Tag: Trump administraiton

White House Budget Office Hires Anti-Gay Zealot

Breitbart.com writer Ken Klukowski has joined the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. The right-wing pundit and lawyer has a history of pushing anti-LGBTQ commentary, including telling readers there’s a “homosexual agenda” moving forward in the courts and falsely claiming that research proves that same-sex parents are bad for children.

Klukowski has worked for a variety of right-wing organizations, including Breitbart.com, the American Civil Rights Union, First Liberty Institute, Liberty University School of Law, and Family Research Council. As a lawyer, Klukowski has filed numerous briefs supporting right-wing causes. He joined the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a special counsel in late August. OMB, which is under the direction of Mick Mulvaney, “oversees the performance of federal agencies, and administers the federal budget.”

Klukowksi was previously the director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council. Family Research Council is an influential and extreme anti-LGBTQ group with high levels of access to the Trump-Pence administration. The organization has compared LGBTQ people to pedophiles and advocated for the discredited and harmful practice of conversion therapy. It also  states on its website: “Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed.”

View the complete September 4 article by Eric Hananoki from Media Matters on the National Memo website here.

House panel is probing U.S. military use of Trump-owned property in Scotland

Washington Post logoThe House Oversight Committee is investigating why a financially struggling airport near a Trump-owned golf course in Scotland has seen an uptick in expenditures by the U.S. military since President Trump took office.

Chairman Elijah E. Cummings and Rep. Jamie Raskin, both Maryland Democrats, sent a letter to the Defense Department’s acting secretary, Patrick M. Shanahan, in June asking for all travel information pertaining to Pentagon personnel through the Glasgow Prestwick Airport, as well as visits to the Trump Turnberry golf resort.

In the letter, Cummings and Raskin say that the airport “reportedly has provided ‘cut-price rooms for select passengers and crew’ and ‘offered free rounds at Turnberry to visiting U.S. military and civilian air crews.’ ”

View the complete September 7 article by Colby Itkowitz and Missy Ryan on The Washington Post website here.

Curbs on Methane, Potent Greenhouse Gas, to Be Relaxed in U.S.

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The Trump administration laid out on Thursday a far-reaching plan to cut back on the regulation of methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule aims to eliminate federal requirements that oil and gas companies install technology to detect and fix methane leaks from wells, pipelinesand storage facilities. It would also reopen the question of whether the E.P.A. had the legal authority to regulate methane as a pollutant.

The rollback plan is particularly notable because major energy companies have, in fact, spoken out against it — joining automakers, electric utilities and other industrial giants that have opposed other administration initiatives to dismantle climate-change and environmental rules.

View the complete August 29 article by Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport on The New York Times website here.

House votes to block Trump’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia, setting up a likely veto

Washington Post logoThe House voted Wednesday to undo President Trump’s bid to sidestep Congress and complete several arms sales benefiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, sending three disapproval resolutions to the Oval Office, where they are expected to be vetoed.

The Trump administration announced in May that it would invoke emergency authority to push through 22 deals worth more than $8 billion, sales that include missiles, munitions and surveillance aircraft. A bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate — but not a veto-proof majority — objected to the move, which would replenish part of the Saudi arsenal that lawmakers say has been used against civilians in Yemen’s long-running civil war.

Members of both parties also object to the idea of rewarding Saudi leaders at a time when most lawmakers want to punish them for the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

View the complete July 17 article by Karoun Demirjian on The Washington Post website here.

Trump defends Acosta amid Epstein scrutiny

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday defended Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who is facing calls to resign over his role in a non-prosecution agreement with multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein in a sex-crimes case.

Trump told reporters at the White House that Acosta has been a “very good” Labor secretary and that Acosta probably wished he had handled the Epstein plea deal “a different way.”

The president added that he would be looking at the case “very carefully.”

View the complete July 9 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

9th Circuit rejects Trump admin request to allow use of military funds for border wall

The Hill logoThe 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to temporarily halt a lower court order blocking the diversion of military funds for a border wall.

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of appellate judges found that “the use of those funds violates the constitutional requirement that the Executive Branch not spend money absent an appropriation from Congress.”

The order applies to some of the military funds tapped by President Trumpfor a wall along the southern border.

View the complete July 3 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

Trump Says Migrants Are ‘Living Far Better’ in Overcrowded Border Facilities

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — President Trump said on Wednesday that migrants were “living far better” in Border Patrol detention centers than in their home countries, one day after his own administration reported that children in some facilities were denied hot meals or showers, and that cells were so crowded that migrants begged to be freed.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Mr. Trump criticized Democrats who this week visited Border Patrol facilities in Texas, and reported that migrants had been forced to drink from a toilet. Customs and Border Protection officials have disputed that claim.

“Many of these illegal aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions,” Mr. Trump said over multiple tweets. “No matter how good things actually look, even if perfect, the Democrat visitors will act shocked & aghast at how terrible things are.”

View the complete July 3 article by Zolan Kanno-Youngs on The New York Times website here.

‘This is big’: 76 retired US generals and diplomats warn Trump against war with Iran

President Donald Trump often says he listens to military generals more than anyone else, and, as the White House prepares to send 1,500 soldiers to the Middle East, that claim is being tested by a Friday letter from the American College of National Security Leaders.

The letter, which is signed by 76 retired generals, admirals, ambassadors, and diplomats, was published Friday morning by War on the Rocks. The letter asks the administration not to pursue war with Iran, mainly for strategic reasons.

“A war with Iran, either by choice or miscalculation, would produce dramatic repercussions in an already destabilized Middle East,” reads the letter, “and drag the United States into another armed conflict at immense financial, human, and geopolitical cost.”

View the complete May 25 article by Eoin Higgins from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website.

EPA Wants To Free Uranium Miners To Pollute Western Groundwater

Industry Says Current, Tougher Pollution Rules Are ‘Impossible to Meet’

Our nation’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is dominated by Trump appointees, is asking for suggestions about regulating a type of uranium mining after EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who once lobbied for a uranium miner, junked more stringent mining rules.

Mining uranium could pollute groundwater our western states might later need during droughts. The way to mine uranium most used today, in situ uranium recovery, pumps an oxygen-enriched solution into the ground to dissolve uranium deposits. More chemicals are used to remove the liquid uranium.

Mining companies are supposed to repair damage from uranium mining, but Thomas Borch, an environmental chemistry professor at Colorado State University, led a study that found uranium levels in water at a Wyoming well were more than 70 times higher after mining.

View the complete February 7 article by Sarah Okeson on the DC Report website here.

If we didn’t know better, we’d think Sarah Huckabee Sanders wasn’t interested in holding press briefings

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website August 10, 2018:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House on Aug. 1. Credit: AP

During President Barack Obama’s last full year in office, former White House press secretary Josh Earnest stayed busy. From Jan. 1, 2016, until Dec. 31 of that year, Earnest and his deputies held 143 press briefings and 45 less-formal press gaggles, running 11,826 minutes in total. That’s more than 197 hours — more than eight continuous days — in which Earnest or another administration official spoke to and answered questions from the press.

Over the last four months of the Obama administration alone, Earnest and his team spent about 2,803 minutes before the press in 41 briefings and gaggles.

That’s slightly more time than press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her team have spent with the press in the nearly 13 months she’s held that position.

View the complete article here.