A group of California’s top Democratic lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill targeting 2016 presidential candidates Donald Trump and
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
96%
after Trump made controversial comments about illegal immigrants from Mexico, and Cruz defended him.
The resolution notes, in part:
Resolved, That the Senate condemns in the strongest terms possible the racist rhetoric against immigrant families made by Presidential candidate
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
96%
; and be it further
Resolved, That the Senate condemns in the strongest terms possible the racist rhetoric against immigrant families made by Presidential candidate Donald Trump; and be it further
Resolved, That the Senate calls upon the State of California to divest from Donald Trump, The Trump Organization, and any affiliated entities; and be it further
Resolved, That the Senate calls upon private businesses and individuals throughout California to end all business ties with Donald Trump, The Trump Organization, and any affiliated entities; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
“The state of California will not stand for this type of racist rhetoric and racist behavior. Today we stand and call upon the state of California to dump Trump!” Sen. Isadore Hall III (D-Compton), who co-authored the resolution (SR 39), said outside of the Senate chambers, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Donald Trump enjoyed a surge in the polls after his allegedly "racist" remarks about how all that diversity from South of the Border is not all it's cracked up to be. The brash real-estate tycoon and TV star has struck a nerve, saying things that America's political elites would never publicly admit, with two notable exceptions being Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Both said Trump had made some good points, even if they were expressed in less than diplomatic terms. Trump's surge in the polls is being fueled by ordinary Americans. They are applauding or murmuring quiet approval because they probably live in areas that have gotten massive influxes of immigrants -- the majority from Mexico -- over the last decade or two. They know what the score is; that diversity has failed to provide the benefits that political elites said it would. They've seen public schools overwhelmed with non-English speakers, dumbed down, social problems increase, and crime go up -- and it all seems to have a Hispanic face as millions upon millions of immigrants have flooded over the border. Now at long last, they see Trump telling it like it is -- even if his remarks were undiplomatic and, well, not all that presidential. Trump says many Mexican immigrants are losers -- part of Mexico's social problems that the country's elites are glad to “dump” on America. “When Mexico sends it's people, they are not sending its best,” Trump said. True or false? Short answer: True. Most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, are high school or grade-school dropouts, according to the data; and their offspring continue to be underachievers. On the later point, Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington revealed some disquieting statistics in his must-read book, "Who Are We: The Challenges to America’s National Identity." Citing statistics from the 1990 census, Huntington noted that high percentages of Mexican-Americans, from one generation to the next, lack high school diplomas. The first generation without diplomas was 69.9%; the second generation, 51.5%; the third generation, 33.0%; and fourth generation, 41.9%. That last figure, incidentally, isn't a typo. The fourth generation is less educated than the third. So much for assimilation. Those dropout rates are far higher than America's overall dropout rate: 23.5% for all Americans, except Mexican-Americans. Via: American Thinker Continue Reading....
WASHINGTON — Republicans who started off viewing Donald Trump as an amusing sideshow are starting to fret that the real-estate billionaire is becoming the main event.
Since he defied skeptics and launched his presidential bid last month, Trump has rocketed in the polls, dominated media coverage and helped steer the debate on issues.
“I don’t know that he even knows how far he takes this,” former New York GOP Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who is close to GOP candidate and ex-Gov. George Pataki, told The Post. “He has the wherewithal . . . He has put together a pretty wholesale ground force in New Hampshire, and that has to be taken seriously.”
Trump accounted for a stunning 48 percent of all social-media and traditional-media conversation about politics over the last week, according to analytics group Zignal labs for The Washington Post. Trump had 1.9 million mentions, compared with just 448,000 for top Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Trump’s presidential rivals at first steered clear of his controversial comments about Mexican “rapists” pouring into the country — although several took opportunities in the last week to distance themselves from Trump. The pushback doesn’t seem to have hurt Trump, who continues to poll strongly and is assured a spot in next month’s Republican debate on Fox.
Trump told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday he had “nothing to apologize for” and credits himself with raising the immigration issue in the campaign.
Trump’s success in early polling is undeniable.
He even leads the latest North Carolina poll, by Public Policy Polling, with 16 percent. He’s second to Jeb Bush in the latest CNN national poll and is also running second in Iowa.
After an astonishingly quick vote, South Carolina’s lawmakers voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state house grounds. Republican Gov. Nikki Haley signed the removal into law on Thursday afternoon.
UPDATE — 10:15 a.m. ET: Oh, hey, it came down in less than five minutes. Here’s the full video of the ceremony, via Fox News:
Gun rights groups are criticizing part of the Washington, D.C., gun carry law that bans firearms on public transit within the city after a man was stabbed to death on a Metro train on Saturday.
The National Rifle Association (NRA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) expressed their opposition to the ban in the wake of a 4th of July murder on the Metro’s red line. As the train approached the NoMa-Gallaudet station, Jasper Spires stabbed Kevin Joseph Sutherland as many as 40 times, killing him.
The NRA warned that the incident was likely to be repeated until D.C. removes the ban.
“With so many threats in the nation’s capital, the fact that the District of Columbia government continues to deny residents and visitors the right to protect themselves is a travesty,” NRA spokesman Lars Dalseide said. “We’ll continue to hear stories like this until the District of Columbia affords every law-abiding citizen their constitutional right to self protection.”
When asked if the city was reviewing its ban, a Metro Police Department spokesman referred the Free Beacon to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D.).
Mendelson told the Free Beacon that the Council has no plans to change the law, and appeared to place the burden for that decision on the Metro system, known officially as the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
“There are no amendments to the law being considered at this time,” said Mendelson in an email. “The law, as revised last fall, gives property owners the right to prohibit carrying on their premises. WMATA contacted the Council prior to our action on the legislation last fall to ask that their premises be off-limits to carrying. WMATA (busses, rail, etc.) was then added to the list. If we were to act to remove WMATA from the list, the effect would be unaffected.”
Mendelson did not respond immediately to a request for clarification about how removing Metro from the list of officially prohibited locations in D.C. law would leave the legal status quo unaffected, as his e-mail seemed to suggest.
The Second Amendment Foundation, which brought the case that forced D.C. to allow gun carry, said the Metro ban is a symptom of a larger problem.
“Gun free zones like the District of Columbia’s public transit system are really victim disarmament zones and a magnet for violent criminals to prey on unarmed people who have no means of protecting themselves,” SAF founder Alan Gottlieb said.
The Virginia Citizen Defense League, a leading gun rights group with a number of members that commute into the city for work, said bans such as this one encourage killings.
“Anytime a law-abiding citizen is denied the right to self defense, as D.C. has done in this case, it creates an environment ripe for such tragedies, as well as encouraging future mass killings,” VCDL president Philip Van Cleave said. “Gun-free zones are never gun-free for the criminals, who respect no laws, but only for the good, decent people, who are then setup to become victims.”
U.S. personnel chief Katherine Archuleta resigned Friday in the wake of massive data breach that allowed hackers to steal the records of more than 21 million people under her watch, Fox News confirmed.
Archuleta submitted her resignation to President Obama Friday morning. Her resignation is effective at the close of business today.
She will be replaced by Beth Cobert, who currently works in the White House budget office, White House sources told Fox News.
"This is the absolute right call,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in a written statement following the announcement. “OPM needs a competent, technically savvy leader to manage the biggest cybersecurity crisis in this nation's history. The IG has been warning about security lapses at OPM for almost a decade. This should have been addressed much, much sooner but I appreciate the President doing what's best now.”
Calls for Archuleta to go grew in recent weeks following a massive government data breach on her watch.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Archuleta had rebuffed demands that she resign, telling reporters she had no intention of leaving and that her agency was doing everything it could to address concerns about the safety of data in its hands.
But on Friday morning, Archuleta told Obama it was best for her to step aside to let new leadership respond to the recent breaches and to improve systems to lessen risks in the future.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted Friday that Archuleta submitted her resignation at her own volition, and added it is "quite clear" to the president that new leadership at OPM is desperately needed.
In a statement, Archuleta made no direct reference to the data breach, saying only that she believed it was best to allow the agency to "move beyond the current challenges." She praised the agency's employees as "some of the most dedicated, capable and hardworking individuals in the federal government."
"I have complete confidence in their ability to continue fulfill OPM's important mission of recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class workforce to serve the American people," Archuleta said.
Archuleta's position appeared to become unsustainable given the scope of the data breach and the mounting calls from lawmakers in both parties for her to resign. On Thursday, within hours of the Obama administration releasing new details about the scope of the breach, House Republican leaders demanded new leadership in the agency, and a number of Democrats followed.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Archuleta's resignation "will help to restore confidence in an agency that not only poorly defended sensitive data of millions of Americans but struggled to respond to repeated intrusions."
"This change in leadership is also an acknowledgement that we cannot simply place blame on the hackers, but need to take responsibility for the protection of personal information that is so obvious a target," Schiff said.
Since 2012 the government has spent nearly $2 million on a campaign to get women to nag the men in their lives to quit using smokeless tobacco.
The National Institutes of Health has sponsored a continuing grant for the Oregon Research Institute to “evaluate an innovative approach that encourages male smokeless tobacco users to quit by enlisting the support of their wives/partners, both to lead smokeless tobacco users to engage in treatment and to help them sustain abstinence.”
Researchers had already “established that women can be readily recruited” to get their husbands to quit chewing tobacco, but now the project is going a step further with a multimedia push that includes a website with an interactive and tailored support plan.
Researchers will conduct a randomized clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of the cessation program.
The program is raising eyebrows among taxpayer watchdogs, health advocates and activists on women’s issues, who see the expenditures as wasteful and gender pandering.
“American women don’t need the federal government spending money to get us to nag our husbands to stop using tobacco, we do that just fine on our own,” said Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, a conservative women’s group. “Even if it were a worthwhile effort, we are $18 trillion in debt. We simply can’t afford it.”
Added Richard Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, a spending watchdog: “One wonders if NIH has a companion grant program designed to teach dads how to cope with hostile environments in the household. With Congress in its annual appropriations season, defunding this unnecessary and destructive program should be an easy one.”
For using taxpayer dollars to recruit women for a task they are already quite capable of doing on their own, NIH wins this week’s Golden Hammer, a weekly distinction awarded by The Washington Times highlighting examples of wasteful federal spending.
NIH defended its research in an email to The Times, saying smokeless tobacco use has risen in certain populations and “positive support from a partner has been shown to be an important factor for effective quitting attempts.”
Santa Monica, CA—Californian drivers, who have paid an average of 74 cents more per gallon at the pump than drivers nationwide, have shelled out $4.5 billion more for their gasoline than US drivers from February to June, Consumer Watchdog said today.
The nonprofit group’s analysis is based on statewide consumption and the higher amount oil companies have charged Californians compared to the rest of the nation for gasoline from February to June, when refineries started going down and gasoline prices began spiking.
Consumer Watchdog reported the “gouging gap” has cost California consumers $214 million extra per week or $180 more per California driver thus far since February. Gasoline prices are expected to rise in coming days by 15 to 30 cents as oil refiners continue to keep California drivers on tight supplies and imports of gasoline grind to a stop.
Oil refiners reported banner first quarter profits from the higher California gas prices and the companies’ executives celebrated refinery outages and tight supplies in investor calls.
“California oil refiners have overcharged drivers billions using every trick in the book to keep gasoline prices high from unusually low inventories, historically high exports, suspicious refinery maintenance, and unprecedented pricing strategies at their branded stations,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. “Californians are paying unreasonably and artificially high prices and California’s oil refiners are getting rich off drivers’ pain at the pump.”
Last week Consumer Watchdog presented evidence to the California Attorney General that oil refiners were artificially manipulating gasoline prices by leveraging their branded gasoline station contracts. The Attorney General’s office has told the group it is now investigating the unusual pricing strategies by oil refiners.
President Barack Obama has presided over billions spent battling the Islamic State, despite, by his own admission, lacking a clear and complete strategy to defeat the terror group.
War against Islamic State has cost a total of $2.91 billion, averaging $9.2 million per day, according to the Pentagon. More than 50 percent of the cost is directly tied to airstrikes, The Hill reports.
Republican Sen. John McCain has criticized the campaign against Islamic State as too weak, noting that 75 percent of airstrike missions return without firing a weapon. Speaking on CBS’s “Face The Nation” in late May, McCain said, “We need more troops on the ground. We need forward air controllers. But just referring to airstrikes, do you know that 75 percent of those combat missions return to base without having fired a weapon? It’s because we don’t have somebody on the ground who can identify … a moving target. … We found in Vietnam that if you don’t have the right strategy, airpower is minimal in its effect.”
In Syria, a $500 million program to train and equip rebels against Islamic State is stagnant. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter admitted the program has only produced 60 Syrian trainees, attributing it to a strict vetting process. Originally, U.S. officials hoped to ready 5,400 rebels per year, The Associated Press report
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is delaying an Obamacare regulation requiring restaurants to display calorie information until December 2016 after businesses complained they did not have sufficient time to comply with the complex rules.
The FDA’s rule, which is the latest Obamacare regulation to be delayed, went into detail on whether pumpkin spice muffins should be labeled, but remained vague as to what the definition of a menu is, was set to take effect on Dec. 1.
“The Food and Drug Administration … is extending the compliance date for the final rule requiring disclosure of certain nutrition information for standard menu items in certain restaurants and retail food establishments,” the agency said in a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Friday.
“We are taking this action in response to requests for an extension and for further clarification of the rule’s requirements,” the FDA said.
The 319-page regulation, mandated by Obamacare, is estimated to cost industry $1.7 billion to comply. The rule requires restaurant chains with 20 or more stores to list calorie information for nearly every food item, and a “succinct statement” that “2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice, but calorie needs vary,” on each menu board.
Vending machines must also display calorie information, though that part of the regulation was already set to take effect in December 2016.
Violations of the regulation can carry civil and criminal penalties, of up to a $1,000 fine, one year in prison, or both.
Domino’s, a leading critic of the rule claimed that it is “impossible to comply” with its requirements, said the delay is not enough to fix the regulation.
“FDA’s delay confirms both the serious deficiencies in the final rules and the urgent need for enactment of the bipartisan Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act (H.R. 2017),” said Lynn Liddle, executive vice president of Domino’s and chair of the American Pizza Community, in a statement. “Unfortunately, FDA proceeded with an approach to final rules that impose significant compliance costs without achieving any meaningful improvements in consumer education.”
“After years of uncertainty, FDA still has not addressed basic questions regarding implementation,” she said.
The proposed legislation, sponsored by House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), would give businesses greater flexibility in how to display calorie information. The bill would allow companies where the majority of their orders are carryout and delivery, such as pizza chains, to display the information online.
The Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act also clarifies that an advertisement, coupon, flyer, window display, or post on social media is not a menu, which the regulation implied. The rule defined a menu as anything “used by a customer to make an order selection at the time the customer is viewing the writing.”
“The FDA’s self-admission that these regulations are unclear, unpractical, and unworkable is welcome, but a one-year delay doesn’t change the underlying problem on the books—a one-size-fits-all, 400-page regulation that is nearly impossible to follow,” Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers told the Washington Free Beacon. “Providing consumers accurate, clear, consistent nutritional information is everyone’s priority, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of commonsense.”
The FDA said they received “numerous requests asking us to further interpret portions of the final rule” since it was finalized last year. Businesses asked for more time due to the need to change all of their menus, and train staff.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration appreciates and takes very seriously the extensive input it has received from stakeholders throughout the process of establishing requirements for menu labeling in restaurants and other retail food establishments,” FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine Michael R. Taylor said. “The FDA is committed to working collaboratively with those establishments covered by the menu labeling final rule, including chain restaurants, covered grocery stores, and others to facilitate timely and efficient implementation of the new requirements.”
The FDA is still planning to issue a “draft guidance document” to businesses further clarifying the rules and will “provide educational and technical assistance for the covered businesses and for our state, local, and tribal regulatory partners to support reasonable and consistent compliance nationwide.”
A former chief strategist for Howard Dean, whose 2004 presidential hopes plummeted from rock star status to also-ran, predicts a similar fate for the Democratic darling of the moment, Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“There’s a big difference between 10,000 at a rally and turning out 3,500 caucus attenders on a cold winter night in Iowa. I suspect Bernie Sanders will learn the difference in February,” said Steve McMahon, Dean’s one-time top strategist. “His crowds are enthusiastic and large and fun to watch, but the question is whether they will be effective in the long run.”
Large crowds don’t necessarily translate into delegate support, McMahon said.
“Bernie Sanders needs to move the crowds into action and organize grass-roots support in the early states and so far, I haven’t seen any evidence that that’s occurring,” he said. “He doesn’t seem to be running a grass-roots campaign. It’s a campaign based on big crowds.”
The Summer of Sanders has seen the self-described socialist surge from nearly 50 points behind the Democratic front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to within 15 points, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of polls.
Sanders’ aides had to scramble to find a new venue to accommodate more than 7,500 screaming supporters Monday as a planned town hall morphed into a roaring rally in Portland, Maine.
Sanders also recently played to 10,000 fans in Madison, Wis.
“He is drawing massive crowds in all sorts of places,” said Sean Trende, senior elections analyst at Real Clear Politics. “In an Internet age, there’s a segment that increasingly values authenticity. You saw that with Ron Paul. I think Sanders taps into that.”
Sanders has earned the backing of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s anti-Wall Street wing of the Democratic party — mostly young, white progressives — but faces a challenge courting black voters, who have supported Clinton in the past, Trende said.
The 73-year-old Sanders does well in neighboring New Hampshire as a folk hero firebrand, but he likely will run out of steam, said Peter Hoe Burling, a former New Hampshire delegate for the Democratic National Committee.
“People talk about Howard Dean’s yowl, but the fact of the matter is, that campaign had peaked at a certain point,” Burling said. “It went as far as it was going to go and there’s the chance Bernie’s campaign is going to peak as well. In my mind, his campaign will peak at some point prior to the New Hampshire primary.”
Sanders can’t win in big states with deep reserves of delegates such as New York and California, said Matt Bennett, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist and Clinton supporter.
“He may do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, but he runs into a brick wall after that,” Bennett said.
“He’s not going to have the money or organization to challenge Secretary Clinton in multiple states at the same time on Super Tuesday,” Bennett said.
Sanders also could face high hurdles in the south, said Chip Felkel, a South Carolina-based Republican strategist not aligned with a presidential campaign.
“He’s been very impressive with what he’s been able to do crowd-wise and enthusiasm-wise,” he said. “I think that would carry over some in South Carolina, but he might be just plain too liberal for some of the Democrats around here.
“We’re just generally, even by national standards, more conservative in this state,” Felkel said.
“If he comes to South Carolina and has an impressive crowd, we’ll have to rethink that equation, but right now, I just don’t see it,” he said.
