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February 2017

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 28, 2017 34 Comments
I'll leave the details and the policy prescriptions to others. Here's my quick reaction. Donald Trump's speech to a Joint Session of Congress tonight was enormously impressive and potentially game changing. In big terms, he was both presidential and pugnacious. He started by talking about more work to be done on civil rights, and condemned recent acts of anti-Semitism and hate. While it will not satisfy those who hate him, it set a tone and deflated the attacks on the speech you know already had been written. Bringing victims of crime by illegal immigrants and introducing them was powerful. And introducing the widow of fallen Navy SEAL Ryan Owens was the most emotional moment I've ever seen in such a speech.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 28, 2017 15 Comments
President Donald Trump presented his agenda in front of Congress on Tuesday night. For the first time since he announced his candidacy, Trump sounded presidential and smooth. Kemberlee reported he will speak about these topics:
  • Tax and regulatory reform
  • Making the workplace better for working parents
  • Obamacare reform
  • Education
  • Rebuilding the military
  • Taking care of veterans

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 28, 2017 7 Comments
Famous liberal actress Jennifer Garner has told The Washington Post that she will work with President Donald Trump to help him uphold a few of his campaign promises:
Very much in the former camp, Garner acknowledged that some of her friends “want to turn their back to this administration . . . [and] just wouldn’t even want to engage.” Not her. “If he’s willing to help the poor kids who got him elected, then let’s do it. They certainly think he’s going to,” she said.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 28, 2017 3 Comments
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai took his war on net neutrality to Europe for the Mobil World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. He told his counterparts that the rules implemented under former President Barack Obama closed off progress as the world becomes more dependent on technology:
"We are confident in the decades-long, cross-party consensus on light-touch Internet regulation — one that helped America’s digital economy thrive," Pai said. "Our approach will be not zero regulation, but light-touch regulation — rules backed by long-standing principles of competition law."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 28, 2017 8 Comments
The White House has drawn a significant amount of criticism for poor communication. In an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump took responsibility for the communication problems.
Trump, in an interview with “Fox & Friends,” specifically cited his immigration policy, and said that perhaps the rollout of his plan to keep out and remove criminal illegals hadn’t been communicated effectively. “And maybe that’s my fault,” Trump said. He later awarded himself a grade of a “C” or “C-plus” on communicating, straightforwardly saying, “My messaging isn’t good.” He clarified that he would give himself an "A" for achievement and "A-plus" for effort.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 28, 2017 29 Comments
Former President Barack Obama made no effort to stop states that voted to legalize recreational marijuana, but never took to steps legalize the drug at the federal level. Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggested he will undo everything Obama did:
“We have a responsibility to use our best judgment … and my view is we don’t need to be legalizing marijuana,” he said at the winter meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General. “I’m dubious about marijuana. I’m not sure we’re going to be a better, healthier nation if we have marijuana sold at every corner grocery store.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 28, 2017 32 Comments
The story goes a little something like this: Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway was taking a photo of Presidents of traditionally black colleges during their meeting with President Trump. To do so, she was awkwardly positioned on the couch. She leaned back to check the photos she'd taken, feet on the couch. The AFP snapped a photo. And then the internet lost its mind. The photo:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 28, 2017 13 Comments
In a recent post, we highlighted the mountains of garbage left behind by pro-environment protesters of the Dakota Pipeline. Now there's a new development in the story which is more upsetting. Dogs and puppies have been abandoned at the site. FOX 6 in North Dakota reported:
“Extremely sad:” Volunteers rescue dogs, puppies seemingly abandoned at DAPL protest camps It was a hectic week as law enforcement officials worked to clear the Oceti Sakowin protest camp in North Dakota. As officers moved in, and protesters moved out, garbage wasn’t the only thing abandoned.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 28, 2017 4 Comments
The Chief of European border agency Frontex has accused non-government organisations (NGOs) of encouraging migrant traffickers. The 'rescue operations' by European NGOs off the North African coast are putting lives at risk, as they encourage traffickers to "put even more migrants onto unseaworthy boats with little water and fuel", Frontex Chief Fabrice Leggeri told the German newspaper DIE WELT. With East European countries like Hungary and Croatia closing the Balkan route -- the main passage for migrant influx into Germany and Central Europe -- by securing their borders, traffickers are increasingly turning to North African country of Libya as bridgehead for crossing into Europe.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 28, 2017 12 Comments
During the Obama era, many taxpayers had to trim back discretionary expenses for luxury items, like gym memberships. However, some of our government bureaucrats enjoyed those perks...using our tax dollars. A detailed audit of expenditures for 2016 revealed that the EPA's money management was polluted by improper purchases.
Environmental Protection Agency employees used their government purchase cards to spend $14,985 on fitness memberships, according to an audit by the inspector general of the agency. With the goal of assessing the risk of illegal, improper, and erroneous purchases made on the EPA's purchase card, the auditors evaluated 18 transactions totaling $48,345 and found that none of them complied with any of the internal controls that were tested.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 28, 2017 7 Comments
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may finally have his #2 man at the department. The Wall Street Journal has reported former Utah Governor and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has become one of the top contenders. Originally, Tillerson wanted Elliott Abrams, an official in the state department under President Ronald Reagan, but after learnings Abrams criticized Trump during the campaign, Trump said no.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 27, 2017 21 Comments
I didn't watch the Oscars. Why would I want to watch smug people who hate me congratulate themselves on how great they are? I'd rather vomit blood. Maybe that's not a fair analogy. I'd rather crawl on my stomach over hot coals covered with broken glass. Yeah, that's the ticket. I wasn't alone, as viewership hit a 9-year low, just a little more than half the audience in 1998. I was aware, however, that the NY Times planned to run a pretentious ad called "Truth" as a retort to Donald Trumps hits on fake news and, particularly, the NY Times.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 27, 2017 0 Comments
Donald Trump's offhanded comment about immigration problems in Sweden was met with two reactions. First, deception. Much of the media and many political opponents invented the fake claim that Trump referred to a terror incident that happened the night before. It was a lie, as the transcript showed, NBC Falsely Suggests Trump Talked of ‘Terror Incident’ in Sweden. While Trump may not have used the most clear language, he clearly didn't mention either specifically or in general a terror incident happening the night before. I understood what he was referring to when he mentioned something last night -- it was a Fox News report on a video about immigration problems in Sweden. Second, Trump was attacked, including by the Swedish government, for relying on a video report that allegedly exaggerated the problems. As we reported, the filmmaker stood by his video, Filmmaker Confirms Numbers on Refugees And Crime in Sweden. Here is the original video, which featured Swedish Jewish reporter Annika Hernroth-Rothstein:

Posted by Miriam Elman on February 27, 2017 4 Comments
Breaking the Silence (BtS)—Shovrim Shtika in Hebrew—is a group of Israeli veterans who collect and disseminate ‘testimonies’ of alleged breaches of military ethics which they claim were witnessed and perpetrated by soldiers while they were serving in the West Bank and Gaza. BtS activists present themselves as patriotic Zionists who love their country. They also defend their organization as a whistleblower that works to keep the state moral by speaking out against IDF atrocities committed against Palestinians. But the reality is that BtS has long been discredited as a fringe group that acts to “fuel BDS.” The group once garnered a fair share of admirers during its formative years. Today it’s rejected by most of the Israeli mainstream public.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 27, 2017 28 Comments
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes announced there is no evidence of communication between President Donald Trump's team and Russian officials:
“There is no evidence that I’ve been presented [by the intelligence community] of regular contact with anybody in the Trump campaign,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters. “The way it sounds like to me is, it’s been looked into and there’s no evidence of anything there.”
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