President Donald Trump’s administration proposed a new rule on Thursday to rescind onerous Obama-era gas mileage requirements.
Trump’s Environmental Protect Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a proposed rulemaking to adjust the automobile fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards to give Americans access to safer, cleaner, and ultimately, more affordable cars. The rulemaking will set the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) and light-duty vehicle greenhouse emissions standards for light trucks and will set the greenhouse gas and mileage standards for 2021-2026.
President Donald Trump signaled his support Thursday for work requirements for food stamps.
“When the House and Senate meet on the very important Farm Bill – we love our farmers – hopefully, they will be able to leave the WORK REQUIREMENTS FOR FOOD STAMPS PROVISION that the House approved,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The House version of the farm bill barely passed with a vote of 213-211 and included work requirements for single food stamp recipients. Democrats voted unanimously against the bill.
The House and the Senate have to take the bill to conference, however, which will likely strip the provision from the final bill to get past the 60 vote threshold.
Trump urged the Senate to end the filibuster and move the legislation forward.
“Senate should go to 51 votes!” he wrote.
The current Farm Bill expires September 30.
When the House and Senate meet on the very important Farm Bill – we love our farmers – hopefully they will be able to leave the WORK REQUIREMENTS FOR FOOD STAMPS PROVISION that the House approved. Senate should go to 51 votes!
WASHINGTON, DC – Wednesday marked the first day in 30 years of a Supreme Court without Justice Anthony Kennedy, with no noteworthy events from the Court’s final days aside from Monday’s order allowing a shockingly broad climate change lawsuit to proceed.
Kennedy joined the Supreme Court when the Senate confirmed his nomination on February 3, 1988, following 13 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. By 1992 he was clearly understood to be a moderate justice rather than a conservative, and lawyers would craft arguments to target his vote throughout most of his tenure. With very few exceptions, he became the quintessential swing vote once Justice Sandra Day O’Connor left the Court in 2006, occupying that role alone for the next 12 years. He retired on July 31, 2018, at the age of 81, after precisely three decades on the nation’s highest court.
The Court’s only significant action during his final month came this week, when the Court on Monday allowed a climate-change lawsuit to proceed.
Twenty-one children – represented by an organization with the consent of their parents – filed a federal lawsuit in Oregon, claiming a constitutional right to a sustainable environment, and suing the federal government – including President Trump directly – for violating that right by allowing regulations and policies that the plaintiffs claim leads to man-made global warming.
A left-wing federal trial judge in Oregon refused to dismiss the lawsuit, and also refused to certify his order as immediately appealable. The U.S. Department of Justice then filed a writ of mandamus – an extremely rare legal move – to the Ninth Circuit (Kennedy’s former court), asking for the court to order the district judge to dismiss the case.
The Ninth Circuit refused, but noted in its decision that it fully expected the federal district court to narrow the scope of the case quickly, and not allow any outlandish discovery orders or legal demands. But when the district court instead signaled that it could allow sweeping orders for testimony and documents, Solicitor General Noel Francisco applied for a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, or alternatively for the Supreme Court to issue the writ of mandamus.
The Supreme Court denied both forms of relief, but signaled to the lower courts that they had better rein in this case quickly:
The Government’s request for relief is premature and is denied without prejudice. The breadth of respondents’ claims is striking, however, and the justiciability of those claims presents substantial grounds for difference of opinion. The District Court should take these concerns into account in assessing the burdens of discovery and trial, as well as the desirability of a prompt ruling on the Government’s pending dispositive motions.
“I am grateful that the justices put a shot across the bow of this out-of-control federal judge in Oregon not to let this crazy lawsuit turn into an all-out circus,” said former Trump Presidential Transition Team domestic policy adviser Ken Blackwell in an exclusive reaction to Breitbart News. “While we all want a clean and sustainable environment, nothing in the Constitution confers an individual right to launch a court challenge in what is essentially a political and policy debate attacking all the energy we get from fossil fuels.”
By calling the Justice Department’s filing “premature,” the Supreme Court reminded the parties that it can always step in later in the litigation if the trial judge permits things to continue on their present course.
Ken Klukowski is senior legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.
Top officials from five American intelligence and defense agencies surprised White House reporters Thursday assuring Americans in an afternoon briefing that their agencies are working together and with state and local governments and private partners to minimize the threat of foreign election meddling.
National Security Adviser John Bolton pointed to President Donald Trump’s “decisive action” since January 2017 to combat foreign interference in U.S. elections including reinforcing a strong sanctions regime. He added that often what the federal government is doing to protect elections involves highly classified information that prevents some level of sharing with the public. He said that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement continue to provide briefings for members of Congress on the issue.
Bolton, Nielsen, Wray, Coates, several admin officials surprise reporters for White House briefing … purpose of the briefing on section integrity pic.twitter.com/PB90iKifWb
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said President Trump has directed these leaders and their agencies to make the matter of election meddling and securing the election process a “top priority.” He affirmed that they have been doing that.
Russia is not the only country with the capability to influence American elections according to Coats. He said that the intelligence community is working together and seeking greater transparency with the public.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen reminded reporters of the first national cybersecurity summit that occurred earlier this week.
Nielsen said, “A single attack can have widespread and cascading consequences,” and that it is not just an attack on American privacy, prosperity, and infrastructure, but U.S. democracy itself. “Election infrastructure is not a destination,” Nielsen said as she emphasized the importance of continued vigilance.
FBI Director Christopher Wray drew attention to the work of the Foreign Influence Task Force. He said that interference from adversaries encompasses a “wide range of activities.” He called the threat “threat is multi-disciplinary.” Those threats include criminal efforts to suppress voting, cyber attacks against cyber infrastructure, manipulating news stories, and escalating divisive issues.
Wray pointed out that the threat is “not just an election cycle threat” and that enemies are trying to undermine the U.S. He said there is a broader threat of operations designed to influence America’s voters and that the scope is both broad and deep.
Wray listed three ways these agencies are working to combat this inference: Investigations and operations, Information sharing and intelligence sharing — including with state, local, and international partners, and working with the private sector including tech and social media companies so they can better monitor their own platforms.
He said the threat is not going away, that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and they haven’t stopped to this day.
Wray expressed confidence that with their partners they can protect the integrity of American elections.
NSA Director General Paul Nakasone said the Department of Defense (DOD) is providing intelligence,information support and technical expertise to DHS to protect U.S. elections.
“Our support has been ongoing and will continue through the midterm election,” he assured. The DOD has provided the FBI with information on foreign adversaries and “alert them of malicious cyber actors.”
“These type of operations are sensitive and require confidentiality for success,” said Nakasone who described their forces as well trained, ready, and very capable.
During a question and answer with reporters, Director Coats affirmed to a reporter that Russia’s Kremlin as well as rogue agents and others were involved in interfering in U.S. elections, “both and even add to that.” He qualified that by stating that interference in the 2018 midterm elections has not been as “robust” as it was in the 2016 presidential election thus far.
Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook
A report claims that members of the intelligence community privately support revoking the security clearances of former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-DNI Head James Clapper, who they accuse of weaponizing access to classified information against the Trump administration.
President Trump has been criticized for politicizing the intelligence community by threatening to strip the security clearances of former top officials including John Brennan and James Clapper. But numerous past and present senior intelligence officials say that the Obama administration started the politicization — and that revoking the clearances of those who abuse the privilege for partisan purposes may help right the ship.
“As is often the case with the Trump administration, the rollout of the policy is bad, but the idea driving the policy is sound,” said one senior intelligence official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke to RealClearInvestigations only on condition of anonymity. “Under some Obama-era intelligence chiefs, intelligence was used as a political weapon. We need to root that out, not reward it.”
It is not clear if the White House is moving forward on Trump’s threats last month to revoke those clearances. After Brennan’s continued media attacks on Trump following the Helsinki summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Sen. Rand Paul advised the president to strip him of his clearance. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Some sources say former CIA director Brennan, ex-director of national intelligence Clapper and others with security clearances were emboldened to pursue political agendas through the anti-Trump media, in a climate of impunity created by the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute leaks attending Donald Trump’s election. Notable among the leaks, they said, was a top unnamed official’s “unmasking” of Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn in a January 2017 Washington Post column by David Ignatius, sourced to classified intercepts of Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador. Leaking such classified information is a felony.
“The very people who are now talking the most know the details of how the Flynn intercept was leaked,” a senior U.S. official told RealClearInvestigations. “They wouldn’t be out talking like that if they’d been interviewed by the FBI.”
China’s state-run newspaper Global Times derided critics in the West Thursday for condemning a new initiative forcing all religious buildings to fly China’s red flag as a means to “enhance the concept of nation.”
The newspaper claimed the move was necessary because, without imposing the government’s wishes on individual religions, the nation could “lurch toward war.”
Requiring religious institutions to fly the national flag, a symbol of the nation’s embrace of communism in 1949, is necessary because “religions are exclusive” and the government has a responsibility to work on “strengthening people’s national and civic consciousness,” the Global Timesargued.
According to the state newspaper, the proposal to make all buildings fly the flag came from “the country’s major religious associations.” China recognizes only five religions legally—Protestantism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism—and has established government-recognized “patriotic” institutions that govern each. Chinese citizens who wish to worship outside of government institutions are considered criminals. Beijing has increased its persecution of unofficial “house” churches and home worship under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
“The country’s major religious associations on Tuesday proposed an initiative demanding that all religious venues raise China’s national flag to strengthen awareness of respect for the flag and preserve the flag’s dignity,” the Times noted, adding that “some Western media outlets” condemned the move as stifling religious expression.
“A national flag is a symbol of the country that should be respected by all citizens,” the Global Times insisted. “The display of national flags is not only recognition of national sovereignty, but also a manifestation of love for the country.”
The propaganda outlet argued that, without “national identity,” allowing religious freedom leads to war.
The Global Timesannounced the initiative on Tuesday, citing Chinese “experts” who applauded the move “for seeking to assimilate religion into a socialist society and as progress for religious development.” At the time, the newspaper once again expressed the belief that Beijing has a responsibility to teach religious people to “better practice socialist core values.”
The move follows orders from the government leaders of the five religions to local churches, temples, and mosques, to “Sinicize” the religion fully—to make each religion more “Chinese.” To do so, according to a white paper the government released titled “China’s Policies and Practices on Protecting Freedom of Religious Belief,” religious leaders “must conduct religious activities in the Chinese context, practice core socialist values, carry forward the fine traditions of the Chinese nation, and actively explore religious thought which conforms to the reality in China.
The Chinese Communist Party has expressed particular concern regarding the activities of Christians around the country who do not attend government-organized services, Uighur Muslims in western Xinjiang province, and Tibetan Buddhists following the Dalai Lama in Tibet. Part of the campaign to “Sinicize” religion involved banning children from religious services. Most recently, the government decreed that children in Tibet are not allowed to participate in any religious activities during the summer. Parents of children in the province were forced to sign documents promising not to expose their children to religion. A similar decree was passed in Xinjiang months earlier.
According to the U.S. State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report, Xinjiang is experiencing some of the most brutal religious repression in the world. The Chinese government is forcing hundreds of thousands of Muslims into “political re-education camps,” where they are often tortured and forced to violate their beliefs, sometimes by being forced to eat pork. The Chinese government does not deny that it is “re-educating” Muslims in the region—the Global Timesboasted of the program promoting “the correct political stance and excellent moral traits” this month. It has nonetheless dismissed criticism from the rest of the world, particularly the United States.
“We call on the United States to respect the facts, mind its own business, and stop using the religion issue to intervene in other countries’ internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters following the publication of the 2017 State Department International Religious Freedom Report.
Left-wing activist group Fight For The Future has condemned censorship by Facebook following the removal of a number of left-wing protest pages allegedly linked to Russian actors.
Following Facebook’s banning of 32 political pages and accounts suspected of “co-ordinated inauthentic behavior” linked to foreign agents, left-wing activist group Fight For The Future has voiced their anger over censorship by Facebook. In a press release, the group claims that one of the event pages that Facebook removed was, in fact, an authentic protest that was wrongfully targeted by Facebook. It would appear that this one event being deleted is enough for the far-left group to condemn Facebook for censorship of political voices on their platform.
“Arbitrary mass censorship is not the solution for the challenges democracy faces in the digital age,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, “Calls for more censorship, whether they come from the left or right, pose a dangerous threat to legitimate freedom of speech and undermine the power of the Internet as a tool for people to organize, educate themselves, and challenge tyranny and corruption. Do we really want an Internet where giant tech companies like Facebook are the arbiters of what is ‘real’ and what is ‘fake’ and can censor whatever they want without oversight or accountability?”
Greer continued to state:“Dragnet censorship operations, whether related to copyright or political content, always come with serious unintended consequences, where legitimate content is taken down. Lawmakers who are concerned about the power that large tech companies have to spread misinformation should call for more transparency and more competition, not more censorship.” Greer stated: “One simple policy decision on the table right now is restoring net neutrality protections, which allow startups and small businesses to thrive and compete with giants like Twitter and Facebook, leading to more decentralization that makes coordinated misinformation campaigns much harder.”
The activist group issued a public call for Facebook to stop their censorship practices stating: “Fight for the Future condemns Facebook’s decision to censor a legitimate protest page because of a link to a single ‘inauthentic’ account, and calls on the platform to cease any similar censorship plans, and instead focus on transparency initiatives to make it easier for Internet users to know who is paying for the content they’re seeing.”
Breitbart News has been reporting on Facebook’s censorship of voices on the right for some time, Senator Ted Cruz even grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the topic of censorship in a hearing before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, but it appears that all it takes for voices on the left to speak up about the issue is for a single event page to allegedly wrongfully remove. At least it appears that Facebook is being held to account on both sides of the political aisle, putting further pressure on the social media firm.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolanor email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
A 7-year-old entrepreneur’s lemonade dreams were crushed by the New York State Department of Health after he set up a lemonade stand without a permit, according to WLNY-TV.
The shutdown has caused enough controversy that it even caught the attention of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
What are the details?
The state’s Department of Health recently shut down Brendan Mulvaney’s lemonade stand, which also served water, soda, and snow cones.
The stand was on the Mulvaney family property in Ballston Spa, New York, and according to the family, Brendan has been selling his lemonade for the last few years.
Over the weekend, however, Brendan’s father Sean said that the state shut down the stand.
“Nothing he did was wrong,” Sean told WLNY. “There’s more important things in life than shutting down a kid’s lemonade stand.”
A spokesperson for the health department, however, didn’t see it that way at all.
The spokesperson told the outlet that a health inspector stopped by the boy’s lemonade stand after receiving complaints from vendors at the Saratoga County Fair — which was being held across the street from the Mulvaney homestead.
The spokesperson told WLNY that Brendan’s stand appeared to be “too structured” as well as “much greater than the average little kid’s spontaneous lemonade stand.”
The department told the Mulvaney family that if Brendan wanted to continue operating his stand, the second-grader would need to obtain the proper permit.
What have people said about the shutdown?
One person who spoke out against the shutdown was state Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-N.Y).
According to the news outlet, Tedisco said that the shutdown “boggles the mind” and that the department’s overreach was a massive overreaction that made no sense.
In response to Brendan’s stand shutdown, Tedisco is drafting legislation called the “Lemon-Aide Law,” which is intended to keep kids’ lemonade stands running and legal.
“We’re spending time fighting the real criminals now – the 7-year-olds out in their front yard selling lemonade. Those are not the criminals of New York State,” Tedisco said. “These are families who are trying to teach their kids some important lessons.”
Cuomo said that he’s going to look into the incident.
“If it was a 7-year-old with a lemonade stand, we’re going to get him his lemonade stand back,” Cuomo said.
After speaking with WLNY, Cuomo issued a statement which read:
Today I directed the Department of Health to reach a resolution with the Mulvaney family to ensure that Brendan’s Lemonade Stand can continue to operate. If a permit is needed, I will personally pay for any necessary fees. We support Brendan’s entrepreneurial spirit and wish him the best of luck.
Once reopened, the Mulvaney family said that they plan to use the stand to help raise money for a family friend who is battling Blount’s disease.
Anything else?
Young Brendan could have also perhaps reached out to Country Time Lemonade — who kicked off a promotion in June to pay off the fines of kids who were busted for not having permits, as well as pay for their permits.
The program, which you can read more about here, runs through the end of August.
According to the company’s promotional site, the child has to be 14 or younger and running a lemonade stand. Country Time Lemonade will cover fines or fees up to $300 per child and had allocated $60,000 for such fines and fees.
So this is a real thing, then: kids getting in trouble for lemonade stands.
Seems to be.
In 2016, local government told a young California girl that she’d have to pay $3,500 in permits and building code upgrades in order to sell lemonade. The internet helped her out with that one, though, and she was able to sell without fear.
In 2015, Texas officials told another little girl that she would need an operations permit, as well as one from the health department.
In 2011, law enforcement in Georgia shut down another stand, saying that the children operating it didn’t have a business license or the required permits.
And in 2018, over Memorial Day weekend, police shut down a Colorado kids’ lemonade stand over — you guessed it — a permit issue.
Not even celebrities’ kids are exempt from such treatment.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s children faced a stand shutdown when they, too, were operating a stand in the Hamptons. Worse yet, the Seinfeld children’s lemonade stand’s proceeds were headed for charity.
A Michigan appeals court sent the case of a woman who sued Planet Fitness because the gym allowed biological men in the women’s locker room back to trial court.
Yvette Cormier sued the Planet Fitness gym in Midland, Michigan in 2015 after it suspended her membership because she reported – to other women customers of the gym – having seen a man using the women’s locker room. When Cormier asked the gym’s staff why a man was using the women’s facilities, she was told he had identified as a woman.
“Planet Fitness is committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members,” said McCall Gosselin, public relations director for Planet Fitness, after the 2015 incident. “Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity.”
The appeals court, however, found the gym had violated the Consumer Protection Act because Cormier had signed the membership agreement expecting only biological women would be permitted to use the women’s locker facilities. Had she known biological men claiming to be women would have access to the women’s locker room, she would not have sought membership. Planet Fitness, the court said, so she misled Cormier when she signed her membership contract.
According to the ruling:
The transaction at issue is plaintiff’s agreement to join the gym. The allegations in plaintiff’s complaint indicate that defendants made a representation of fact in a positive manner when they informed her that the gym had separate locker rooms and restrooms for men and women. And, according to the complaint, when plaintiff joined the gym, defendants failed to reveal the fact that they had an unwritten policy whereby an individual may use whichever locker room or restroom corresponds with the gender with which that individual self-identifies. Therefore, plaintiff’s allegations indicate that defendants failed to reveal facts (i.e., the existence of the unwritten self-identification policy) and that representations of fact were made in a positive manner (i.e., that there were separate locker rooms and restrooms for men and women). The question becomes, then, whether the fact that defendants failed to reveal, i.e., the existence of the unwritten self-identification policy, was material to the transaction.
Cormier’s attorney, David Kallman, said his client is pleased with the decision, reports the Detroit Free Press.
“The appeals court opinion was pretty clear that we not only have a valid claim, but that we will also prevail upon it,” he said, indicating that he will file a motion with the trial court, stating they should win the case without a trial because of the appeals court’s ruling.
If successful, Kallman will also ask that his client’s legal fees be paid for by Planet Fitness and that the gym be required to post notices about its policy regarding transgendered individuals.
In July, the Planet Fitness gym in Leesburg, Florida also made headlines after cancelling the membership of a woman when she voiced complaints to other women about the presence of a man in the women’s locker room.
According to Liberty Counsel, which represents “Mrs. H.,” Jordan “Ivy” Rice – a biological man who claims to be a woman – called police to falsely report that Mrs. H. had “sexually harassed” him. The law firm noted that Ivy had been involved in several similar incidents.
“Planet Fitness is endangering women by allowing men to sexually harass them in the women’s facilities and punishing those who object,”said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel. “This is discrimination based on sex, in violation of Florida law as well as several of Planet Fitness’ own policies. Liberty Counsel demands that Planet Fitness reinstate our client’s membership and adhere to the law and its own policies and protect the privacy of women.”
The case is Yvette M. Cormier v. PF Fitness-Midland, LLC, and “LA-FIT Franchise, LLC, No. 331286 at Midland Circuit Court.
TEL AVIV – Israel will join an international coalition to thwart any more attempts by Iran to block a key waterway in the region, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Wednesday, after Iranian proxies last week launched an attack on two Saudi oil tankers sailing through the narrow strait.
“At the beginning of the week we were witness to a sharp clash between Iran’s proxies that tried to sabotage international shipping in the strait at the mouth of the Red Sea,” Netanyahu said at a graduation ceremony for elite captains at a naval base in Haifa.
“If Iran tries to block the Bab al-Mandab waterway, I am convinced that it will find itself against an international coalition determined to prevent that. This coalition will include the State of Israel and all of its branches,” he said, marking the first such promise despite the fact that the threat to the narrow shipping strait has been building up for some time.
Last Wednesday’s attack on Saudi tankers by Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthis did not cause major damage to the vessels themselves, but they prompted the temporary suspension of Saudi oil shipments in the region and a spike in prices in global oil markets.
The Bab al-Mandab Strait connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and is a crucial oil passageway for both the West and Asia and a key shipping route for global trade.
Netanyahu told the new naval officers that a “significant part” of the campaign Israel is waging against terrorists is conducted at sea.
“Dozens of operations that you carry out each year extract a price,” he said. “While our enemies are also developing their capabilities, our goal is to preempt them, thwart threats and, if necessary, decide the battle.”
“The sea provides us with many opportunities,” Netanyahu added. “Above all, it increases the small area of the State of Israel and allows us to deploy our vessels over the water and underwater in a vast space. This gives the State of Israel tremendous power.”
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said at the naval ceremony, “We recently heard threats to attack Israeli ships on the Red Sea, and I look at the people around me who are here, and it’s a pity that our enemies cannot see you and understand that we are well prepared to respond to any threat.”
השתתפתי הערב בטקס סיום קורס חובלים. יורדי הים הנועזים, אנשי הברזל שלנו, מוכנים בכל רגע נתון לכל משימה. אתם ערוכים גם בים סוף, גם בצפון וגם בדרום. ערוכים למערכה בכל החזיתות בו זמנית, מוכנים לתת מכה קשה לאויב. pic.twitter.com/2BIhZcNAQJ
“I want to emphasize: The IDF is prepared and ready to respond on two fronts simultaneously, and also in the Red Sea,” Liberman added.
Such a multi-pronged confrontation, he warned, “would be less selective, and the damage to our enemies will be more intense. I hope they will take this into account.”