Category: Donald Trump

Journal Junction for December 21

I see where West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey wants to have EPA rules relaxed for coal surface mining, compared to saving our streams for drinking water, coal still seems to be the number one topic in getting this state going. Are we not smart enough to look for other industry to take its place? I still believe in saving the environment, not destroying it.

AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

A powerful chain-reaction explosion ripped through Mexico’s best-known fireworks market on the northern outskirts of the capital Tuesday, killing at least 29 people, injuring scores more and sending a huge plume of charcoal-gray smoke billowing into the sky. Video of the blast showed a dramatic staccato of rockets exploding in flashes of light, leveling the open-air San Pablito Market in Tultepec in Mexico State as it bustled with shoppers stocking up on fireworks to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s.

To thwart Trump, Obama bans new drilling in Arctic, Atlantic

US president Barack Obama has permanently banned new oil and gas drilling in most US-owned waters in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, a last-ditch effort to lock in environmental protections before he hands over to Donald Trump. Obama used a 1953 law that allows presidents to block the sale of new offshore drilling and mining rights and makes it difficult for their successors to reverse the decision.

Footage from The Apprentice shows Trump saying – every racist thing’

Actor and comedian said he received the material before last month’s election but he did not release it because of a confidentiality clause The actor Tom Arnold has claimed to have video of Donald Trump using racist language, obscenities and denigrating his own son in outtakes of The Apprentice . “I have the outtakes to The Apprentice where he says every bad thing ever, every offensive, racist thing ever.

Trump infrastructure plan might not materialize

Trump infrastructure plan might not materialize The president-elect has been backing down from his promises to repair America and create jobs. Check out this story on yorkdispatch.com: A worker lifts materials last month as construction continues on the new roadway deck of the Bayonne Bridge in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Inside the Beltway: Networks weaponize their Russian hack coverage

The big three broadcast networks still appear intently interested in President-elect Donald Trump , and not in a good way: “The broadcast networks treat accusations of Russian hacking very differently when they can use it as an angle to bash Trump,” says Mike Ciandella , an analyst for Newsbusters.org, a conservative press watchdog. He discovered a major discrepancy.

Obama bans offshore drilling in 115M more acres in Atlantic, Arctic

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he has removed hundreds of millions of acres of federal land in the Atlantic and Arctic from potential offshore oil and gas drilling — a move that could further complicate pledges made by President-elect Donald Trump to increase domestic oil production. Obama used the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect 115 million acres of land in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic, and offshore acreage from Massachusetts to Virginia in the Atlantic.

Half of Utahns like Trump’s cabinet picks but no one from the state chosen

Fifty percent of Utahns like what they’ve seen so far from President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet selections, even though no one from the state has yet made the cut, according to a new poll. The UtahPolicy.com poll found that half of Utahns are pleased with the president-elect’s choices for his new administration, while 36 percent say they are displeased, and 14 percent aren’t sure how they feel.

Michelle Obama tells Oprah that 2016 election ‘was painful’

In this June 14, 2016, file photo, first lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey have a discussion on Trailblazing the Path for the Next Generation of Women during the White House Summit on the United State of Women in Washington. Mrs. Obama sat down in The White House with Winfrey for a White House interview that was broadcast on CBS Dec. 19, 2016.

Obama expected to bar drilling in swaths of Atlantic, Arctic

President Barack Obama has designated the bulk of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean as indefinitely off limits to future oil and gas leasing. The move on Tuesday helps put some finishing touches on Obama’s environmental legacy while also testing President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to unleash the nation’s untapped energy reserves.

Trump interviewing candidates for remaining cabinet posts

President-elect Donald Trump spent his Tuesday holed up at his Mar-a-Lago estate in southern Florida meeting with candidates for his unfilled cabinet and cabinet-level positions, including prospective hires to run the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Trump met Luis Quinonez, who runs a company with military and healthcare ties, and Toby Cosgrove, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. Both are thought to be candidates to be the next VA secretary.

Trump interviewing candidates for remaining cabinet posts

President-elect Donald Trump spent his Tuesday holed up at his Mar-a-Lago estate in southern Florida meeting with candidates for his unfilled cabinet and cabinet-level positions, including prospective hires to run the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Trump met Luis Quinonez, who runs a company with military and healthcare ties, and Toby Cosgrove, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. Both are thought to be candidates to be the next VA secretary.

Trump Seen Paying Off for Putin With Sanctions Relief Next Year 18 minutes ago

The U.S. will start easing its penalties, imposed over the showdown in Ukraine in 2014, during the next 12 months, according to 55 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg survey, up from 10 percent in an October poll. Without the restrictions, Russia’s economic growth would get a boost equivalent to 0.2 percentage point of gross domestic product next year and 0.5 percentage point in 2018, according to the median estimates in the poll.  Donald Trump’s surprise election in November is feeding expectations of a sea change in U.S. policy even after the European Union this week rolled over its economic penalties against Russia for an additional six months.

Trump Seen Paying Off for Putin With Sanctions Relief Next Year 18 minutes ago

The U.S. will start easing its penalties, imposed over the showdown in Ukraine in 2014, during the next 12 months, according to 55 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg survey, up from 10 percent in an October poll. Without the restrictions, Russia’s economic growth would get a boost equivalent to 0.2 percentage point of gross domestic product next year and 0.5 percentage point in 2018, according to the median estimates in the poll.  Donald Trump’s surprise election in November is feeding expectations of a sea change in U.S. policy even after the European Union this week rolled over its economic penalties against Russia for an additional six months.

Will Trump live up to his infrastructure promises?

Even as they maneuver for a share of the $1 trillion in spending Donald Trump promised to rebuild America’s roads, bridges and airports, lobbyists for transportation and utility industries are beginning to wonder whether Trump really meant what he said. From the day he formally entered the presidential race to the moment he declared victory, Trump pledged to rebuild the nation’s aging and inadequate infrastructure.

The Latest: McConnell says no to select panel on Russia

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is rejecting calls for a special Senate investigative committee focused on possible interference in U.S. elections by Russia and other countries. McConnell says a finding by U.S. intelligence officials that Moscow hacked Democratic emails in a bid to elevate Donald Trump “is a serious issue, but it doesn’t require a select committee.”

Coal mine rule draws GOP’s ire

The Obama administration Monday unveiled a new rule designed to protect streams and groundwater from coal mining, but the threat of a Republican-led challenge of the measure looms large after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The Interior Department said in a news release that the rule “updates 33-year-old regulations and establishes clear requirements for responsible surface coal mining that will protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests over the next two decades, preserving community health and economic opportunities while meeting the nation’s energy needs.”

Appraising Trump’s pick for secretary of state

Robert Gates served as defense secretary under George W. Bush, a Republican, and then Barack Obama, a Democrat, which qualifies him as an honest broker and independent thinker. How honest? He wrote in September that Donald Trump is “beyond repair” on national security, “stubbornly uninformed about the world” and “unfit to be commander-in-chief.”

[Peter Singer] The empathy trap

Soon after Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, he told a young girl, “We don’t have enough empathy in our world today, and it is up to your generation to change that.” Obama expressed a widespread view, so the title of a new book, “Against Empathy,” by Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom, comes as a shock.

U.S. Electoral College Finalizes Trump’s Victory

The Electoral College has finalized Republican Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president, rejecting a last-minute push by some Democrats to sway its members. The December 19 vote awarding Trump 304 of the 270 votes he needed to claim victory is the next-to-last step in the presidential election process, as laid out in the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

Could Angela Merkel save lives by outlawing Christmas?

In the wake of the news that most probably a radical Muslim has driven into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing at least twelve people and injuring dozens more , the question arises: should Germany outlaw Christmas? After all, it was a Christmas market that triggered the attacker. And even if the attacker wasn’t triggered by the Christmas holiday, such gatherings of Christians make them an easy target for Muslim attackers.

New York members of Electoral College vote for Clinton

New York’s 29 members of the Electoral College have cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, who won the state despite losing the presidential race to Republican Donald Trump. Among the electors gathered Monday in the state Capitol’s Senate chambers was former President Bill Clinton, who says he’s never been prouder of any vote.

Ray Dalio on Trump: ‘If you haven’t read Ayn Rand lately, I…

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund firm, says people should expect a major shift under President-elect Donald Trump. Regarding economics, if you haven’t read Ayn Rand lately, I suggest that you do as her books pretty well capture the mindset,” “It wants to, and probably will, shift the environment from one that makes profit makers villains with limited power to one that makes them heroes with significant power.