Thread: Sad Day- Donald Trump Announces Mike Pence as VP Pick by Tweet

A lot of good posts here. A disappointing selection from my perspective. Just not sure who Pence is going to help more, Trump or the establishment?

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

It is reported that as late as midnight last night Donald Trump was talking to staff and wondering if he could back out of Pence pick. He was having a "head over heart" struggle. Who knows what was really going on but he is reported to have "felt boxed" into this choice. Recent hire, Pollster Kellyanne Conway, has been with Pence for a long time and pushed him as well as Paul Manafort, Campaign Manager for Trump.

Let us now hope we will see some good names announced for cabinet posts that can make more of a difference in how government responds to security, immigration, etc.

Trump should have gone with his own gut. How can you attack Clinton in a general election on trade and immigration when your own VP has as bad or worse record on the subjects than she does??!!!

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

Senator Jeff Sessions gives his approval of Pence as VP.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...nce_a_gre.html

Even Jeff Sessions is wong once in a while and this time is one of those.

Originally Posted by Judy

Even Jeff Sessions is wong once in a while and this time is one of those.

Perhaps Sen. Sessions has his eye on Secretary of Homeland Security, Attorney General, or maybe even a place on the U.S. Supreme Court. A little disappointed in Sessions, but I guess it doesn't do to bite the hand that may soon have the power to feed you.

The President calls the shots, not the VP. Unless "President Trump" is going to significantly waver from "candidate Trump", I just think the issue of VP is not as relevant as some make it out to be. Trump had to sit down with this guy and tell him that this is what I am going to do, so if you are still interested in VP you must support my agenda, period. All candidates with the exception of Sessions have had their hand in the amnesty jar. With the type of thought Sessions puts into his statements, I am sure when all positives and negatives were put down on the table, it was best for Sessions not to take it. These two (Sessions and Trump) probably worked out something with respect to what Sessions might be best at and I am sure left it at that.

All candidates flew out to Indiana so there is trust amongst them and I am certain Trump wanted them to know face to face because they will work together and fill other positions of importance without feeling betrayed by his choice. Stay positive, the news is out and I am disappointed too, but there has to be a reason we don't see. In the end, if Trump feels like he made a mistake he will ditch him at the alter, he won't stay with him if it will hurt Trumps' chance to win.

Wonder if he picked Pence to keep the establishment happy? Scared that something bad will happen to Trump after he gets elected and then BAM we get Pence.

In the Hannity interview, pence seems to be prepared to follow the leader - GOOD. His conservative presence might help trump with the GOP; nationally, hard to say. Certainly not a flashy guy. But VP are in the background mostly anyway.

Guess he is better than newt or christie. Christie has a lot of issues in NJ. Sessions deserves a higher placement - he is so valuable, always clearly speaks facts that other politicians dare not speak. That is not always easy. Sessions is relentless but always with a proper manner.

The more that is revealed @ pence, the more I dislike him as will other voters. The guy is a creep. Trump took the pressure from the ultra conservatives and it could cost us dearly with a president hillary. T hey should have let Trump roll on as he was gathering voters like they have never seen before - instead they are ruining his chances and ours for a decent America.

People are not going for this extremism against women's rights, environment, endangered species and numerous sellouts to greedy corporations. The extreme GOP platform is a problem for winning & could hand the election over to hillary.

Ryan loves pence too, that speaks for itself.......

Mike Pence, Cigarette Truther

by Josh Israel Jul 14, 2016 Updated: Jul 15, 2016
CREDIT: AP Photo/Darron Cummings
Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN), at his 2015 State of the State address

Over his political career Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) has consistently carried the tobacco industry’s water, denying the dangers of cigarettes, opposing government regulation, and slashing smoking cessation efforts. In return, they rewarded him with more than $100,000 in campaign donations.

In 2000, Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN), then running for an open U.S. House seat, came out against a proposed settlement between government and the tobacco industry, calling it “big government.” In a shocking editorial, he wrote: “Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.” Pence acknowledged that smoking is not “good for you,” but claimed that two-thirds of smokers do not die from smoking related illness and “9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.” He warned of a slippery-slope in which government would soon seek to discourage fatty foods, caffeine, and SUVs.

In a debate that September, his Democratic opponent pressed him on the suggestion that smoking does not cause cancer and noted his contributions from tobacco companies. According to the Indianapolis Star’s coverage of the exchange, “Pence clarified that he wrote that there was no causal link medically identifying smoking as causing lung cancer.” While cigarette manufacturers might have been still claiming that there was not causal link between smoking and lung cancer, medical science had settled the question years earlier. A landmark report by the U.S. Surgeon General had documented the link — in 1964.

After the debate, the paper reported, Pence acknowledged he had received an estimated $5,000 and $10,000 in contributions from tobacco companies. His actual total was already at least $13,000 in contributions from the political action committees for Brown & Williamson, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and US Tobacco, according to Political MoneyLine data reviewed by ThinkProgress. A May 2000 letter from the Reynolds PAC to Pence, now available in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive archives, conveyed a $1,000 check and praised his “position on issues important to our company.”

CREDIT: Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive

This was only the beginning. Over his time in Congress, he would receive at least $39,000 from R.J. Reynolds and more than $60,000 from the National Association of Convenience Stores, which heavily relies on tobacco sales.

Indeed, Pence’s now-defunct family business, Kiel Bros. Oil, operated a chain of more than 200 cigarette and gasoline convenience stores. Pence’s financial disclosures from 2000 to 2003 noted six-figure holdings and at least $15,000 in annual income from the company. The stores, which operated under the name “Tobacco Road,” closed in 2004 in the face of higher cigarette taxes and more online tobacco sales.

In 2009, Pence was one of just 97 people in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate cigarettes and blasted a 2009 bill to expand healthcare for kids as “a tax increase on smokers to pay for a new middle-class entitlement.”

Three years later, Pence ran for governor, again with significant tobacco industry support. Altria/Phillip Morris, Lorillard, and R.J. Reynolds/Reynolds American have combined to contribute at least $63,500 to his 2012 and 2016 campaigns, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
CREDIT: Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive

And Indiana’s public health has paid the price. In 2015, Pence signed a law making it easier to create cigar bars in the state. And his administration slashed the already small amount of the tobacco tax and settlement money available for smoking prevention and cessation in 2013, well below the CDC’s recommended levels.

According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, “Funding for Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation was down to $8 million per year when Pence took office in January 2013. And within his first week, the Pence administration slashed the agency’s budget to $5 million.”

Indiana now has the highest adult smoking rates of any state in the industrial midwest region and the seventh highest smoking rate in the nation. With among the lowest tobacco taxes of any state, public health experts warn the state is “really in bad shape.” Indeed a 2014 article noted that 17 percent of pregnant women smoke — nearly double the national average — and this has been linked to lower birth weights and higher rates of infant mortality. As a result, it noted, “the state spends $28 million a year on health costs for infants born to mothers who smoke.”

Pence rejected a plan put forth by his fellow Republicans in the state legislature in February that would have raised the state cigarette tax by 5 cents a pack to fund tranportation, saying “I’m very confident that we can meet the needs that Indiana has over the next four years to improve our roads and bridges without raising taxes.”
UPDATE JUL 15, 2016 8:57 AM

This post has been updated to include information about Pence's former connection to the Tobacco Road cigarette and gasoline convenience store chain.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/14/3798417/mike-pence-tobacco-money/

Have also read he is a koch bros favorite - that is a problem with many - they will do anything to continue making their billions as children use asthma inhalers, receive chemo for cancers etc. Their outlandish profits by dirty energy is appalling - fight tooth & nail to avoid ANY regulations that might make their profits a little less but make their dirty energy cleaner.

What comes along with them are all the super rich as they hedge their investments & count their $$$ will people are dying, our land, air and water is destroyed as well as our creatures.

Without a balance, making it cleaner, expanding some clean energy forms instead of closing the door to them, it is just pure greed and actually criminal to inflict harm, illness, death for profits. PLENTY of jobs in clean renewables. They want to keep their monopoly at all costs - pence works for them as you see he worked for tobacco co.

His control over women's reporductive rights is a big time loser. Trump has an issue already with women. Women are calling pence's his office daily to report to him on every little menstual issue since he has taken it upon himself to determine they cannot abort a down syndrome fetus.

Indiana governor OKs fetal defects abortion ban

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence speaks to the media on Wednesday, March 23, 2016 in Fort Wayne. (Chad Ryan / AP)

Republican Gov. Mike Pence signed a bill into law Thursday making Indiana the second state to ban abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome.

Pence signed the measure just hours ahead of his deadline to take action on the proposal approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature two weeks ago, the governor's office said. It is due to take effect in July, but Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky said it will ask a court to block the measure before that can happen.

"It is clear that the governor is more comfortable practicing medicine without a license than behaving as a responsible lawyer, as he picks and chooses which constitutional rights are appropriate," the group's head, Betty Cockrum, said in a statement/

Pence called the bill "a comprehensive pro-life measure that affirms the value of all human life."

"I believe that a society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable — the aged, the infirm, the disabled and the unborn," he said in a statement.

In addition to banning abortions due to fetal genetic abnormalities, the law will prohibit abortions done because of a fetus's race, sex or ancestry and mandates that the only way to dispose of an aborted fetus is through burial or cremation.

The bill has been criticized by a national group of gynecologists and several female Republican members of the GOP-dominated Indiana Legislature, who say it goes too far in telling women what they can and can't do.
Indiana poised to ban abortions sought because of fetal defects

"We know that you're going to be forcing woman and families to suffer emotionally because they're going to be force to carry pregnancies that are not viable," said Kate Connors, director of communications for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which recently wrote to Pence urging him to defeat the bill. "We've been hoping that the resounding chorus of voices would hit home. It obviously did not."

Pence was a prominent abortion rights opponent while serving in Congress before being elected governor in 2012 and received perfect scores from Indiana Right to Life for his record of opposing abortion.

"By signing the dignity for the unborn bill, Gov. Pence has again signified his commitment to protecting life," Mike Fichter, president of IRL, said in a statement. "We are pleased that our state values life no matter an individual's potential disability, gender or race."

Pence is also facing a tough re-election campaign in a rematch against Democrat John Gregg and will be counting on a strong turnout from his evangelical base in November. Gregg said Thursday he would have vetoed the measure.

"Like so many other polices put forth by Mike Pence and the Republican Legislature, this does nothing but further damage our state's reputation and divide our people," Gregg said.

It is unclear what impact, if any, the restrictions will actually have on abortions, as women could cite other reasons — or not give any — for seeking an abortion. Under the measure, doctors who perform forbidden abortions could be sued for wrongful death or face discipline from the state medical licensing board. Women receiving such abortions wouldn't face punishment.

Critics say the measure would require pregnant women to endure complicated pregnancies that pose a danger to their health and would lead women to not speak candidly with their doctors.

North Dakota adopted similar restrictions under a 2013 law approved by that state's Republican-led Legislature.

Critics in Indiana question whether the measure is constitutional, and even GOP House Speaker Brian Bosma said he expects a court challenge if Pence signs the bill into law. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights backed a lawsuit challenging the North Dakota law, but it went unresolved because the Fargo clinic decided instead to focus its fight on another abortion ban.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...324-story.html

Below artice doesn't touch on his immigration touchback issues but add them in....
The Myth Of Mike Pence

by ThinkProgress Jul 14, 2016 1:24 pm
CREDIT: AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File

After months pitching himself to GOP voters as an outsider who understands how to manipulate political insiders, Donald Trump is expected to officially chose career politician Mike Pence for a running mate on Friday.

Mike Pence was 29 when he first ran for high office. Now the Governor of Indiana, Pence was a fresh-faced lawyer with ambitions for government work when he lost to then-Rep. Phil Sharp (D). He tried and failed again in 1990 — this time relying on his campaign fundraising to pay rent and buy food after quitting his job to work the trail full-time — and then bounced between a policy think-tank and a local talk-radio gig before returning to electoral politics in 1999.

In his six consecutive terms in Congress, Pence grew from a backbencher at the start of the Bush years to a powerhouse within the leadership of the GOP caucus. Staunch support for the invasion of Iraq and adamant defenses of the intelligence that led the country to war there aided his rise. Once in power, he played for broke on hardline social conservative policies, helped lead the Republican effort to stymie progress in President Obama’s first term, and then went home to lead Indiana in much the same style.

While Pence is viewed as a “safe” and “conventional” choice that will help rally the Republican establishment to Trump, his actual record is far more extreme and controversial.

Pence: ‘Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.’

On his campaign site in 2000, Pence wrote that smoking “doesn’t kill” and concerns about the lethal impact of smoking were a product of “hysteria from the political class and the media.”

Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill. In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.

Pence, in the article flagged by BuzzFeed in 2015, said that the real danger to the public was not cigarettes but “back-handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric.”

Pence refused to say whether he believed in evolution.

In a 2009 interview, Pence was asked by Chris Matthews on MSNBC if he believed in evolution. He said that he embraced “the view that God created the Heavens and the Earth, the Seas and all that’s in them. The means that he used to do that, I can’t say, but I do believe in that fundamental truth.”

Pushed by Matthews on whether he had taken a biology class in high school, Pence attacked Matthews saying “This anti-science thing is a little bit weak.”

Pence called for draconian penalties for low-level drug offenses, argued prisoners be required to pay the costs of their incarceration.

While other legislators around the country started to ease tough drug sentences, Pence pushed for draconian marijuana penalties as governor in 2013, explicitly raising the concern that low-level drug offenders were not facing sufficient punishment. This year, he signed into law new mandatory minimums for certain kinds of drug use and distribution. As he’s overseen these harsh sentencing initiatives, he’s raked in cash from the private prison lobby, particularly from GEO Group, which operates a prison in Indiana and was one of the biggest donors to Pence’s campaigns. But Pence’s penchant for private prisons started decades ago, when he ran a think tank in the 1990s that called for prisons to be privatized and suggested that inmates be required to work to pay for the costs of their own incarceration.

Pence pioneered a legislative sleight-of-hand using the principles of religious liberty to discriminate against LGBT people.

Last year, the governor signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which gave businesses, employees, and even healthcare providers the green light to refuse service to LGBT people, if they felt their lifestyles were against their religious beliefs. In response to criticism, Pence introduced a revised version that included new language to clarify that businesses and service providers could not use the legislation as a justification to discriminate based on a client’s sexual orientation.

Pence was a leading purveyor of misinformation about the Iraq War.

In a September 2002 CNN appearance, Pence called for a formal declaration of war on Iraq and asserted that Saddam Hussein’s regime was supporting al Qaeda. Three days later on the network, he said “there’s overwhelming evidence…circumstantial and otherwise to suggest a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.” In an editorial board interview with the local Palladium-Item in Richmond, IN that month, he went further. “There is an enormous amount of evidence that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, is doing his best to develop more lethal weapons, and funds and supports terrorism,” Pence, then in his first term, said.

Less than a year later Pence’s conviction that Hussein had WMD was exposed as a sham. But the freshly re-elected congressman rejected calls to investigate what had gone wrong with the Bush administration’s case for war. “It might be enough for you [to want an inquiry], but I’d rather put my confidence in the overwhelming evidence of over a decade,” he told a CNN host. “It really defies logic and common sense and the overwhelming consensus of the intelligence community of the western world to suggest that a weapons program, weapons of mass destruction was not present in Iraq leading all the way up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

As the bloody, chaotic, destabilizing aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom became obvious, Pence kicked his denialism into high gear. Returning from a visit to Iraq that included a visit to a downtown market in Baghdad, Pence wrote, “I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime.”

Pence went to extreme lengths to pursue a vendetta against Planned Parenthood.

Pence made particular hay out of a series of hoax videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood staffers knowingly aided a pimp. The supposed sting was thoroughly and rapidly debunked as a heavily edited smear of the organization. But Pence bit down hard, using the boomlet of news coverage of the videos to justify legislation to defund Planned Parenthood during official House proceedings.

He was fond of attacking the organization as “Big Abortion,” smearing the women’s health services organization as some sort of industrial profit-seeker.

And his commitment to the cause went beyond mere rhetoric. While Republicans wouldn’t actually manage to shut the government down over Planned Parenthood funding and abortion policy until 2013, Pence pioneered the idea in 2011 and brought the government within 11 hours of lights-out over his adamance about the group – which, again, stemmed from totally fake videos that had already been rapidly disproven.

Pence called global warming a ‘myth,’ said the world is cooler now than it was 50 years ago.

In 2001, Pence openly mocked climate science calling it a “myth.” In global warming, Pence wrote, “the environmental movement has found a new chant for their latest ‘chicken little’ attempt to raise taxes and grow centralized governmental power.” Pence falsely claimed that “the earth is actually cooler today than it was about 50 years ago” and “most climatologists agree that, at best, global warming is a theory about future climactic conditions and cannot be proven based upon the historic record.” He also said that greenhouse gases “are mostly the result of volcanoes, hurricanes and underwater geologic displacements.”

Pence tried to create a state-controlled media outlet in Indiana.

In an aim to “streamline” the dispersal of news from state agencies, Pence announced his own news service, dubbed “Just IN”, in January 2015. The state-run, taxpayer-funded news outlet would have dispersed pre-written news stories available to Indiana media as well as breaking news about the Pence administration to other outlets. The plan was largely discredited by the public and was compared with the state-controlled media associated with communist countries. It never came to fruition.

This is State of IN's calendar for press releases: http://t.co/OuLPEOkXqQ. The #JustIN website will offer the same service with a new look.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) January 27, 2015


http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...mike-pence-vp/

GOP Platform Proposes To Get Rid Of National Parks And National Forests

by Jenny Rowland -- Guest Contributor Jul 15, 2016 9:29 am
CREDIT: AP Photo/John Locher
In this Jan. 27, 2016, file photo, rancher Cliven Bundy stands along the road near his ranch in Bunkerville, Nev.

The Republican platform committee met this week to draft the document that defines the party’s official principles and policies. Along with provisions on pornography and LGBT “conversion therapy” is an amendment calling for the indiscriminate and immediate disposal of national public lands.

The inclusion of this provision in the Republican Party’s platform reflects the growing influence of and ideological alliance between several anti-park members of the GOP and anti-government extremists, led by Cliven Bundy, who dispute the federal government’s authority over national public lands.

“Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,” reads the adopted language. “We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”

The provision calls for an immediate full-scale disposal of “certain” public lands, without defining which lands it would apply to, leaving national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and national forests apparently up for grabs and vulnerable to development, privatization, or transfer to state ownership.
Related Post The Koch Brothers Are Now Funding The Bundy Land Seizure Agenda

"That's a very broad brush to basically say we're going to turn over all federal lands to states; some states don't have the resources to handle it," said West Virginia state Senator and committee delegate Vic Sprouse, who was pushing for a similar provision, but with milder language. He said this more extreme language would instead "willy-nilly" turn over federal property without regard to the type of land or willingness of the state to manage it.

Though public land disposal language was also present in the GOP’s 2012 platform, the position takes on new meaning in the wake of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover earlier this year. The now-indicted leaders of the takeover, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and other extremists present at the refuge similarly demanded that the U.S. government give up authority over national public lands in the West.

"I have long believed that public lands are an equalizer in America, where access to public lands ensures that you don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy the great outdoors or to introduce your children to hunting, fishing and hiking,” said Senator Martin Heinrich during a recent floor speech on ALEC-funded land seizure legislation. “This land grab idea is just as ludicrous as denying climate change, just as detached from reality, and similarly comes at the expense of our public health and protection of our public lands and resources."
Related Post Congressional Proposal Would Create A Texas-Sized 'Republic Of Cliven Bundy'

Disposal of national parks, wilderness, forests, and other public lands is not the only way the GOP platform addresses conservation issues. Delegates also approved an amendment aimed at curbing the Antiquities Act of 1906, a law which has protected national monuments ranging from the Statue of Liberty to the Grand Canyon. The amendment requires “the approval of the state where the national monument is designated or a national park is proposed,” which would severely limit the President’s ability to protect at-risk places.

The delegates also passed language specifying that the Republican Party believes that the sage grouse, prairie chicken, and the gray wolf should be exempt from the protections of the Endangered Species Act. This not only gets into the weeds of local issues, but cuts corners in scientific species and conservation management regulations.

Party delegates will vote to adopt the draft document at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/15/3798652/gop-platform-national-parks/

They want to kill over 80,000 wild horses & sterilize the rest.

At a rigged oversight hearing on Capitol Hill last week, Rep. Cynthia Loomis (R-WY) called for the "lovely and peaceful" killing of all the wild horses and burros in Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holding pens because their "wild lives are over." Nevada rancher JJ Goicoechea called for mass roundups and sterilization.
From American Wildhorse Preservation

No, the GOP platform isn’t calling to eliminate all national parks

POSTED AT 9:31 AM ON JULY 17, 2016 BY JAZZ SHAW


You just can’t tell what sort of mischief those nasty old Republicans will get up to when they gather to define their party platform every four years. In the liberal hive mind it seems to be a default assumption that there will be plots to enslave humanity under new robot overlords and impregnate all of the nation’s women while chaining them to their kitchen stoves. In this year’s edition, at least according to the liberal web site Think Progress, the GOP is also planning to rain on everyone’s parade by closing down all of the nation’s national parks.

GOP Platform Proposes To Get Rid Of National Parks And National Forests

The Republican platform committee met this week to draft the document that defines the party’s official principles and policies. Along with provisions onpornography and LGBT “conversion therapy” is an amendment calling for the indiscriminate and immediate disposal of national public lands…
“Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,” reads the adopted language.

“We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”…

The provision calls for an immediate full-scale disposal of “certain” public lands, without defining which lands it would apply to, leaving national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and national forests apparently up for grabs and vulnerable to development, privatization, or transfer to state ownership.

This is the type of propaganda running around in the Leftosphere this summer and it’s likely being swallowed hook, line and sinker by those who won’t bother to do their own research. The reality, of course, is that the platform amendment makes no mention of parks and other public monuments and preserves. It speaks of “certain public lands.” So what does that even mean? Obviously we’ll need to see a full list of these lands eventually, but it’s a proposal which deals with a very real problem.

William Teach at Right Wing News did an admirable job of debunking this, pointing us to an earlier study in The Atlantic which highlights the concerns being addressed in this proposal.

The problem isn’t the nation’s national parks, which may have managerial and sexual harassment problems of their own, but are enjoyed by hundreds of millions of Americans.

The real questions surround the vast tracts of federally owned land which are not parks or preserves and are not being used by the public in any fashion. It’s just land that the federal government gobbles up and keeps on the books, outside of the control of the states who should be managing those areas. And how much land are we talking about? (Emphasis added)

In most of the Northeast and South, where the only federal presence is the occasional military base or national park, complaints that the government owns too much land seem laughable.

But out west, the government lays claim to huge, state-sized swaths of land—more than 630 million acres, greater than the landmass of Texas, California, Florida and New York combined. In some states, government agencies are the biggest landowner; in Nevada, 80 percent of land is federally owned…

Yes, the government owns nearly a third of America. But after mapping federal holdings to county populations, it becomes clear the majority of government land is remote and unpopulated, far from even most rural residents.

There are some eye opening figures in there. The feds owning 80% of Nevada is pretty shocking to begin with but it doesn’t end there. They own roughly half of the land in nearly a dozen states, including 60% of Alaska. Almost one third of the country consists of federally owned and controlled property. You don’t see a problem with that figure?

There are two general categories of such federally owned property which require a close review and possible action. (And again, we’re not talking about parks.) First, there are vast areas of open range land which can be used by ranchers. The federal government charges farmers fees to lease such property. But the land is inside of various states, so why aren’t the states controlling that access (assuming any control is required to begin with) and benefiting from these leasing arrangements?

The other category is all of the “wilderness area” which environmentalists want to keep locked off from any and all human development or productive use. That’s a phenomenon which stretches into the eastern portion of the country as well as the much larger stretches out west.

Even here in New York we’ve been fighting battles with both the state and federal government over sections of the northern forest regions. But people at least have a more reasonable chance at access and ownership when they only have to deal with the state where they reside rather than Washington.

Why is the prospect of transferring much of this property to the states which encompass it such a controversial idea? Since when did the Founding Fathers want the federal government to be a landlord on this massive scale? This is hardly a conspiracy theory cooked up at the RNC. It’s a serious issue which is long overdue for a national debate.



http://hotair.com/archives/2016/07/1...ational-parks/

in Nevada, 80 percent of land is federally owned…

Well then, surely no reason to have 80,000 wild horses confined to holding pens that they will do what with them eventually? Live slaughter & sterilize every wild horse and we know where that will lead - no wild horses. More in holding pens than free on the range. They are the great American symbol of the West.

The wild horses do have "designated territories" that are being used by polluting ranchers for pennies. Big business wants all open lands for dirty energy, mining - make no mistake about it.

Delist all endangered species because they can't disturb their habitat for fracking, oil, mining. How extraordinarily selfish to eliminate species especially for corporate profits.
If you question that as a reality, just look at the many pieces of legislation preparing to do that.

This is also a move to make room for vast amounts of refugees, illegals and the tremendous amount of central americans they take in now and their families to follow, same with the refugees, they will petition for their families.

Senate Republicans Take Aim at Endangered Species Act

Proposed Legislation Would End Protections for More Than 800 Species,
Gut Critical Habitat, Politicize Science

May 6, 2015

Contact Brett Hartl,

WASHINGTON— The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing today on eight Republican-sponsored bills attacking the Endangered Species Act, including one that would end federal protection for more than 800 endangered animals and plants around the country.

Several of the bills are nearly identical to legislation introduced by Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives last year that sought to limit public participation and citizen enforcement of the Endangered Species Act and undermine the scientific basis for protection decisions for our nation's most imperiled wildlife.

Two bills — one introduced by Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.,
and one introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., — would eliminate endangered species protections for hundreds of currently protected species and severely weaken habitat protections for many more.

“In the past four years Republicans have introduced more than 50 bills to weaken the Endangered Species Act and 100 bills going after individual species. Not a single one, though, would help save an endangered plant and animal,” said Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Polls consistently show a majority of Americans, including many Republicans, support protecting endangered species. These kinds of bills may please rich campaign donors – especially those exploiting the planet for profits – but they’re way outside the mainstream.”

Among the bill’s in today’s hearing:
S. 855, Sen. Paul’s so called “Endangered Species Management Self-Determination Act,” would eliminate all Endangered Species Act protections for species found only within one state. More than 800 endangered species, including all endangered species in Hawaii and Puerto Rico would lose federal protections if this bill were to pass. Another provision of this bill requires that all endangered species lose their protection every five years, after which they would only regain protection if Congress passes a joint resolution. No endangered species anywhere in the world has ever recovered in fewer than five years. The bald eagle took nearly 40 years to recover, as did the peregrine falcon and gray whale.
S. 292, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, would require that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service publish on the Internet all data used for an endangered species listing decision, including detailed maps that could lead to more illegal poaching or collecting.
S. 293, also introduced by Sen. Cornyn, would limit the ability of the Service to settle cases without allowing state governments to intervene and would limit the availability of attorney’s fees available under the Endangered Species Act. By changing the basic judicial rules on when parties can intervene in lawsuits, the Department of Justice will not be able to settle patently unwinnable cases, forcing it to waste taxpayer resources in futile litigation. By slowing down litigation, species will continue to wait in limbo for protection under the Act.
S. 736, introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., would redefine the “best scientific data” to automatically include data provided by states, tribal governments or localities even if those data are in fact the most inaccurate, out-of-date data available. This bill would result in the Service using poorer data and making worse decisions regarding whether or not to protect endangered species, and would spur countless lawsuits arguing over what information qualifies as the best-available science.
The proposals in these first three bills were all introduced in the last Congress in the House of Representatives.
S. 112, Sen. Heller’s so-called “Common Sense in Species Protection Act of 2015,” would require the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider short-term economic costs when protecting critical habitat for endangered species and require the agency to exclude areas if the costs were deemed too high. If passed, such a bill would almost certainly reduce habitat protections for plants and animals. Research has shown that species with designated critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering than those species without designated habitat.

“Republicans seem to introduce crazier and crazier legislation just to establish their Tea Party credentials for their favorite funders — the Koch brothers and the American Petroleum Institute,” said Hartl. “It’s sad that they continue to attack our most vulnerable endangered wildlife rather than trying to find solutions — such as fully funding endangered species recovery activities — to benefit our environment and our wildlife. This latest spectacle in the Senate looks to be just the first of many wasted opportunities over the next two years.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 825,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/...5-06-2015.html



After years of wolf recovery, many states have called open hunt on them & many other species because you can't make money off the land that is their protected habitat.

Obama has been moderate compared to what GOP plans.

New Study: Obama Administration Has Dramatically Increased Use of
Obscure Provision to Weaken Federal Protections for Threatened Species

Broad Exemptions Sidestep Endangered Species Act’s Intent,
Allowing Oil, Gas Drilling, Logging, Other Habitat Destruction

January 28, 2016


WASHINGTON— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dramatically increased use of an obscure provision in the Endangered Species Act in recent years to exempt activities that harm “threatened” species, including oil and gas drilling, logging, ranching and development, according to a new report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity.

Under the Obama administration, the Service has finalized eight, and proposed two, of the so-called “4(d) rules” that exempt primary threats to federally protected species, including the lesser prairie chicken, the American wolverine and, most recently, the northern long-eared bat. Those 10 4(d) exemptions constitute nearly half of all such rules issued in the 42 years since passage of the Act.
No single presidential administration has approved more of these damaging, industry loopholes than the Obama administration.
“We're very troubled that the Service is now using these 4(d) rules — which were designed to help protect species — to authorize the very activities threatening species' survival,” said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center. “These damaging exemptions are nothing more than a bow to political pressure from the very special interests that oppose protection of endangered wildlife in order to protect their bottom lines.”
Called “4(d) rules” for the provision in the Endangered Species Act from which they hail, such rules are supposed to put in place conservation measures for threatened species to prevent them from becoming endangered. But the Obama administration has increasingly been using them to allow the very activities that caused species to be at risk in the first place.
The Center found that 19 of the 75 4(d) rules enacted for domestic species since 1975 have authorized activities the Service identified as threats to species when listing the species as threatened. Of those 19 rules, eight — 42 percent — were adopted by the Obama administration. The administration proposed two other problematic 4(d) rules, for the American wolverine and bi-state population of sage grouse. But rather than protecting these species, the agency caved to considerable political pressure and withdrew protection altogether; thus those two 4(d) rules were never finalized. Counting the proposed exemptions for the wolverine and bi-state sage grouse, the administration has been responsible for 48 percent of all problematic 4(d) rules that allow sweeping habitat destruction in areas where imperiled species have been protected as “threatened.”
“Our report illustrates that increasingly politics — not science or the law — is dictating Endangered Species Act decision-making,” said Sanerib. “The Obama administration is robbing the lesser prairie chicken, American wolverine, streaked horned lark and other endangered animals of critical protections that are a lifeline to their survival.”

A number of the harmful 4(d) rules issued by the Obama administration have come in direct response to political opposition to protection. In the case of the northern long-eared bat — a species experiencing declines of more than 96 percent across much of its range — the Service initially proposed the species for protection as an endangered species. But after logging, wind-energy and oil and gas interests complained, the agency downgraded the species to threatened and issued a 4(d) rule that allows virtually all of these activities to proceed in the bat’s forest habitat.
The bat, as well as several other imperiled species, clearly should have received the more protective “endangered” designation, which would not have allowed use of 4(d) rule exemptions for ongoing habitat destruction. The lesser prairie chicken is left with as little as 8 percent of its historic habitat. As few as 300 wolverines are believed to remain in the lower 48 states.
“The American public overwhelmingly supports protection of endangered species,” said Sanerib. “We’re very disappointed to see this type of highly political decision-making about protected species under the Obama administration, particularly when the survival of North American wildlife species hangs in the balance.”

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/threatened-species-01-28-2016.html


Another indication of how much radiation from fracking and its planned enlargement will matter - remember fracking is exempt from the Clean Water Act - a crime against our citizens and lands!


EPA Proposal Allows Radiation Exposure in Drinking Water Equivalent to 250 Chest X-Rays a Year

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) quietly issued proposals Monday to allow radioactive contamination in drinking water at concentrations vastly greater than allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The new guidance would permit radiation exposures equivalent to 250 chest X-rays a year. Environmental groups are calling the proposal “shocking" and “egregious."



The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) quietly issued proposals to allow radioactive contamination in drinking water at concentrations vastly greater than allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act.


The EPA proposed Protective Action Guides (PAGs) would allow the general population to drink water hundreds to thousands of times more radioactive than is now legal. For example, radioactive iodine-131 has a current limit of 3 pico-curies per liter (pCi/L), in water but the new guidance would allow 10,350 (pCi/L), 3,450 times higher. For strontium-90, which causes leukemia, the current limit is 8 pCi/L; the new proposed value is 7,400 pCi/L, a 925-fold increase.
“Clean water is essential for health," Dr. Catherine Thomasson, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said. "Just like lead, radiation when ingested in small amounts is very hazardous to our health. It is inconceivable that EPA could now quietly propose allowing enormous increases in radioactive contamination with no action to protect the public, even if concentrations are a thousand times higher than under the Safe Drinking Water Act."
The Bush Administration in its last days unsuccessfully tried to put forward similar proposals, which the incoming Obama Administration pulled back. Now, in the waning months of the Obama Administration, the EPA's radiation office is trying again.
“These levels are even higher than those proposed by the Bush Administration—really unprecedented and shocking," Diane D'Arrigo, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said.
The Bush Administration proposal for strontium 90 was 6,650 pCi/L; the new proposal is 7,400 pCi/L. For iodine-131, the Bush proposal was 8,490 pCi/L; the new proposal is 10,350 pCi/L. For cesium-137, the proposal was for 13,600 pCi/L; Obama “beats" Bush with a value of 16,570 pCi/L.
All radionuclides can cause cancer and other health and reproductive problems; there is no completely safe level. Strontium causes bone cancer and leukemia. Babies, children and females are at even greater risk than adult males.
PAGs apply not just to emergencies such as “dirty bombs" and Fukushima-type nuclear power meltdowns but also to any radiological release for which a protective action may be considered—even a radiopharmaceutical transport spill. The proposed drinking water PAG would apply not to the immediate phase after a release, but rather to the intermediate phase, after the release has been stabilized and lasting up to several years thereafter.
Radiation doses (in rems) cannot be measured but are calculated based on some measurements and many assumptions. The current Safe Drinking Water Act limits are based on 4 millirems per year. The PAGs would allow 500 millirems per year for the general population. A single chest X-ray gives about 2 millirems. Because of the way EPA is changing the definition of dose, for many radionuclides, the allowable concentration would be thousands, tens of thousands and even millions of times higher than set under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Internal EPA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the EPA itself concluded that the proposed concentrations “would exceed MCLs [Maximum Contaminant Limits of the Safe Drinking Water Act] by a factor of 100, 1000 and in two instances, 7 million." The EPA internal analysis showed that for one radionuclide, “drinking a very small glass of water of approximately 4 ounces ... would result in an exposure that corresponds to a lifetime of drinking ... water ... at the MCL level."
“All of this is extraordinary, since EPA has recently accepted the National Academy of Sciences' most current risk estimates for radiation, indicating radiation is considerably more dangerous per unit dose than previously believed," D'Arrigo said. “Pushing allowable concentrations of radioactivity in drinking water up orders of magnitude above the longstanding Safe Drinking Water Act levels goes in exactly the opposite direction than the official radiation risk estimates go.
“Under these proposals, people would be forced to get the radiation equivalent of a chest X-ray 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, for up to several years, with no medical benefit or informed consent, just from drinking water. This is immoral."
The public has 45 days from when it is published in the Federal Register to comment to the EPA on the PAG-Protective Action Guides.
"These proposed changes are a particularly egregious gift to the energy industry, which would essentially be given a free pass whenever nuclear or fracking waste enters our water supply," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the new book, Frackopoly, said. “The EPA under President Obama has also whitewashed the impact of fracking on drinking water. This is more of the same when it comes to his EPA's pro-industry, hands-off regulation of toxic practices that can harm public health."


http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-proposal...891167687.html