Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America groan as conservative House Republicans are reportedly prepared to be less demanding on reining in spending once Trump is in office. They also shake their heads as more revelations suggest the Germans should have had the Berlin terrorist out of the country a long time ago. And they discuss three hate crime allegations that turned out to be hoaxes – the latest in a series of fake news.
President Obama is taking multiple actions that could hamstring President-Elect Donald Trump’s plans to unleash domestic energy production, which is a major component of the Trump economic agenda.
On Tuesday, Obama banned offshore energy exploration in massive portions of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
“The law allows a president to withdraw any currently unleased lands in the Outer Continental Shelf from future lease sales. There is no provision in the law that allows the executive’s successor to repeal the decision, so President-elect Donald Trump would not be able to easily brush aside the action,” reported CNBC.
The law in question is legislation from 1953 that deal with offshore leases. Advocates of American energy exploration contend this is simply Obama’s gift to the environmental lobby.
“There have been a lot of environmental groups, especially over the past few months, who have been urging the administration to take some sort of action,” said Chris Warren, vice president for communications at the Institute for Energy Research.
“This is pretty much the Obama administration giving an early Christmas gift to the ‘keep it in the ground’ activists, these folks who want to keep all our oil, gas, and coal resources in the ground,” he added.
Warren suspects the waters in question could yield trillions of barrels of oil, but he says greater energy independence isn’t even the most important result if those areas were to be opened up
“We produced a study a few years back at what would happen if we were to produce our oil and gas resources offshore in the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Gulf (of Mexico). These numbers are staggering. You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs a year, hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP output per year, higher wages for folks, more revenue for government,” said Warren.
Warren says the method by which Obama is locking the offshore areas seems suspect.
“This is a pretty obscure provision in an old law. It’s never been used in this manner so we’re not quite sure how the next administration can take care of it but they certainly will be working hard to do so,” said Warren.
He sees two possible remedies.
“One way they can do this is by undesignating this area. Of course, they’ll be sued after that but they’ll take it to the court system and we’ll see how it shakes out from there. Congress could also pass legislation to reverse this,” said Warren.
Obama’s efforts are not limited to offshore exploration. Earlier this month, the administration blocked the controversial path of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This week, it also finalized the Stream Protection Rule, which mandates distances that coal mining operations must keep away from waterways.
Warren says the latter policy continues Obama’s strangling of the coal industry.
“This is really just another way that the Obama administration is trying to take coal off the table. They want to prevent it from being mined. They want to prevent it from being used in our electricity system with the clean power plant regulation, which was the hallmark of this administration’s climate agenda. This is just one more regulation that the Obama administration is trying to push out the door,” said Warren.
So is Obama succeeding at putting roadblocks in the way of the Trump energy agenda? Warren says there are new hurdles to clear but that Trump still has other good options.
“Our federal lands have tons of oil, gas, and coal resources that have been held under lock and key by this current administration. It hasn’t been through regulation. It’s been by slow-walking permits, offering very few leases to companies to produce these resources. That’s something the Trump administration can come in and do fairly quickly,” said Warren.
Warren says the Obama and Trump approaches to energy could not be more different.
“We’re not talking about favoring one source over another, whether it’s coal or natural gas or wind or solar or whatever. It’s about allowing Americans to make those choices for themselves,” said Warren.
“Under this current administration, that hasn’t been the case. It’s been throwing money and mandating the sources that President Obama prefers. Under the Trump administration, I think we’ll see an end to that,” said Warren.
Many of Donald Trump’s cabinet selections are getting strong reviews from grassroots activists and traditional Republicans, but a leading immigration expert says Trump’s choice to head the Department of Labor could be a threat to American jobs.
Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian sees fast food titan Andrew Puzder as a problem across the board on immigration, but he says his biggest concern with a Puzder-led Labor Department is the influx of legal immigrants who could put American citizens out of work.
“The primary problem is you have to get the okay from the Labor Department before you can bring in one of these people on worker visas. There’s something like three quarters of a million people we bring in. These are people who are often directly replacing American workers,” said Krikorian.
“We saw this at Disney about a year-and-a-half ago. We just saw it with Carnival Cruise Lines, I think just this week. They fired their American workers, usually their IT workforce. They bring in foreign workers on visas that have been okayed by the Labor Department. And then (the American workers) are forced to train their replacements,” said Krikorian.
While that does happen with some frequency, Krikorian says the big picture is murkier and there are no hard numbers on how many Americans lose their jobs to legal immigrants.
“It’s never a one-to-one thing. You can’t say that one immigrant worker comes in and that means one fewer job for an American. The economy doesn’t really work that way,” said Krikorian. “There’s no way to say this guy lost his job because of that guy. It doesn’t work that way.”
However, Krikorian says it is clear which Americans are most at risk of losing their jobs through the importing of foreign workers.
“At the bottom of the labor market, and that means less-skilled workers and that means teenagers looking for work and others – people who get out of prison and want to clean up their act,” said Krikorian. “Anybody who’s getting on to the first rung of the job ladder. Those people are hurt by ongoing immigration,” he said.
So where does Puzder fit into all this? Krikorian says Puzder has long been an outspoken proponent of bring in foreign workers.
“Andy Puzder has for years shown himself to be a big fan of importing more and more and more and more foreign guest workers to compete with Americans,” said Krikorian.
He also sees Puzder as being on the wrong side of the most recent congressional fight over immigration reform.
“[Puzder supported] that Gang of Eight bill from a few years ago that would have amnestied illegal aliens – the one Rubio and Schumer and Obama were pushing. It would have amnestied illegal aliens, would have hugely increased legal immigration, almost doubled it, and supposedly would have enforced the law better at some point down the road,” said Krikorian.
He says Puzder also weighed in on immigration policy during the 2016 campaign.
“Just last year he made a press statement with several other people, calling on the Republican primary candidates to support so-called comprehensive immigration reform, in other words Obama’s immigration agenda,” said Krikorian.
In response to criticism of Puzder’s previous immigration pronouncements, the Trump transition is trying to assure skeptics they have nothing to worry about.
“A statement was issued under his name, which I think was pretty clearly written by the campaign, that said he would be tough in protecting American workers and that sort of thing. Maybe. I’m skeptical because his whole life has actually been the opposite so why would we believe in this sudden change,” said Krikorian.
Krikorian says Trump’s vision on legal immigration has always been a bit fuzzy but that the president-elect has made several strong promises.
“He’s always been kind of shifty on this and vague, but he has been very clear that these visa programs must never be used to replace American workers. And the law allows that now,” said Krikorian.
Other members of Trump’s cabinet who will deal directly with immigration issues are getting rave reviews, especially Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the nominee for attorney general.
“Jeff Sessions is a top pick. He has the potential to be the best attorney general in American history. I have great respect for Jeff Sessions. I think he’s going to be great across the board at the Justice Department, both immigration stuff and everything else,” said Krikorian.
Retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly is Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Krikorian says Kelly is a well-known “border hawk” but isn’t sure how he will approach concerns over legal immigrants overstaying their visas or making sure businesses do not hire people in the U.S. illegally.
“I don’t have any reason to think he’ll be bad on that but he doesn’t have any experience on it so we’re going to have to wait and see how he does,” said Krikorian.
Krikorian admits Puzder will likely be confirmed by the Senate. It’s only then that America will find out if his new assurances or his old positions carry the day.
“Supposedly he’s seen the light,” said Krikorian. “We’ll have to see whether that’s true or not.”
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy reading the Politico story of how the Clinton campaign vigorously resisted efforts from allies to go to Michigan to help her win there. They also sigh over the carnage in Syria and the latest toothless response from the Obama administration. And they discuss the state of Keith Olbermann’s mental health as he offers an unhinged rant saying Donald Trump cannot be allowed to take office or else it will mean the end of our independence.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Donald Trump’s selection of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to be secretary of energy. They wince as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell taps the brakes on the Trump tax plan and offers no ideas on how to reduce spending fight future deficits or replace Obamacare. And they discuss the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI disputing the CIA’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 campaign explicitly to help Trump win.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America not enjoy watching the quixotic Jill Stein recount come to a whimpering end but applaud Michigan for using the episode to push for stronger voter ID laws. They also groan as Donald Trump says he doesn’t need daily intelligence briefings. And they wade into the growing furor over what role Russia played in hacking the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta – and what to do about it if it’s true.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America offer a champagne toast to the military and space heroism of John Glenn. They are surprised to see a massive jump in economic optimism since Trump’s election. They shudder as free speech is trampled in the Netherlands. And they unload on Hillary Clinton after she claims fake news is having a major impact on the nation.
Legal challenges and hand counting of ballots are daily occurrences in Michigan, and the head of an anti-Hillary Clinton political action committee says the former Democratic nominee is deeply involved in an effort to give the perception Donald Trump’s victory is illegitimate while Green Party candidate Jill Stein is just in this for herself.
The courts have been back and forth on the issue. After Stein pressed the issue in court, federal judge Mark Goldsmith ordered the recount to begin on Monday, despite Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette trying to stop the process. The state is arguing that since Stein has no chance of winning she has no standing to make the request.
On Tuesday, the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed with Schuette and ordered to recount to be stopped. However, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the recount ought to continue. The various parties were arguing the case again before Goldsmith on Wednesday morning.
After all 83 Michigan counties certified their vote totals last month, the Michigan Board of Canvassers declared the winner of the state’s 16 electoral votes by a 10,704 vote margin. Stein successfully triggered a recount in neighboring Wisconsin, where Trump leads by roughly 22,000 votes, and Pennsylvania, where the margin is more than twice the spread in Wisconsin.
The Committee to Defend the President is also wading into the legal waters. Formerly known as the Stop Hillary PAC, the group says this recount drama is nothing more than an expensive circus.
“I think it is a waste of taxpayers’ money first and foremost. The taxpayers in these three states are going to have to pick up the tab for these recounts,” said Committee to Defend the President Chairman Ted Harvey.
“The recounts will achieve nothing. Jill Stein received one percent of the vote in these states. There is no way that she can get the votes necessary to overcome Trump’s victory and I don’t believe she has any standing in these states to file lawsuits to do a recount because of that,” said Harvey.
He says Stein’s true motives are fairly obvious.
“She is simply doing this to raise money for her organization, to raise her profile as an individual and to raise the profile of the Green Party,” said Harvey.
The Clinton campaign is officially joining Stein in it’s stated cause of ensuring the vote was not subject to hacking, error, or fraud. However, the Clinton team has publicly stated it doesn’t expect any changes in the results.
Harvey doesn’t believe Clinton is just a silent bystander in all of this. He sees the former secretary of state as a raging hypocrite.
“After the (final) debate, she stood up in speech after speech after speech and said Donald Trump is attacking democracy by questioning the election. That was easy for her to say when she thought she was going to win. Now that she is losing, her fingerprints are all over this recount,” said Harvey, who also has scathing reviews for how the media is covering this.
“I think it’s typical of the agenda of the left-wing media, which is all of the CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC in this country. They are run by leftists and they have an agenda,” said Harvey.
He says the media roundly mocked Trump for suggesting voting irregularities could be a factor in the election but they are only too eager to treat Stein and Clinton’s challenge as serious news.
On the contrary, he says there are plenty of examples of truly concerning issues across the country, including in his home state of Colorado.
“Here in Colorado, they passed legislation to allow for same-day voter registration without proof of voter ID. When it was brought up that this was only going to lead to massive voter fraud, they laughed at it and they pushed it through. Now here we are with an election that they lose and they’re coming before the American people and the press and they’re claiming voter fraud. It’s just hypocrisy left and right,” said Harvey.
Harvey says the media has been toeing the liberal narrative since the moment Trump won the election.
“You saw what happened the day after the election when you had ‘spontaneous’ rallies around the country protesting Donald Trump’s election. That didn’t just happen overnight. That was organized by (George) Soros and the Clinton campaign to rally young people around the country to protest. The media gobbled that up and ran with that hour after hour after hour,” said Harvey.
He says the media then jumped to new stories when the protesting became stale, namely an obsession with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote and then treating the recounts as legitimate.
Harvey believes all these different tactics have the same long-term goal.
“Their whole agenda is to discredit Donald Trump and discredit his duly legal election. I think they will continue to do this for the next four years to say that everything that he is going to do as president is not legitimate,” said Harvey.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America groan as Rush Limbaugh says Donald Trump’s trillion dollar infrastructure bill could be a big success – just like FDR. They also get a kick out of Democrats getting really excited over the prospect of a 78-year-old Joe Biden running for president in 2020. And Jim unloads on a “faithless elector” from Texas, who says he cannot cast a vote for Trump.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America shake their heads as the media and the left go nuts because Donald Trump took a phone call from the president of Taiwan. They also sigh as the media ramp up an hysterical assault on “fake news.” And they note that the Wisconsin recount has done nothing so far – except narrowly increase Trump’s lead.
