March 28, 2017

"The WH will direct government agencies to root out all rules, all policies, and guidance documents

The HORROR of the this Trump Adm is just beginning.






@AdamsFlaFan? @AdamsFlaFan 29m29 minutes ago

Trump’s environmental executive order is everything we feared. http://grist.org/briefly/trumps-environmental-executive-order-is-everything-we-feared/ … via @grist



https://twitter.com/AdamsFlaFan/status/846697720245092352


REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump’s environmental executive order is everything we feared.

A senior White House official confirmed that President Trump will start rolling back key Obama-era climate policies on Tuesday. The executive order is aimed at sweeping away the Clean Power Plan, methane regulations, mining restrictions on federal land, and, well, you name it.

The White House will direct government agencies to root out “all rules, all policies, and guidance documents that serve as obstacles or impediments to domestic energy production,” according to the official who spoke on background during a conference call with reporters Monday evening.

“Energy independence,” said the official. “That’s the goal.” (For the record, the United States is already pretty independent, importing about 11 percent of its energy.)
..................

As details started to leak out after the conference call, environmental organizations were up in arms. The World Resources Institute called the impending order a “sledgehammer to U.S. climate action.”

...........................
Emma Foehringer Merchant 10 hours ago

March 28, 2017

Trumps environmental executive order is everything we feared.

@AdamsFlaFan? @AdamsFlaFan 29m29 minutes ago

Trump’s environmental executive order is everything we feared. http://grist.org/briefly/trumps-environmental-executive-order-is-everything-we-feared/ … via @grist



https://twitter.com/AdamsFlaFan/status/846697720245092352


REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump’s environmental executive order is everything we feared.

A senior White House official confirmed that President Trump will start rolling back key Obama-era climate policies on Tuesday. The executive order is aimed at sweeping away the Clean Power Plan, methane regulations, mining restrictions on federal land, and, well, you name it.

The White House will direct government agencies to root out “all rules, all policies, and guidance documents that serve as obstacles or impediments to domestic energy production,” according to the official who spoke on background during a conference call with reporters Monday evening.

“Energy independence,” said the official. “That’s the goal.” (For the record, the United States is already pretty independent, importing about 11 percent of its energy.)
..................

As details started to leak out after the conference call, environmental organizations were up in arms. The World Resources Institute called the impending order a “sledgehammer to U.S. climate action.”

When a reporter asked about green groups threatening to sue, the administration seemed unfazed. “I’m sure they’ll disagree, but what’s your point?” the official said. “When it comes to dealing with climate change, we want to take our own course and do it in our own form and fashion.”
...........................
Emma Foehringer Merchant 10 hours ago

March 28, 2017

Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu, Mocks Jeff Sessions After AG Announces Attack on Sanctuary Cities

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/democratic_congressman_mocks_jeff_sessions_after_ag_announces_attack_on_sanctuary_cities?recruiter_id=2&utm_content=buffer2c3c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer





Democratic Congressman Mocks Jeff Sessions After AG Announces Attack on Sanctuary Cities


by David Badash


March 27, 2017 5:18 PM


'Sessions Is an Illegitimate AG'

U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu took to Twitter Monday afternoon to remind Americans that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied to his fellow Senators during his confirmation hearings. Earlier Monday Sessions delivered an unexpected announcement, telling reporters the Dept. of Justice will force cities and states to certify they are not sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants.

"Dear States," Rep. Lieu, a Democrat from California, said on Twitter. "I'm thinking that since it's OK for AG Sessions to lie under oath to Congress, then it's OK for you to lie to him on your forms," he tweeted.

In January Attorney General Sessions' apparent lie to the Senate Judiciary Committee came under intense scrutiny. Sessions had claimed he was unaware of anyone from the Trump campaign having met with Russian officials. As America later learned, just a few weeks ago, Sessions himself had at least two meetings with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S.

At least 65 lawmakers demanded action, including many calling for Sessions to resign. Others called for him to recuse himself from any investigations into the Trump campaign, which he did......................................................



https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/846464300755664896




And a few of the many replies:


MT Nestor👁👂👃👇? @MTNestor08 16h16 hours ago

@JacobCayanus JS lied under oath & has to go. Demand it. (202) 759-0464 dials Reps & Senators for u. Hitting (*) after ea call dials next 1




Bongmaster? @jerweber 16h16 hours ago

@tedlieu Sessions perjured himself, Trump is under FBI investigation and has a 36% approval. Why should we take them seriously?

March 28, 2017

Here are your GOP'ers who are OPPOSED to #IndependentInvestigation-CALL THEM PLEASE..

1st Officer Spock
🖖? @MrSpock2017

Here are your GOP'ers who are OPPOSED to #IndependentInvestigation on #TrumpRussia

If they are yours, call them.

#TheResistance


https://twitter.com/MrSpock2017/status/846207745753780225

March 28, 2017

Hillary Clintons comeback tour to include a speech at Georgetown

Hillary has a lot of good she can and will do for folks left in her.
GREAT pic with that banner behind her.




Hillary Clinton’s comeback tour to include a speech at Georgetown

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/03/27/hillary-clintons-comeback-tour-to-include-a-speech-at-georgetown/?utm_term=.8e69d8fe264b

By Emily Heil March 27 at 8:46 AM


https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=480

Hillary Clinton’s post-election agenda is looking familiar. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)



Out of the woods, indeed — Hillary Clinton said earlier this month that she’s ready to return to public life after a post-election-loss respite that included lots of strolls in her home town of Chappaqua, N.Y., and her don’t-call-it-a-comeback tour will include a speech Friday at Georgetown University.

Clinton will talk about the role of women in securing last year’s Colombian peace agreement at a ceremony for an award named in her honor by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. That’s a topic close to her — as secretary of state, she supported the historic accord between the Colombian government and rebels that ended decades of violence.

And her appearance hints that her post-election agenda will look a lot like the one she championed as first lady, a senator and as SecState: focusing on women and girls around the world and their often-unsung role in the peace process.

Of course, the venue is an ultra-friendly one — Clinton is the institute’s founding chair, and its executive director is Melanne Verveer, Clinton’s longtime aide and confidante, who was her chief of staff in the White House and later was appointed first U.S. ambassador at large for global women’s issues....................

March 28, 2017

Three burglars entered an Oklahoma home. The owners son opened fire with an AR-15, deputies say.

These kids did wrong-very wrong. And the young women who turned herself in. 3 young lives gone and one probably facing long prison term.

Something seems out of place here. Self defense says the article. I wonder if he gave warning shots first. Just seems so horrible.




Three burglars entered an Oklahoma home. The owner’s son opened fire with an AR-15, deputies say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/28/three-burglars-entered-an-oklahoma-home-the-owners-son-opened-fire-with-an-ar-15-deputies-say/?tid=pm_national_pop&utm_term=.00835d171b99



By Ben Guarino March 28 at 2:52 AM

Law enforcement officers investigate the scene of a failed robbery that led to the death of three men who broke into the house in Broken Arrow, Okla. (Ian Maule/Tulsa World via AP)

Gunfire rang out Monday afternoon in a home in Broken Arrow, an Oklahoma city 15 miles southeast of Tulsa. Three intruders were killed after the son of the homeowner fired a semiautomatic rifle in what local law enforcement officers later described as an act of self-defense, though their investigation remains open.

The intruders — a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old and a man thought to be 18 or 19 — had smashed open the back door of the house, the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted to Facebook. Their plan was burglary, authorities said.

They wore gloves, masks and all-black clothes, Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney told Tulsa World. Two of the teenagers were armed, one with a knife and the other with brass knuckles.

The trio reportedly exchanged words with the 23-year-old son of the homeowner, whose name has also not been released. He fired on them with an AR-15, a popular semiautomatic rifle, officials told Fox 23....................



http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/three-dead-after-broken-arrow-area-homeowner-s-son-shoots/article_64c15c80-0019-56d6-9322-c1b93c0ff5d0.html

.......................The homeowner and the son, who reportedly did not know the intruders, went to the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office to submit formal statements. Mahoney said the shootings appear to have been in self-defense, but he clarified that the case will remain under investigation for some time.

The fatal shootings could be viewed by prosecutors as falling under Oklahoma’s “Make My Day” law, which says a resident has the right to use deadly force if an intruder has entered or is in the process of entering the resident’s home.

March 28, 2017

Tuesday News: Trump Declares War on Environment; Nunes Must Recuse; Perriello, Northam Tied in New

All of these stories have embedded links.



Tuesday News: Trump Declares War on Environment; Nunes Must Recuse; Perriello, Northam Tied in New Poll


http://bluevirginia.us/2017/03/tuesday-news-trump-declares-war-environment-nunes-must-recuse-perriello-northam-tied-new-poll


March 28, 2017 53


by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, March 28.

Trump moves decisively to wipe out Obama’s climate-change record (Possibly THE single worst thing Trump will do as President, and that’s saying a lot!)


Nunes’s secret White House visit on Trump surveillance files triggers calls for recusal

Trump, Ryan differ on how much relief to offer the middle class in tax-code overhaul (“President Trump wants a tax cut across the board, according to the plan he published during the campaign. But House Speaker Paul Ryan and colleagues have put forward a plan that would not substantially reduce taxes for the middle class, and many households would pay more.”)
Gorsuch may fall short of votes needed for smooth Supreme Court confirmation

..............MORE>......

March 28, 2017

House Intel Chair Devin Nuness One-Man War on the Pentagon

I wanted to know more about Nunes so started reading some articles about him.


Very informative article. Nunes really did not back down on trying to keep this isolated base simply because of his families ancestry ties to the islands. He uses his influence anyway he can.



http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421842/devin-nunes-pentagon-fight-lajes-air-force-base




House Intel Chair Devin Nunes’s One-Man War on the Pentagon Nunes (left) and Paul Ryan in committee, March 2014. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty)


by Brendan Bordelon July 31, 2015 4:00 AM @brendanbordelon



The powerful Republican is battling the DoD to move a massive intelligence complex to an isolated island in the Azores, at a reported extra cost of $1.2 billion. Why?



Air-traffic controllers waved off the plane carrying Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) and several congressmen from the House Intelligence Committee as it descended toward the single runway at Lajes Field, a sleepy U.S. Air Force base perched along a windswept Azores island 1,000 miles from the European mainland. High winds sweeping in from the sea prevented the plane from landing, and the delegation was hastily diverted to an airstrip on a neighboring island 80 miles away.


After months of wrangling with the Defense Department, Nunes and his fellow lawmakers had come to Lajes last May to urge American officials to reverse a planned downsizing of the base. The lawmakers wanted Pentagon officials to instead move a massive, strategically vital intelligence center planned for the United Kingdom to the isolated mid-Atlantic base. The officials objected, citing a cost increase of $1.2 billion and serious operational and logistical concerns, including the base’s single runway and the area’s inclement weather, which the congressmen had experienced just the day before.



An after-action report from a Defense Department engineer shows that the group from Washington wouldn’t take no for an answer. “A few of the members and staffers were very confrontational,” the report reads. “One quote that was repeated several times was, ‘This is going to happen [relocating the intelligence facility to Lajes]. You better jump on board the train or you are going to get run over by it.’”



The incident was another skirmish in the increasingly nasty war between Nunes and his allies in Congress and a group of top Pentagon officials over the fate of the obscure airbase. As chairman of the powerful Intelligence Committee, Nunes has brought the full weight of his influence to bear on the issue, inserting provisions in four separate defense bills that would stop work on the planned U.K. base and accusing the DoD of “lying” about the intelligence complex’s Lajes price tag. Recently, the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into how the military calculated the estimated cost of basing the project in the Azores.


“These are just clueless Pentagon lackeys, bureaucrats that are spewing out garbage,” Nunes tells National Review.



Nunes’s opponents question the motivations behind his fight. The congressman has close ties to the Azores; as the descendant of Azorean immigrants, a major celebrity in Portugal, and a frequent contact of the Portuguese government, he’s led the opposition to the plan to downsize Lajes from day one. The fight began in 2012, when the Defense Department decided to reduce its footprint at the mid-Atlantic stopover, now averaging just two flights a day. “Those guys are just sitting around out there,” one DoD official says....................

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421842/devin-nunes-pentagon-fight-lajes-air-force-base

March 28, 2017

Lacking E.M.T.s, an Aging Maine Turns to Immigrants

It is great to see good things happening in the U.S.






Lacking E.M.T.s, an Aging Maine Turns to Immigrants


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/us/maine-immigrants-emergency-medical-technicians.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEMARCH 27, 2017






Photo
Ghislaine Bola, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, allowed fellow students to practice spinal immobilization techniques during training at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland. The state is hoping that immigrants can fill some critical medical positions. Credit Tristan Spinski for The New York Times

SOUTH PORTLAND, Me. — Jolly Ntirumenyerwa ran her fingers over the stethoscope that she had slung around her neck. It was a comforting connection to her career as a physician in her home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she worked in emergency medicine.

Her credentials did not transfer when she moved to the United States in 2012, and she could not work as a doctor. So, she took jobs as a health aide in an assisted living facility.

Now, thanks to an unusual program that is training immigrants to become emergency medical technicians, she is preparing to make better use of her medical background and, she hopes, work her way up to becoming a physician assistant if not, someday, a doctor.

“I want to do what I was trained to do,” Ms. Ntirumenyerwa, 37, said the other day as she took a break from her E.M.T. class, being conducted in a cavernous ambulance bay at Southern Maine Community College. “I put in a lot of years training to be a physician, and I don’t want to throw them away.”.............................

March 28, 2017

Ailing Vermont Town Pins Hopes on Mideast Refugees

Ailing Vermont Town Pins Hopes on Mideast Refugees


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/syria-iraq-refugees-vermont-rutland-plan.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

By JESS BIDGOODJAN. 2, 2017



Photo
Residents of Rutland, Vt., from left, Elizabeth Hinterberger, Nan Dubin, Eszter Tóth and Bayan Alsairy, are learning Arabic to communicate with the 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees who might move to their city soon. Credit Jacob Hannah for The New York Times

RUTLAND, Vt. — They hustled into the church on a biting winter evening, unburdened themselves of scarves and gloves, and settled into pews to sound out words in Arabic.

“Ahlan fii Rutland,” said Fran Knapp, a retiree who lives about 20 minutes away, one of two or three dozen people who have attended a class here on rudimentary Arabic.

Welcome to Rutland.

It was one of many preparations this remote city in central Vermont is making before 100 refugees from Syria and Iraq arrive here over the next year, with the first expected to come later this month.


The plan’s fiercest advocate has been the mayor of Rutland, Christopher Louras, who has cited not the moral argument for resettling refugees, but an economic one: This shrinking city, long removed from its heyday as a marble producer and regional railroad hub, needs every new resident it can get. Syrian refugees, he has said, are an opportunity.

“Rutland’s demographic condition right now is not just one of a declining population, but it’s also a graying population,” said Mr. Louras, who became the mayor about 10 years ago as a Republican, but has since become an independent. “We need people,” he added.

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