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Liberty wrote:Politicial games. The Freedom Caucus, claims it wasn't good enough. The Leftist are jumpining with joy, the Establishment Republicans are claiming victory because the failure will be blamed on Democrats. We don't even know what the plan was. The only certainty is that American people continue to get screwed over and in todays world everyone is a winner in the blame game.

The highlighted sentence is untrue. Unlike the Obamacare process where our lovely friend Nancy Pelosi coyly told fellow legislators and all of the rest of America that we "had to pass the bill to see what's in it," once a working draft of the 2017 bill was put forward, it was made public and anyone with internet access could read not only the full text of the bill, but the proposed budget impact:

https://housegop.leadpages.co/healthcare/#download-bill

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-con ... /1275/text

Obamacare affects me personally--and will continue to do so this year and next--to the tune of over $22K per year when considering nothing but premiums and max out-of-pocket. My premiums have almost tripled since 2014 and, for comparable plans available in the third most populous county in the U.S., for 2017 my choices of insurers were reduced to just three: Community Healthcare System, Molina Healthcare, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. As recently as 2015, in Harris County we had choices that included Blue Cross, Aetna, Humana, and United Health Care. Not only have all the major insurers but Blue Cross pulled out of the marketplace for Harris County, but--in the city with the largest medical center in the world--under Obamacare no insurer in Texas any longer offers PPO plans of any type at any cost, and major hospital systems like M.D. Anderson (ranked No. 1 for cancer care by U.S. News & World Report) decline to accept any Obamacare plans of any kind.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but we're not waiting for Obamacare to implode. It already has. The federal cost of Medicaid in FY 2015 was over 49% higher than the Dept. of HHS had projected just one year earlier. And that give-me-something-for-nothing socialism--and liberal sense of entitlement thereto--is doing nothing but growing. Medicaid spending hit taxpayers to the tune of $554.3 billion in fiscal year 2015, a 12.1% increase over 2014 and over 5% higher than the HHS 2014 estimate (and, mind you, both the Medicaid and CHIP programs require matching payments from the states, and that $554.3 billion number does not include expenditure from the tax coffers of the states). As a comparison, for FY 2015 the federal budget for the entirety of the U.S. military and defense programs was $598.5 billion. One of the inconvenient truths of Obamacare--besides skyrocketing premiums and greatly diminished choices--is that, since 2013, about 84% of all new Obamacare enrollees were people given the "gift" of a Medicaid free-ride.

Yes, I am insanely frustrated over what's occurred this week in D.C. over healthcare reform. But my frustration is not with the White House or the Speaker. The plan wasn't perfect, but I'm pretty confident I'll go to my grave without ever seeing a perfect piece of legislation. However, to me, it seemed a good compromise to move forward with reform. We all knew going in that there would be no such thing as a total repeal of Obamacare; any solution would have to keep certain elements of it--like no exclusion for pre-existing conditions--in place. We also knew that it was highly unlikely that any of the snowflake dems would vote for any early iteration of the bill. But to have a handful of republicans refuse to support it and let it proceed to the Senate for consideration/refinement?

What I'm left with is the image I can't remove of Nancy Pelosi at the podium, clearly tempted to dislocate her shoulder by patting herself on the back, and her Botox gloating grin at the podium while she chuckles and repeats "rookie mistake"...and even telling us how passing a bill requires building consensus and building your caucus; this from the woman who helped shove Obamacare down the nation's collective throats, telling us we don't need to understand the bill or what's in it, because the plebeian U.S. taxpayers obviously must be too stupid to understand what is in their best interests.

Since I can't unsee that image...

Liberty wrote:I don't care about his barrage of attacks. I just care about his actions and accomplishments. 2nd amendment is the more important to me and many others. If he can't get the job done maybe we can find a real 2nd amendment President....

OMG, seriously?

Let's see, Donald Trump was sworn in on January 20. He still doesn't have his full cabinet. The dem's--and resultant lamestream media--antagonism against this President is like nothing ever seen before. He's worked harder in his first 42 days (and eight of those were Sundays) than Barack Obama did in his first year. The Dow is up over 10%, hitting all-time record highs multiple times since the election (checked your IRA?). He meets almost every morning with the people who can generate the most job and economic growth in this country, the CEOs of major corporations. He plans historic tax-cuts for wager-earners and U.S. corporations. He plans to reduce unnecessary federal regulation so that U.S. companies can become competitive again. He plans to put this economy on steroids. He plans to restore the United States Military to superpower status.

I spoke yesterday to an executive at a large oil & gas company who has been staunchly democrat for as long as I've known him. He has a signed letter from Bill Clinton on his office wall. He said, "I still distrust Trump. But he's pro-business, pro-economy. If he keeps that promise, I'll come around."

Yet, Liberty, you're most ticked off that he hasn't yet allowed you to carry in Post Offices and on ACOE land?

Both those issues are written into Federal law. The President of the United States has latitude, but the Executive branch cannot, with a swipe of a pen, rescind a law already on the books.

That's the job of Congress; why our Republic has checks-and-balances to separate powers.

Ben Carson confirmed today as secretary of HUD with a vote of 58-41; Rick Perry confirmed as Energy Secretary, 62-37.

http://abc13.co/2mQg7zT

And Texas, particularly Houston, gets to be embarrassed again, and this time not by Sheila Jackson Lee (well, at least not today...not that we know of).

One and only one democrat boycotted President Trump's Address to Congress: Congressman Al Green of Texas's 9th District. Here is the press release he published earlier today (http://algreen.house.gov/press-release/ ... n-congress):

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) wrote:Although my desire was to attend tonight’s Joint Session of Congress, I cannot in good conscience do so given the action taken one day ago by the now Trump Justice Department to withdraw its longstanding claim that the Texas Voter ID law intentionally discriminated against minorities. My action is more than a refusal to attend the joint session, it is my resistance and protestation to the normalization and legitimization of our President’s harmful behavior. Whether by accident or design, the Justice Department is providing Texas with the cover it needs to avoid being placed back under federal supervision, which is what a finding of intentional discrimination could lead to. It appears that the Obama Justice Department, which sought to prevent discrimination, has become the Trump Injustice Department which seeks to protect those who discriminate.

No, Al; the voter ID law does not intentionally or unintentionally discriminate against minorities or any ethnicity, creed, or religion. Who it does discriminate against are those, and only those, who cannot present "documents that verify your identity, U.S. citizenship or lawful presence status, Social Security Number and Texas residency" (http://www.dps.texas.gov/DriverLicense/applyforid.htm) in order to obtain a Texas ID card.

Unconscionable isn't it, Al, that a state would want to limit voters to those who are in this country legally.

There are some Texas representatives we really need to vote out of office, Al Green among them.

Mxrdad wrote:President Trump nailed it. That was awesome.

And on Fox News, right after the initial comments, The New York Times "the truth is" rather ridiculous advertisement was aired.

Former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear is delivering the dems response. And it is scripted--obviously prerecorded--right along the lines of the February 24 press release http://www.democraticleader.gov/newsroom/2242017/. And this scripted response is falling flat on its back because President Trump's speech knocked the legs out from under that stool before the response aired.

dhoobler wrote:Does anyone know how many televisions Hillary destroyed tonight?

I believe the count is 94. That's how many times the speech was interrupted by applause. Maybe 95 because she might have gone for two during the long sustain while SEAL Ryan Owens was recognized.

jason812 wrote:I thought they were sitting on their hands until I saw the 2 women giving a thumbs down and laughing like they were in junior high.

Pelosi, Schumer, and Cummings pretty much are sitting on their hands. The only time they're applauding is if they absolutely have to or face being lambasted by their constituency. And you can tell every time they put their hands together how much it pains them to applaud anything POTUS says.

I'm going to be really interested to see what the dems rebuttal and MSM talking heads are going to say to try to tear down this speech. I already know they're going to hit immigration, Obamacare, and the raid in Yemen. But the dems initial response (on February 24) focused on "Trump the Divider in Chief"; let's see what they try to do with this speech.

Wow. I just realized this is the first Address to Congress / State of the Union in eight years when we didn't see Sheila Jackson Lee elbow her way into an aisle position to get herself on television and shake the president's hand.

That alone, for me, makes this speech a win...even before a word is spoken.

philip964 wrote:John McCain just systematically dismantled Donald Trump’s entire worldview - The Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... e2584e7c83

I used to support McCain, even sent him some money for his campaign. Wish I could get it back.

What's worse he was overseas.

I mirror that. I supported McCain and also gave his presidential campaign money. At the time, he was our only Republican chance.

To Jusme's question...we have a problem. He was re-elected to the Senate last year. I know, because I received whiny emails from his campaign every couple of days until I finally sent them all to my spam filter.

I honestly don't know. McCain has gone from the Republican nominee for president to a senator who seems completely off-party. RINO doesn't say it. McCain has either switched to Dem without announcing it, or he holds a tremendous grudge and will try to do anything he can to derail the Trump presidency.

If I lived in Arizona, I would be sending McCain daily emails telling him to properly represent the Republican party, or to resign.

Shoot. I sent him money for his disastrous presidential bid, so I'm as entitled as anyone to tell him to back off and give the new administration a chance.

https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/in ... ntact-form

philip964 wrote:In this day in my life I was flipping channels and went to HBO just as....

AndyC wrote:

Skiprr wrote:The SPR affects (affected) over 6,000 miles of streams and over 52,000 acres of forested area. It requires companies to restore streams, to replant native trees, to return mined areas to conditions as they were before mining took place, and to maintain a buffer zone that blocks coal mining within 100 feet of any stream.

Ok, but.... I'm curious, why is that a "bad thing"?

I've got no dog in this hunt. I only continued to do some research this morning when it became clear that most media sources were flat-out misrepresenting how the overturn of the Stream Protection Rule came about, implying if not outright saying that POTUS was, unilaterally, repealing an environmental protection law that had already been on the books and by which mining companies already had to operate.

But it wasn't striking down a standing regulation. Congress struck down a new one that Obama approved which had only been in place for 11 days. Evidently the Department of the Interior’s own reports already showed that coal mining offsite impacts are minimal, and that mines are being operated in accordance with current federal and state regulations. So the SPR was a "global warming" type of thing--"Let's put new regulations in place now because some streams or land might be affected in the future"--a new bureaucratic regulation that addressed no identified problem, but was going to cost jobs and money.

Best I can tell from some quick notes I made, these were some factors Republicans and a number of Dems were railing over and why they wanted the SPR to be shot down....

No. Wait. I'm just gonna quote some stuff. My word-count about coal mining is already expended for the decade but I'll underline parts for emphasis:

• The National Mining Association December 19 press release about the implementation of the SPR can be found here: http://nma.org/2016/12/19/nma-strongly- ... ream-rule/

The Daily Caller, February 16 wrote:The president said in a previous statement the $1.2 billion stream rule “duplicates existing protections in the Clean Water Act and is unnecessary given the other Federal and State regulations already in place.”

“Because of the war on coal waged by the Obama administration, over 240 coal fired plants have closed and 83,000 people have lost their jobs,” West Virginia Rep. David McKinley said in a statement. “Fortunately, we finally have a partner in the White House who understands just how damaging these rules can be.”

Republicans argue it’s another duplicative, unnecessary rule form the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Democrats and environmentalists say it’s needed to tackle global warming and increase revenues from drilling on federal lands.

“The contortions BLM went through to say they had the legal authority is almost embarrassing,” Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop said in a statement on the CRA’s passing.

Americans for Tax Reform, Grover G. Norquist, January 30, 2017 wrote:The OSM’s Stream Protection Rule is an egregious and unlawful example of federal regulatory overreach that infringes on the authority of state regulatory bodies, is wholly unnecessary, and will impact the livelihood of millions of Americans.

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act instructs that States are to be the primary regulators of coal mining. In drafting the Stream Protection Rule, OSM failed to comply with these instructions, instead moving forward without real or meaningful involvement from the public or the relevant state agencies that are tasked with regulating 97 percent of the coal mines in the U.S.

The Department of Interior’s own reports show that essentially all coal mines have no off-site impacts, that lands are being restored successfully, and mines are being operated safely and in accordance with existing state and federal regulations. The Stream Protection Rule is simply a regulation in search of a problem.

It is also the case the OSM rule will have far reaching impacts on the American economy. The rule threatens one-third of the nation’s coal mining work force and would remove half or more of total U.S. coal reserves from future production. The rule would also drive up electricity costs for American consumers and could reduce state and federal tax revenue by over $6 billion annually.

Competitive Enterprise Institute, January 31, 2017 wrote:This rule is supposed to replace a rule promulgated by the George W. Bush administration. At the outset of President Obama’s presidency, the Interior Department simply revoked the Bush rule, but a federal court blocked this action because it bypassed procedural safeguards. As a result, the Obama administration undertook a seven-year rulemaking, and the final stream buffer zone rule was issued during Obama’s lame duck session.

This timing raises an obvious question: If the Bush rule was so inadequate to protect the environment, then why did the administration spend so much time on the replacement rule? Further, the rulemaking itself was characterized by an unacceptable absence of transparency.

After reports regarding job losses connected to the rule made the news, the House Natural Resources Committee was repeatedly rebuffed in its efforts to oversee the rulemaking. The Interior Department even ignored subpoenas issued by the committee. Eight of ten states withdrew from agreements to cooperate on the rule because the Interior Department would not share key information, and the Interior Department subsequently ignored a letter from 19 states requesting that it re-engage with them on the rule.

By themselves, these procedural abuses would be sufficient grounds for lawmakers to prevent the Stream Buffer Zone rule from taking effect. But the rule itself is also bad policy. The rule would have a profound impact on coal miners and threaten one-third of the nation’s coal mining workforce.

The entire point of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act is to sanction surface mining. But Obama’s rule would effectively preclude mining in much of the steep terrain of Appalachia—hitting this region’s economy the hardest. This is contrary to the law’s fundamental purpose.

White House Press Release, February 16 wrote:Since 2009, the coal industry has declined, leaving workers and communities without a lifeline. Over 36,000 jobs have been lost without any relief in sight. From 2009 to 2015, American coal production has declined by over 177,000,000 tons, and over 600 coal mines have closed. H.J.Res. 38 will give coal country relief from these harmful regulations created under the Obama Administration.

U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith wrote:According to the National Mining Association, as many as 78,000 coal mining jobs would have been lost if SPR was implemented, on top of thousands of jobs already lost during the Obama Administration. If jobs in fields related to coal mining are included, up to 281,000 people could have been put out of work, with an estimated 190,000 lost jobs in the Appalachian region alone.

Regarding the reversal of the "Stream Protection Rule" (SPR) that the Obama administration pushed through on December 19, 2016, a small bit of Google gymnastics and much more reading seems to be required to get to the bottom of it (pun intended). Here's a link to a Google search that might be useful.

Of interest is that the SPR, when enacted on December 19, was to take effect in 30 days, as of January 19. Yep: one day before Donald Trump put his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office. And that (see below) it was overturned at record speed by bipartisan vote in both the House (with 71 cosponsors) and Senate two weeks before President Trump put his signature on it while coal miners and coal company executives visited the White House.

Doesn't quite jive with the implication of the AP headline "Trump Overturns Bill on Coal Mining Debris" does it? Never mind that it was never a "bill" and that Congress voted to overturn it. Ah, the New Journalism.

From what I can tell, the Stream Protection Rule (SPR) in it's present form was drafted in July 2015; evidently some version of it has been floating around (another pun intended) in some form or other for many years, promoted by environmentalist groups. There was push-back even in Obama's administration: the Department of the Interior stated outright that it would cause job losses, and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement said it would cost the coal industry over $52 million in new compliance costs. U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Virginia) said that 78,000 mining jobs could be lost as a result of the SPR. West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania are (were) most affected by the SPR. Griffith said he and others in Congress would work to see the rule overturned.

U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Virginia) wrote:I will continue to fight this rule with every tool available, including, but not limited to, filing a Congressional Review Act [CRA] resolution. This rule is so unpopular that there will probably be many in Congress who will wish to lead this CRA resolution, and I will either join with other members to file a resolution or I will file it myself.

The CRA lets Congress overturn rules issued by federal agencies. After a rule is finalized, Congress has a limited period of time to pass a joint resolution to prevent the law from taking effect. Evidently the CRA was last used in 2001.

[url=http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060047395]E&E News[/url] (Energy & Environmental) wrote:Industry has sharply criticized the science and justification for the rulemaking, arguing it is a drastic overreach of OSMRE [Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement] authority that encroaches on the jurisdiction of other federal laws.

Environmentalists say the rule does not go far enough, but coal mining states are nearly unified in blasting OSMRE's handling of the rulemaking.

Most states have withdrawn from cooperative agreements to work on the rule with OSMRE over complaints of being kept in the dark.

Congressional Republicans are already planning to strike down the new coal mining standards via the Congressional Review Act.

The SPR affects (affected) over 6,000 miles of streams and over 52,000 acres of forested area. It requires companies to restore streams, to replant native trees, to return mined areas to conditions as they were before mining took place, and to maintain a buffer zone that blocks coal mining within 100 feet of any stream.

The complete (and very long) text of the SPR can be found here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documen ... ction-rule. That is, until/if the Federal Register takes it down.

But here's the deal. For all that the lamestream media tried to do to make it look as if shutting down the SPR was a POTUS executive order, that he acted unilaterally and without Congress...he did not.

The CRA to overturn the Stream Protection Rule was properly engaged and presented as House Joint Resolution 38 of the 115th Congress on January 30. It passed the House without amendment on February 1. It passed the Senate without amendment on February 2. It was presented to President Trump on February 6.

POTUS chose to sign the measure yesterday when he had coal miners and coal company executives--as well as some lawmakers from the most-affected states--at the White House.

Nowhere in the AP article, or in many of the lamestream articles that I looked it, was there ever any mention whatsoever that the CRA had bipartisan approval in both the House and Senate in the span of just three days, and that it did so two weeks before President Trump signed it. Instead, the media is spinning it as a heavy-handed, environmentally-destructive executive order that Trump somehow simply pulled out of his hat.

Trivia of the morning: Only because I was browsing around and looking at available domain names last night, I couldn't help but think about the POTUS news conference yesterday. So you know I had to check VeryFakeNews.com.

It was registered just before Christmas by a guy in Latvia. Go figure.

Gorsuch hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee set this morning for March 20. I'll be tuning in for that.

Puzder withdraws nomination for Labor Secretary: http://abc13.co/2lQc5rO.