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Judge rules Trump executive order allowing offshore drilling in Arctic Ocean unlawful

(CNN)A federal judge in Alaska has ruled an executive order by President Donald Trump allowing offshore oil drilling of tens of millions of acres in the Arctic Ocean is "unlawful and invalid."

The ruling on Friday from US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason means a drilling ban for much of the Arctic Ocean off of Alaska will go back into effect.

On April 28, 2017, Trump issued an executive order reversing three memoranda and one executive order in 2015 and 2016 by then President Barack Obama withdrawing about 125 million acres of the Arctic Ocean from oil leasing. The Obama order also prevented drilling in certain parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

That action by the Obama Administration prompted strong criticism from some Alaska politicians and oil companies that wanted to drill there.

Ten environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society, filed suit to block Trump's executive order. Defending the order were the Trump administration, the American Petroleum Institute and the state of Alaska.

Gleason ruled Friday that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act only allows a president to withdraw lands from consideration by the Interior Department for leasing -- not to revoke a prior withdrawal. She ruled Congress is the only institution that can reverse a president's decision with regard to this matter, saying Trump's executive order "is unlawful, as it exceeded the President's authority."

"The wording of President Obama's 2015 and 2016 withdrawals indicates that he intended them to extend indefinitely, and therefore be revocable only by an act of Congress," Gleason said.

Gleason added the withdrawals in 2015 and 2016 "will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress."
An Interior Department spokeswoman declined to comment citing pending litigation

League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski touted the environmentalist win in a statement marking the latest court ruling against a Trump administration environmental move.

"This victory shows that no one, not even Trump, is above the law," Karpinski said in a statement. "Offshore drilling and the associated threat of devastating oil spills puts coastal economies and ways of life at risk while worsening the consequences of climate change. President Trump wanted to erase all the environmental progress we've made, but we fought back and we won."

The League of Conservation Voters also said the ruling would force the Trump administration to re-examine its five-year leasing program for the Outer Continental Shelf.

An appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is considered likely in the case.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/30/politics/trump-offshore-drilling-arctic/index.html

Trump loses again! The stack is pretty high, I wonder when he'll figure out that he's not a dictator?

Ocasio-Cortez says 'AOC sucks' chant at Trump rally shows Trump needs a woman to 'vilify'

Washington (CNN)New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said a chant from President Donald Trump's supporters mocking her was emblematic of Trump finding a female politician to attack.

"You know this is part of a pattern that the right and the far-right and, frankly, the President is consistent with," Ocasio-Cortez told CNN in New York. "He doesn't have another woman, Hillary Clinton or whoever else, to vilify anymore so they need to find another woman to kind of prop up and become a lightning rod."

At a rally in Michigan on Thursday, members of the crowd could be heard chanting "AOC sucks" at the mention of her name by Donald Trump Jr.

The freshman Democrat has emerged as a major figure on the left and a recurring focus of criticism by conservatives, who regularly mention Ocasio-Cortez by name or target the "Green New Deal," a resolution she has championed to target climate change.

In her comments on Friday responding to the Trump rally, Ocasio-Cortez talked about bridging divides and said she had recently accepted an invitation from Kentucky GOP Rep. Andy Barr to visit coal mines in Kentucky.

"To borrow from one of my colleague's terms, 'you can't hate up close,'" she said. "And so that's why I'm excited to not only come back home to my district but to take up Congressman Barr's invitation to go to the coal mines in Kentucky, because I think that one of the ways that we can combat that is showing people that we're fighting for them too."

Ocasio-Cortez also appeared Friday on MSNBC for a town hall event that included former South Carolina GOP Rep. Bob Inglis, who was booed and called a "moron" by a member of the audience. Ocasio-Cortez addressed the outburst, saying, "Hey, that's unacceptable."

"And that's the difference between me and Trump," she continued.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/30/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-donald-trump/index.html

AOC pwned Trump and the GOP, extends her rent free stay in their heads. I really like this girls fighting spirit.

Trump is trying to kill Obamacare again and Democrats couldn't be happier

• President Donald Trump has reopened the fight over Obamacare as his administration supports a lawsuit saying the law is unconstitutional.
• It could prove difficult for the president to come up with a replacement plan, especially after voters gave poor marks to GOP health care proposals in 2017.
• Trump faces political risk by revisiting the issue, and congressional GOP leaders have instead chosen to focus on Democratic health care plans.

President Donald Trump has an Obamacare problem.

His administration restarted its efforts to kill the health care law this week, backing a lawsuit that argues all of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Now, Trump faces a question that has confounded Republicans in recent years: if courts toss out Obamacare, how do you replace it with an alternative that expands coverage, cuts costs and keeps the law's most popular parts in place?

The White House has no easy answers. When the GOP tried several times to repeal Obamacare in 2017, voters overwhelmingly disapproved of the plans. Americans grew to like the existing law more when they saw projections that the Republicans' alternatives would leaves tens of millions more people uninsured or increase costs.

Democrats flipped 40 House seats and control of the chamber in last year's midterms in large part by criticizing the Republican push to repeal the ACA. After the drubbing, Republican leaders in Congress have had little appetite for reopening the Obamacare fight, instead focusing on several top Democratic presidential candidates' calls for a government-run "Medicare-for-all" health care system.

Then Trump jumped into the fray in recent days. Focusing on health care ahead of a pivotal 2020 election, in which Republicans will try to defend the White House and a Senate majority and retake House seats, carries massive political risk. There's little evidence to suggest voters trust Trump and the GOP to come up with a health care plan if the president gets his wish and the Supreme Court scraps Obamacare.

"The one lasting effect of the repeal and replace debate is that the ACA is actually more popular than ever. That will make it harder to talk about repealing and replacing it," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for health reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "The repeal and replace debate in 2017 did the one thing that seemed impossible: which was to make the ACA popular."

For Democrats, Trump's decision to make health care front and center of the political debate again is a welcome change of topic for the party after special counsel Robert Mueller concluded the Russia probe. After a two-year investigation, Mueller did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, putting Democrats on the defensive.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly jumped on Trump's latest moves against Obamacare, announcing a vote in the coming week to condemn his attempt to kill the law. And 2020 Democratic presidential candidates see health care as a winning issue as the campaign heats up. Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand, who officially launched her campaign the day Mueller's key findings were released, said the debate over health care is a fight the party welcomes.

"If it's a fight for healthcare this administration wants, it's a fight they'll get—and we will win," Gillibrand said.




Trump calls GOP the 'party of health care'

Since his administration backed the lawsuit to scrap Obamacare on Monday, Trump has talked about vague plans to come up with a superior health-care law. On Friday, he said his administration would come up with "a plan that is way better than Obamacare."

"We're always going to take care of people with pre-existing conditions," Trump told reporters in Florida, referring to perhaps the most popular piece of Obamacare, which the administration-backed lawsuit would end. "I said it before, the Republican Party is going to be the party of health care."

After 2017, voters may not want the GOP in charge of health care. While the Republican plans to repeal Obamacare took various forms, all of them fared poorly in public opinion polls.

The GOP passed one form of health care overhaul in the House, then came one vote shy of approving a different version in the Senate. Trump has repeatedly attacked GOP Sen. John McCain, even after his death last year, for helping to stop Republicans from scrapping the ACA.

After a months-long slog through multiple plans that divided the Senate GOP caucus, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell appears to have little desire to take on Obamacare repeal again under a divided government. On Thursday, he told Politico that he looks forward to "seeing what the president is proposing and what he can work out with [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi]."

GOP health care plans get poor marks

McConnell may have good reason not to enter the fray ahead of next year's elections. Overall, 60 percent of the public considered it a "good thing" that the Senate did not pass its Obamacare repeal plan, while 35 percent called it a "bad thing," according to an August 2017 Kaiser Family Foundation poll. While Democrats and Republicans answered largely as expected, 62 percent of independents said it was a "good thing" that the plan did not pass.

In July of that year, 61 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the GOP's health-care plan, versus 28 percent who saw it favorably, according to a Kaiser survey. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they had a "very unfavorable" view. At the same time, 50 percent of the public saw the ACA favorably, while 44 percent had an unfavorable view.

Republicans did succeed in scrapping one key part of the ACA as part of its 2017 tax reform law: the individual mandate, which required most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. The divisive provision was designed to keep younger, healthier people in the insurance market to reduce overall costs.

While the Republican repeal plans differed throughout 2017 as the GOP debated what could pass, every version involved large cuts to public health spending. Those reductions largely came through rolling back Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income Americans.

The House-passed plan, for example, was expected to lead to 23 million more uninsured Americans by 2026, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It also included a provision that could allow states to loosen protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

How Trump could replace Obamacare

Trump has not put forward a specific health care plan since his administration backed the lawsuit to scrap Obamacare. Based on what he has supported in the past, though, it could prove tough for him to come up with a plan that meets his lofty promises.

In a CNN interview Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, said Trump "will be putting forward plans this year that we hope to introduce into Congress." He did not lay out specific proposals, beyond wanting to allow consumers to buy insurance across state lines, "reduce premiums" and "provide more freedom."

Short noted that the administration does not expect a court decision, or a need to replace Obamacare, until the summer of 2020. The Supreme Court has already upheld Obamacare twice.

Trump's fiscal 2020 budget provides one potential road map for the White House. The administration proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. It would set up Medicaid block grants to states, echoing a plan from Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., that the CBO estimated would lead to "millions" more uninsured. The White House did not respond to a request to comment on whether the proposals outlined in the budget were its preferred plan to overhaul the health care system.

Kaiser's Levitt doubts Trump will have an easier time crafting a replacement plan now than the GOP did in 2017.

"There are no signs yet that somehow the magic on how to do this without the downsides and trade-offs has been discovered," he said.

Trump risks political backlash

Trump could find himself in a tricky political situation if he pushes a health care overhaul while trying to win re-election next year. House Democratic candidates across the country hammered GOP lawmakers last year for votes to repeal the ACA.

For example, Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., defeated Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur, who authored a divisive House amendment that would have allowed states to get waivers allowing insurers to charge some consumers more. Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., defeated then-GOP Rep. John Faso in a swing district race in large part by drilling into the Republican's vote to get rid of Obamacare.

Those candidates and numerous others won House seats and governor's offices using health care as their primary issue.

Democrats spent elections from 2010 to 2016 defending against Republican attacks on Obamacare. As they saw last year, it's often better politically to be in the position of criticizing their opponents' actions than defending their own.

Trump could fare better next year if he chooses to frame the health care debate in terms of some Democrats' plans to transition to a government-run system, rather than making the election about his own proposals. In a statement Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders signaled the administration could do just that.

"We will protect people with pre-existing conditions, lower prices for care and prescription drugs even further, end surprise medical bills, and make sure Americans get the absolute best quality of care. Our Nation deserves a great healthcare system that puts American patients first and puts people — not the government in control of their healthcare," she said in a written statement.

Of course, following through on those promises involves crafting a specific plan. That could prove to be the biggest headache for Trump.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/30/trump-tries-to-kill-obamacare-in-lawsuit-but-replacing-is-hard.html

Trump picks another losing battle. The GOP can't provide better healthcare while protecting their Big Pharma and Insurance donors. LOSERS.

Trump calls for revoking New York Times, Washington Post Pulitzers for Mueller coverage

By CHRISTIAN VASQUEZ 03/29/2019 08:49 PM EDT

President Donald Trump on Friday called for the New York Times and the Washington Post to have their Pulitzer prizes rescinded for their coverage of the special counsel's Russia investigation.

“So funny that The New York Times & The Washington Post got a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia - And there was No Collusion! So, they were either duped or corrupt? In any event, their prizes should be taken away by the Committee!” Trump tweeted.

Trump has lashed out at the media in recent days after a synopsis of special counsel Robert Mueller's report was released by Attorney General William Barr. The full report has yet to be released.

The newspapers received a joint Pulitzer Prize last year for their coverage of the Mueller investigation and the connections between Russia's interference in the 2016 elections and Trump campaign members and aides.

Trump has called the New York Times the “enemy of the people” over Twitter. And he accused Jeff Bezos — the owner of the Washington Post and e-commerce giant Amazon — of using the publication as a “lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly.”

Both media organizations have responded forcefully against the president's repeated allegations of wrongdoing.

Later Friday, the New York Times' communications team tweeted: "We're proud of our Pulitzer-prize winning reporting on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Every @nytimes article cited has proven accurate.”

Trump’s son, Don Trump Jr., retweeted his father, saying “He’s right... unless they give Pulitzer’s for fiction. #fakenews.”

Although Trump Jr. was likely talking about the journalism category, there is a Pulitzer category for fiction.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/29/trump-pulitzer-prizes-nyt-washington-post-1244373

Captain tinyhands loses again... "fake news"

Trump campaign hawks ‘Pencil-neck Adam Schiff’ T-shirts

Republicans want the House Intelligence Committee Chairman to resign.

By Amanda Sakuma Mar 30, 2019, 11:09am EDT

President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign is now hawking T-shirts that mock the latest foil to the Republican Party: the notoriously soft-spoken House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff.

The T-shirt, on sale for $28, features an illustration of Schiff with a pencil as a neck and wearing a clown’s nose. The image stems from a new nickname that Trump bestowed upon Schiff at a rally in Michigan earlier this week.

”Little pencil neck Adam Schiff,” Trump said on Thursday. “He’s got the smallest, thinnest neck I’ve ever seen. He is not a long ball hitter.”



Schiff came under fire from the President and his supporters earlier this week after the California Democrat maintained that “undoubtedly there is collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. Schiff’s assertions counter the conclusions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which according to a four-page summary released by Attorney General William Barr on March 24, did not affirmatively find collusion. Now Trump’s defenders are out for blood.

On Thursday, Trump called for Schiff’s resignation from Congress and several top House Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, likened Schiff to the anti-communist fear-monger Joseph McCarthy. That same day, all nine Republicans serving on the House Intel Committee called on Schiff to step down from his post.

The “Pencil neck Adam Schiff” shirts add to an entire line of merchandise referencing the Mueller investigation available on the Trump campaign website, which also sells T-shirts with print-outs of Trump’s tweets. These include notorious messages like “NO COLLUSION,” and references to the investigation as a “Russian collusion hoax.”



Polls show that not all Americans believe Trump is in the clear

Trump has embraced Barr’s summary as conclusive evidence that he is exonerated of all allegations that he conspired with the Russians to influence the 2016 election. But while the report did not affirmatively find collusion, Mueller made clear “it also does not exonerate him,” either.

Well over half of Americans seem to take that finding seriously.

According to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Friday, only about a third of Americans believe that Mueller’s report clears Trump of all wrong-doing. Another 56 percent said that questions still exist and more than three-quarters of respondents say Barr’s summary was not enough and that they want to see the full report.

Despite these lingering questions, more than half of Americans believe Mueller conducted a fair investigation (56 percent), and another 51 percent were satisfied with the investigation’s results. Even House Democrats are moving on. They still plan to demand that the full report is made public, but during a caucus meeting on Tuesday House Speak Pelosi encouraged Democrats to “stay focused on our purpose for the people: lower health care costs, bigger paychecks, and cleaner government.”

The Justice Department also revealed earlier this week that the full report on which Barr’s four-page summary was based spans nearly 400 pages, raising questions about the breadth of information likely omitted by the Trump-appointed Attorney General. Barr confirmed on Friday that the Justice Department plans to release a redacted version of the report to the public by mid-April, which could potentially cast Schiff’s now-mocked assertion of collusion in a new light.

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/30/18288148/trump-pencil-neck-adam-schiff-t-shirts

The petulant child POTUS is selling a grade school mockery Tee from his official campaign! I'm not sure whose more of the loser here, Trump for selling it or the dolts stupid enough to buy and wear it! lmao

And that second shirt just goes to show that he is still terrified of the Mueller report!

EDIT: Boy oh Boy! Only his supporters buy that Trump was cleared by the Barr summary! Over three quarters of Americans still want to see the facts! So much for the loser's followers on here acting like they won something.

So a judge playing politics had made a decision that one president's executive action has more legal standing than another's. This will be overturned shortly. What a joke.

Man, is OCD in rare form or what/ Talk about a get off my lawn guy.

You don't seem to have a problem with a president trying to play dictator though. Hmmmm....

Thought about calling this thread the daily Dolt. I figured some of the lesser stupid crap Trump does can just go here instead of being ignored.

To quote Sperg on the Two Morons Shoot 3 Bears thread:

"I hate people."

Uh, you could have just titled it with your username.

So, one president writes an executive order saying 'no drilling', and he's your hero. Another writes one saying 'you can drill here', and he's a dictator. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Can you say, "hypocrite"?

What is a "hipocrite?"

I'm guessing a "critic" of hippopotamuses? What does that have to do w/the topic?

You an english teacher? Do you have a red pen stuck up something? Oops, I made a spelling mistake. I fixed it for you so you can sleep tonight.

My damn phone often corrects words and misspells them, but didn't help me on that one at all.

I was an English teacher. I have a Masters in English, but simple spelling had zero to do w/that degree. I later went back and earned a degree in mathematics. I also have a degree in Education. Furthermore, I am 62 years old and continually take online and campus classes each and every quarter. I believe in education. I think it helps keep the mind young and vibrant. I also believe that your misspelling the word hypocrite while attempting to insult Pit speaks more to you than it does to him.

So you do have a red pen stuck somewhere.

Good one, Erik. However, I thought it was you who hurled the insult towards Pit in the first place by calling him a "hipocrite." What does that make you?

This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, but this is how people should live their lives! Keep the mind sharp!

No kidding, bro.

My mom was very sharp and had one of the best memories I ever encountered, but she ended up dying due to complications of
Alzheime's disease. I live in absolute fear of having the same thing happening to me and I strive daily to keep the mind sharp.

I didn't call him a hypocrite. I asked him if he could say it. After all, that is how he's acting, as I stated in my post to him. If anything, it makes me a lousy speller, which I always have been. I was always better at math than spelling. Now, should I go write that word 100 times on the blackboard, or are you done?

When a president overrides congress to get funding and calls a national emergency while saying "I didn't need to do this"? Houston, we have a problem.

LMAO @TRUMP

Today the new "Party of Healthcare" Potus punted healthcare until after the 2020 election promising "much better insurance after the election"!

Where can I sign up Mr. Liar-in-Chief?

Trumpian hoopleheads will lap this up like mother's milk. smh

What could go wrong with a election coming up-Why doesn't trump and the repubs say what they want to do-block grant medicaid, provide vouchers for medicare and repeal the ACA-Who cares if 20+ million get their health coverage eliminated and the states have to cover the difference in the block grants-We got tax cuts to pay for!

The truly amazing and embarrassing thing - clearly Trump and his administration have NO PLAN and NO CLUE about healthcare... Because he ran on abolishing Obama Care, he's been hell bent on getting rid of it without anything in place to replace it. Nothing has been put forward to suggest Trump gives a damn about anything other than getting rid of Obama Care no matter how worse off most would be after ..... and yet the stooges will still claim he has a plan and parrot that he represents 'the party of healthcare' .... Wait for the "you can keep your doctor" what-about-isms to deflect.

It's hard to keep the campaign promise of "repeal and replace in the first 100 days" when you have nothing to replace it with. So it went from his first 100 days until year five.

But seriously, at this point even many of his own supporters have finally reached the conclusion that you can't believe anything he says.

I mean they still don't care but at least they're beginning to figure it out.