?
Investigative journalists like Daleiden have been instrumental in casting light on deceptive practices in big government, big business, and now, big abortion.
In the past, investigative journalists have been lauded for their work.
But the state hasn’t charged them with 15 felonies.
Daleiden and Merritt’s investigative work, just like these other examples, brought to light illegal practices and abuse of power that would have otherwise remained hidden from the public.
Isn’t that the purpose of journalism—to reveal the truth? It should concern all Americans that California’s attorney general is trying to strip journalists of the freedom to do their jobs and report the truth.
Big abortion has effectively used its network of abortion cronies to attempt to bring swift punishment against Daleiden, but the reaction to Planned Parenthood’s illegal practices has come much slower.
A handful of states have rightly defunded the abortion giant. And while the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives released a report recommending that Planned Parenthood no longer receive federal funding and that those who have illegally profited off of the sale of baby body parts be prosecuted, little action has been taken thus far.
When our government acts more quickly to strip journalists of their freedoms than to act against an organization breaking state and federal law, then something is wrong. That is what’s truly “creepy.”You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
It made for great copy – irresistibly clickable and compulsively shareable. “Trump’s Budget Would Kill a Program That Feeds 2.4 Million Senior Citizens,” blared TimeMagazine's headline. “Trump Proposed Budget Eliminates Funds for Meals on Wheels,” claimed The Hill, in a piece that got 26,000 shares.
But it was false. And it wouldn’t have taken long for reporters to find and provide some needed context to the relationship between federal block grant programs, specifically Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and the popular Meals on Wheels program. Funding Has Not Been Cut
From Thursday’s conversation in the press, it was easy to assume that block grant programs – CDBG and similar block grants for community services and social services – are the main source of federal funding for Meals on Wheels. Not so.
Instead, as the national Meals on Wheels site explains, the major source of federal funding for the programs, accounting for 35 percent of overall local budgets, comes through the Sixties-era Older Americans Act. (Local programs also obtain support from state and county governments, private donors, and so on.)
According to the website, cuts have not been announced in Older Americans Act funding, although the group fears that they may lie ahead.
So where do the federal block grant programs come in? Well, they give states and localities a lot of discretion on where to allocate the money, one option is to add money to supplement Meals on Wheels funding. Some do use it for that purpose.
But as Scott Shackford makes clear in his new piece for Reason, that isn’t what CDBG is mostly about. CDBG funds regularly go into pork-barrel and business-subsidy schemes with a cronyish flavor. That’s why the program has been a prime target for budget-cutters for decades, in administration after administration.
It’s important to the CDBG program’s political durability that its grantees wind up sprinkling a bit of extra money on popular programs mostly funded by other means. That way, defenders can argue that the block grants “fund programs like Meals on Wheels.”
That’s what happened in the press this week. Outrage Over Nothing
The New York Times got things rolling by reporting that the new budget proposes “the complete elimination of the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds popular programs like Meals on Wheels, housing assistance and other community assistance efforts.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper then boiled it down to a tweet: “On chopping block: $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds programs like Meals on Wheels.”
Meals on Wheels’ own national website, meanwhile, quotes its CEO and president Ellie Hollander being appropriately cautious and conditional: “We don’t know the exact impact yet,” she said. Big cuts “would be a devastating blow.” According to the website, “details on our network’s primary source of funding, the Older Americans Act, which has supported senior nutrition programs for 45 years, have not yet been released.”
Most of the major press coverage Thursday had nothing at all to say about the OAA, which would only have complicated the shock headlines. And social media burned all day with indignant posts that seemed unaware that no cuts had been announced as of yet in the main program that funds Meals on Wheels.
One reason was the press conference at which budget director Mick Mulvaney faced a host of questions about the new budget release, with Peter Alexander of NBC News pressing him especially hard on the aren’t-you-trying-to-cut-things-like-Meals-on-Wheels angle.
Mulvaney repeatedly tried to switch the conversation over to the shortcomings of the wider CDBG program and did not bring up the point about OAA funding at all. Amid further awkward exchanges, Mulvaney spoke about how social programs had often not been shown to have benefits.
A charitable reading of his intended point was that activities funded by block grants in general often lack any proof of positive effect; a less charitable reading was that he was trying to single out Meals on Wheels in particular as an endeavor of no proven use to anyone. (A middle ground, I suppose, would have been to call his office for a clarification.) No prizes for guessing which direction the press, from MSNBC to New York Magazine, chose to take for its headlines. Eroding Trustworthiness
For many editors, “administration wants to zero out Meals on Wheels” made good, emotionally satisfying copy – too good to check. But around the country, in coming days, thousands of persons touched by the program are likely to ask their visiting community member or supervisor whether it’s really true that they’re going to do away with the Meals on Wheels program, the way the man on TV or the lady on Facebook said. And after they hear a fuller explanation, they might decide that they trust news reports a little less.
Despite a lifetime of fishing off the New England coast, Eric Reid was like a fish out of water when President Barack Obama grabbed a piece of his livelihood.
“I’m just a fish guy but I learned a lot about politics in a big hurry,” said Reid, general manager of Seafreeze Shoreside Inc., a seafood processing facility in Rhode Island.
He is referring to Obama’s September 2016 designation of nearly 5,000 square miles of ocean as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, using his unilateral authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
‘Losing opportunity’
The area 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod is the first national monument in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also rife with fish that have fed New Englanders — and the New England economy — for generations.
But the monument designation makes commercial fishing off limits.
“We’re losing opportunity as we speak,” Reid told Watchdog.org. “It could easily be millions of dollars just this winter.”
Reid is part of a coalition of New England fishing organizations suing the federal government over the designation. The Pacific Legal Foundation is representing the coalition in Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association v. Ross. PLF attorney Jonathan Wood says the economic impact is magnified when considering the shoreside businesses that have grown up around the commercial fishing industry.
“It’s not just the fishermen. It’s all the bait dealers, the mechanics and the marinas and all the businesses that only exist because there’s a commercial fishing industry,” he told Watchdog.org.
The PLF complaint argues that the president was out of line because the ocean is beyond the reach of the Antiquities Act.
“The statute only authorizes monuments on ‘land owned or controlled by the federal government,’ said Wood. “And the ocean, particularly this far out, is not land and it’s not owned or controlled by the federal government.”
President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act into law in 1906 to protect antiquities and artifacts from looting and prevent the destruction of Native American sites in the Southwest. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming was the first national monument created under the law. Others include familiar sites such as Fort McHenry and the Statue of Liberty.
In recent decades, the law has been used mostly to bring land, rather than historic sites, under federal control.
In 2006, President George W. Bush created the 139,797 square miles Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Pacific Ocean. According to the National Ocean Service, it was created “to protect an exceptional array of natural and cultural resources.”
Obama more than quadrupled the size of Papahānaumokuākea in August, to 582,578 square miles — twice the size of Texas — saying in his proclamation the protection provides opportunities “including understanding the impacts of climate change on these deep-sea communities.”
All told, Obama’s 34 new or expanded monument designations covered 533 million acres of federal land and water, the most of any president.
And as with the New England fishermen, monument status limits what state and local people can do on these public lands.
Not a coral in sight
Reid says the monument in the Atlantic Ocean was purportedly to protect coral, but in parts of the protected area, there’s not a coral in sight.
“Once the designation was given to us a few days before the actual written proclamation itself, it was pretty evident to us that there was quite a bit of political pressure put in by environmental organizations to get a pretty large area closed off that made no sense if in fact corals were the target,” he said.
Wood calls it an attempt by the president to try to establish his legacy with environmental groups who wanted to stake a claim in the Atlantic Ocean, especially because the federal Council on Environmental Quality ignored work already underway by the New England Fisheries Management Council to protect coral while continuing to allow commercial fishing.
The council is one of eight established in 1976 under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs marine fishery management in federal waters up to 200 nautical miles from shore. The councils are charged with fostering long-term biological and economic sustainability, and include scientists, environmentalists, fishermen and government representatives.
Reid serves on the New England council. He says his group told the president’s Council on Environmental Quality they could do a better job than a marine monument could of managing the area.
“It would be done in a much more informed manner,” he said. “There’s a lot of analysis that has to be done, National Environmental Policy Act analysis and economic analysis on what would happen to impact the industry.”
“The NRDC’s push for the monument began in 2001 and ran up until … the president announced the establishment of the protected area. … NRDC created online petitions, geospatial analyses, technical research, polling events, media outreach, meetings and a letter-writing campaign,” according to the post.
A June 30, 2016 letter, for example, addressed to Obama and copied to a number of lawmakers, urged the monument’s creation.
“While the area is largely untouched and wild today, it is highly vulnerable to disturbance and should be protected now from the push to fish, drill, and mine in ever deeper and more remote places. As climate change and ocean acidification continue to affect ocean life, it also becomes more and more urgent to establish blue parks in important and relatively pristine ocean habitats such as this one,” the NRDC wrote.
Neither the NRDC nor the Council on Environmental Quality responded to Watchdog.org requests for comment on the lawsuit.
In the meantime, Wood says while there’s essentially no limit to what the president might do under the Antiquities Act, there is irony in what the statute cannot do, such as prevent navigation in the area or laying of cables and pipelines through it.
“So they are essentially forbidding fishing that has no impact on the coral while doing nothing to prevent oil tankers from going through the area or other nations from laying telecommunications cables that actually destroys the coral,” he said.
In addition to the lawsuit, some legislative relief may be on the way for the fishermen.
Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee vowed to repeal the Antiquities Act, following the late December creation of a 1.35 million acre Bears Ears National Monument in the southern part of his state. That would end future unilateral monument proclamations by presidents; but it would take additional congressional action to abolish existing designations.
Another Utah Republican, Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, took a fact-finding trip to the New England area where he spent some time with Reid.
“We spoke for a very nice, long time,” Reid said. “Rep. Bishop is extremely well-versed in the Antiquities Act.”
Bishop, along with Delegate Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa), sent a letter to President Donald Trump on March 7 urging him to remove all marine monument fishing prohibitions and allow fisheries to be managed through the existing regional fishery management councils.
“Using the Antiquities Act to close U.S. waters to domestic fisheries is a clear example of federal overreach and regulatory duplication and obstructs well managed, sustainable U.S. fishing industries in favor of their foreign counterparts. You alone can act quickly to reverse this travesty,” the letter read.
And on March 15, the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans held a hearing to examine the creation and management of marine monuments.
The hearing included written testimony from Jon Mitchell, the Democratic mayor of New Bedford, Mass. Mitchell said the Port of New Bedford generates $9 billion in direct and indirect economic output each year, and encouraged Congress to return the New England Fisheries Council to its “rightful place as the critical arbiters of fisheries management matters.”
Unless the president or Congress acts, Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association v. Ross will proceed.
“President Obama was the biggest abuser of the Antiquities Act in presidential history,” said Wood. “This marine monument is beyond the nation’s territory. The Antiquities Act simply doesn’t fit this far out.”
From Watchdog.org. Kathy Hoekstra is a national regulatory reporter for Watchdog.org. Contact heratkhoekstra@watchdog.org and @khoekstra.
It appears that the “Trump bump,” based on confidence from President Donald Trump’s election, has subsided as job creators await Washington’s next concrete steps on taxes or trade.
On the positive side, the jobs report shows that the unemployment rate dropped to 4.5 percent (the lowest since 2007) from 4.7 percent last month, the number of people who were working part time but preferred full-time jobs fell by 151,000 to 5.6 million, and wages rose 2.7 percent from last year.
Of more concern is the labor force participation rate, which factors in people who have given up looking for work, and which remained unchanged at a low 63 percent. This suggests that tens of millions of Americans are still having a hard time connecting with the workforce.
Though the payroll survey found only a small increase (due to weather conditions) in construction job hiring, it also found that retail trade (-30,000 jobs) and general merchandise stores (-35,000 jobs) continue to cut jobs, most likely from the increase in online competition.
Taking a broader look at the economy, while this report did not fully meet expert predictions on jobs numbers, various reports do show that business—especially small business—has the highest optimism in decades. This is no doubt due to the change in tone from the White House.
To continue instilling economic confidence, it is imperative that words are backed up with action.
The Trump administration and Congress have made a good start on rolling back excessive regulation, and need to follow up with tax reform that lowers rates on both small and large businesses and allows for immediate expensing for new job-creating investments.
This will bolster confidence for years to come. There are several reasons why the jobs report didn’t meet expectations. But one thing is certain: Employers hire and grow when they have a predictable, friendly business climate.
If conservatives band together and act on the regulatory and tax reforms they campaigned on, the “Trump bump” can become the new “business as usual” in Washington.