A DAY IN THE WASHINGTON SWAMP, ETHICS EDITION

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN MEDIA BIAS

Today the New York Times featured another attack on Michael Flynn, which other outlets, like CNN, have picked up and trumpeted. The Times story was precipitated by the Trump administration making available to the press the Form 278s (financial disclosure forms) that have been filled out by incoming members of the administration. The Times must have immediately requested General Flynn’s 278 and gotten it via email, which is the procedure the administration has set up.

So what is the story, and why is it important, given that Flynn is gone from the administration, having served it for less than 30 days?

Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who was forced out of the job in February, failed to list payments from Russia-linked entities on the first of two financial disclosure forms released Saturday by the Trump administration.

The first form, which he signed in February, does not directly mention a paid speech he gave in Moscow, as well as other payments from companies linked to Russia. The second, an amended version, lists the names of the companies that made the payments under a section for any nongovernment compensation that exceeds $5,000 “in a year.” That list appears to include all of the work that Mr. Flynn, a retired three-star Army general, has done since leaving the military in 2014, without providing compensation figures for any of it.

No reason was given for the discrepancy between the two forms.

That’s the story; it is followed by the usual Times editorializing. You can see a typical Form 278 here. The Times says that the first time he filled out the form, Flynn did not “directly” mention a paid speech or other payments. There is no explanation of what “directly” means. I speculate that Flynn may have initially aggregated his income by category, e.g. “speeches.”

It is not clear why Flynn filed a second form. The Times tells us that he signed the first form in February. He resigned from the administration on February 13. So was the second form filled out after his departure? The Times doesn’t say. I speculate that during the few days between when he filed the first form and when he left the administration–or maybe even thereafter–someone in the ethics office told him that he should itemize the various speeches, etc, rather than listing his income by category. Which he dutifully did, perhaps after he had already been fired. (We can answer these questions when we see the Form 278s; the Times does not reproduce them in its article.)

The Times complains that on the amended form, Flynn listed his various sources of income, but didn’t “provid[e] compensation figures for any of it.” Actually, that is standard practice, if you look at the form, although some nominees do add specific payment amounts.

In sum, the Times’s latest shot at General Flynn adds nothing to the reader’s knowledge of any issue. It is just more bile directed at the Trump administration.

On Friday, two “senior administration officials” conducted a press briefing on the administration’s release of the Form 278s for its nominees. They were proud of the administration’s exemplary transparency, but the Democratic Party press corps was in attack mode, as always:

Q But do you have to make 180 requests for 180 names, but you’re not going to give us the names? We could sit here and go look them up, but can you not provide that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don’t know that I can. Certainly I don’t know that I have that list.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, we’re not — we’re following the instructions and the guidelines, and following along the way the Obama administration —

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No different than what they did.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: — what the Obama administration did. We’re doing it exactly the same way, exactly the same manner.

Q Okay, that’s not — you do lots of things differently than the Obama administration (inaudible) about every day. So don’t rely on the Obama administration.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Actually, no, no, you’re absolutely right. You know what we did differently? We’re actually ahead of schedule. So the Obama administration released these items on April 3rd, and we’re now March 31st. So we are different.

Q Two questions for you. One is, now that you’ve finished up doing this round, can you tell us how many billionaires work in this administration? (Laughter.)

The reporters were eager for information about Ivanka Trump:

Q Are we going to see a financial disclosure separately from Ivanka Trump, who I guess has just taken a staff job just this week?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, not today. She literally two days ago started the process. She has 30 days to even fill in the form. Jared will be there.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The good news about that is, is that for purposes of Jared Kushner, all of her assets are imputed to him, so there’s not going to be any surprises.

It’s just another day in the press’s guerrilla war against the Trump administration.

ONE MORE THING: It isn’t germane to the main point of this post, but it should be noted that the Times article includes this contemptible reference to David Horowitz:

The speaking fees, all of which were from 2016, ranged from about $10,000 to about $22,000. He gave talks to relatively run-of-the-mill groups like the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce in Nebraska, but also to the David Horowitz Freedom Center in California, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an anti-Muslim hate group.

A disgusting lie perpetrated by two smear merchants, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the New York Times.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/04/a-day-in-the-washington-swamp-ethics-edition.php

Jamaat ul-Fuqra in U.S. Still Active Threat: Federal Source

Home > Political Islam > In the US > National Security

BY RYAN MAURO 

Khalifa Hussain Abdallah, (foreground) known as ‘K1’ for his top ranking as an original founder of the group, is said to be a key supervisor of preparations for armed conflict. (Photo: Courtesy)

A retired federal source with direct experience in dealing with a jihadist cult in America known as Muslims of the Americas (Jamaat ul-Fuqra) states that law enforcement remains “very concerned” about the group’s activity, despite MOA’s proclaimed moderation and supportive comments made by some local sheriffs.

Muslims of the Americas (MOA) was know as Jamaat ul-Fuqra (a group that was listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department) until 2001 when they went underground and began changing their name and creating more fronts.

MOA is led by a radical cleric in Pakistan, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, and is best known for claiming to have 22 “Islamic villages” around the country including its 70-acre “Islamberg” headquarters in upstate New York. We released video of guerilla training of female members at Islamberg filmed in 2001-2002.

The source took issue with claims that law enforcement no longer had concerns about MOA, saying:

“I was briefed, in detail, multiple times about MOA while assigned to national security missions in the proximity of MOA compounds and areas where MOA members are employed. These briefings took place after 2009.

“I know there’s an anonymous source claiming that the threat from MOA was neutralized and members disarmed by 2009, but these briefings took place years after that.

“The intelligence briefings consisted of information about MOA’s tactical capabilities with an emphasis on the tactical training that women and children participated in, as well as weapons’ capabilities and the legal purchases of weapons by MOA members who are not felons.

“It was known that MOA would use non-felons to get guns for those who are felons. It was strongly suspected that this was still happening.

“The problem that law enforcement had is that it’s not against the law to train with weapons on private property or to legally purchase weapons, even if you are affiliated with an Islamic extremist group. The concern was that these tactical capabilities could be used in a coordinated action against U.S. citizens and/or interests.

“The concern about MOA was not shared with everyone. Federal agencies are compartmentalized. I was never told that the concern was real until I had a real need to know. Others who raised the topic were told to leave the subject alone and the conversations ended. It even happened to me after I completed my duties that required me to be briefed on them.

“MOA will activate in a moment if Sheikh Gilani commands it. Ryan Mauro and the Clarion Project are providing the American public with credible and vital information about the group.

“FuqraFiles.com has more than enough evidence for any objective person to see that the group is hiding its extremism and those who defend the group aren’t doing their research well or have been misinformed by authorities.”

The Clarion Project launched Fuqra Files in November 2016, the most comprehensive website regarding the organization that includes a mountain of government documentation.

In December, Clarion released a 2003 FBI document stating that the group has links to Al-Qaeda, sends select members to Pakistan for paramilitary training and MOA has an extensive criminal and terrorist history.

Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. To invite Ryan to speak please contact us.

https://clarionproject.org/fuqra-group-in-u-s-still-active-threat-federal-source/

THE RUSSIAN FARCE

 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, BARACK OBAMA, RUSSIA

In his weekly NRO column Andy McCarthy demonstrates with great precision how the Democrat/Media Complex persists in “A dangerous fraud” regarding the Russian effect on the 2016 election. In his March 28 NRO column Victor Davis Hanson captured “The Russian farce” that belies the story line that is shoved down our throats with the force of a jackhammer. Referring to President Obama’s famous hot-mic moment with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, kindly asked by President Obama to convey an important message to his friend “Vladimir,” Hanson recalls:

Barack Obama naturally wanted to continue a fourth year of his reset and outreach to Vladimir Putin, the same way that he was reaching out to other former American enemies such as the Iranians and the Cubans. Yet Obama was uneasy that his opponent, Mitt Romney, might attack him during his reelection campaign as an appeaser of Putin. Thus, to preempt any such attack, Obama might be forced to appear less flexible (offer less “space”) toward Putin than he otherwise would be in a non-election year. In other words, he couldn’t publicly assure Putin that he would be “flexible” about implementing missile defense in Eastern Europe (“all these issues”) until after he was reelected.

An apprehensive Obama, in his hot-mic moment, was signaling that after his anticipated victory, he would revert to his earlier reset with Putin. And most significantly, Obama wished Putin to appreciate in advance the motives for Obama’s campaign-year behavior. Or he at least hoped that Putin would not embarrass him by making international moves that would reflect poorly on Obama’s reset policy.

Furthermore, Obama did not want his implicit quid pro quo proposal to become part of the public record. Had it been public, it might have been interpreted as a message to Putin that he should empathize with Obama’s plight — and that he should interfere with the American election by behaving in a way that would empower Obama’s candidacy rather than detract from it.

In the present hysterical climate, substitute the name Trump for Obama, and we would be hearing Democratic demands for impeachment on grounds that Trump was caught secretly whispering to the Russians about compromising vital national-security issues in a quid pro quo meant to affect the outcome of the 2012 election.

I’ve wondered why Obama hazarded to ask Medvedev in public to convey his message to Putin. Was there no opportunity to do so in private? No secure channel? The audacity of a dope? Obama fabulist Ben Rhodes explained it all at the time (per page A14 of the New York Times), but that particular mystery abides.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/04/the-russian-farce.php

In first big test in the Trump era, media fails miserably

By T. BECKET ADAMS (@BECKETADAMS) 

National media have failed its first real test in the age of Trump.

After months of post-election chest thumping about how they could not be cowed by the powerful, reporters have reacted with a mix of yawns and giggles after the State of California announced it would pursue criminal charges against two activists who went undercover and investigated Planned Parenthood's practice of salvaging and distributing body parts scrounged from the remains of aborted fetuses.

One can argue (unconvincingly) that the activists are not realjournalists. One cannot argue, however, that their methods are significantly different from the type that credentialed reporters have used for decades in hidden-camera investigations.

Those methods are now under attack by the state, and the same people who have preached daily for the last few months about the sanctity of the free press don't seem to care at all.

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who accepted multiple donations from Planned Parenthood during his more than 20 years in Congress, announced Tuesday evening that activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt would face a total of a 15 felony charges.

Daleiden's team, the Center for Medical Progress, made headlines in 2015 when it released several hours of surreptitiously recorded videos showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing compensation for packaging and delivering salvaged fetal tissue.

The CMP posed as a legitimate healthcare group and organized several meetings with Planned Parenthood employees in California to discuss pricing and availability. The undercover tapes, which were filmed without the knowledge of Planned Parenthood staffers, were released in batches.

The pro-life group has been accused repeatedly of "selectively editing" its tapes, though not a single one of the reporters who has repeated this charge, which originated with Planned Parenthood, has been able to say if they watched all of the unedited footage. CMP's complete and unedited tapes have been available online from the get-out. To this day, no one can say what necessary and exonerating context was omitted from the videos.

CMP may have indeed broken the state's two-party consent law, but there's still a big question about prosecutorial discretion and whether the charges are politically motivated. (Remember: The state didn't pursue similar charges in the very similar Donald Sterling case, nor have they been filed in other cases, such as hidden-camera investigations of factory farms.)

Also from the Washington Examiner

Ryan meets with conservative leaders to bounce back after Obamacare defeat

By Kyle Feldscher

 

The 15 felony charges are the latest development in an investigation launched originally by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., when she served as the state attorney.

Like Becerra, Harris has also accepted cash from Planned Parenthood, including a $2,600 campaign donation in 2016.

She also received a total of $39,855 in 2016 from the abortion policy and pro-abortion rights lobby, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Further, Harris' office appears to have colluded in 2016 with Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, over the drafting of a bill that amended the state's penal code to make it illegal to publish, "the contents of a confidential communication with a health care provider."

The bill was a direct response to Daleiden's videos. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law in September 2016.

The press' apparent lack of interest in these details is nothing short of astounding.

Here's a story about a State Attorney with financial ties to Planned Parenthood moving against two pro-life activists who are now on the wrong side of a state law Planned Parenthood apparently workshopped with the previous State Attorney, who also received cash from Planned Parenthood.

That's enough material for at least two front-page stories.

It has conflicts of interest, shady emails and, unlike nearly every Trump-is-dangerous-for-the-press trend story, it is a concrete example of the state moving to squash individuals from shining a light on a powerful, well-subsidized institution's clearly controversial practices.

Amazingly enough, many of the same reporters who've paraded around with self-righteous tirades about the sacredness of the Fourth Estate don't seem all that interested in the CMP charges. There have been no newspaper editorials calling for an investigation of California's Department of Justice. There have been no calls for Becerra to recuse himself. There have been no hashtag campaigns. There have been no calls to action from stony-faced cable and network television hosts.

This blasé response stands in sharp contrast to media's continued hypersensitivity to the Trump administration's handling of the press.

Reporters circled the wagons this week, for example, after White House press secretary Sean Spicer told American Urban Radio Networks' April Ryan to stop shaking her head during a press briefing.

Before that, media swarmed in defense of MSNBC's Katy Tur and NBC's Megyn Kelly after Trump disparaged each by name during the 2016 election. Kelly, whose past reporting credits include dubious stories on the New Black Panthers and the so-called Knockout Game, was rewarded with glowing profiles in mainstream publications before jumping the Fox News ship for a show that has yet to find a start date. Tur, who is admittedly new to political reporting, was rewarded with the lead spot on a temporary MSNBC program chronicling the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

Several newsrooms, including Time magazine, People, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Bloomberg, also announced this year they would not host events for the annual White House Correspondent's Dinner. The decision for several of these groups came after Trump published a tweet calling the New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS News and CNN the "enemy of the people."

Reporters were likewise fit to be tied when Trump and Spicer broke tradition this year by calling first on smaller, friendlier media groups during the administration's first press conferences. Legacy newsrooms, including the Associated Press and Reuters, normally get the first questions.

Since the election, there has been a non-stop deluge of angry, anti-Trump tweets from Journalist Twitter. There have been no shortage of angry op-eds denouncing Trump's supposed attacks on free speech. There have been editorials in the nation's most famous newspapers calling for readers to stand guard against the president's supposed war against the First Amendment.

There has been sermonizing on cable news television, and there has been a steady supply of angry commentary from the entertainment wing of media.

The press' "I am Spartacus!" response to Trump's rhetoric seems less brave when you notice it comes from the same people who are shrugging at California's threats to investigative journalists and their trade.

The California charges may come in response to a group that most in media don't consider real journalists, but there is no journalism license. If a credentialed reporter crosses the wrong person, this could happen to them in California, and perhaps elsewhere in the near future. Precedent is a dangerous thing.

In case you were wondering whether media's constant post-election praise for media has been more about advancing the brand and padding bottom lines than about defending the industry and the First Amendment, this should tell you the answer.

In the few short months since Trump's Nov. 8 victory, journalists have grown excessively fond of complementing each other on their supposed bravery. They rush to make very public shows of solidarity whenever the White House says something crummy about a certain newsroom or reporter.

Being the target of White House criticism doesn't make a reporter brave. Writing scathing takedowns and crafting the perfect response to a Trump tweet are also poor substitutes for actual courage. There's nothing gutsy about staking out a popular position, especially when your own industry overwhelmingly agrees with you.

What's brave is standing by one's stated principles, even if it means defending a group or individual that one dislikes personally. There were a few in media, including the Week's Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry andMother Jones' Kevin Drum, who warned California's actions against CMP set a bad precedent. These voices were in the minority.

The great majority of journalists and pundits who've warned for months that Trump would try to muzzle the press have been totally indifferent to, if not a little pleased by, the California charges story. Media were presented this week with an honest-to-God example of the state working to punish the type of investigative methods reporters have used for decades, and it shrugged.

It was the press' first big test in the age of Trump, and it failed miserably.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-first-big-test-in-the-trump-era-media-fails-miserably/article/2618833

How Obama’s White House weaponized media against Trump

THE HILL: How Obama’s White House weaponized media against Trump. “Regardless of how the government collected on Flynn, the leak was a felony and a violation of his civil rights. But it was also a severe breach of the public trust. When I worked as an NSC staffer in the White House, 2005-2007, I read dozens of NSA surveillance reports every day. On the basis of my familiarity with this system, I strongly suspect that someone in the Obama White House blew a hole in the thin wall that prevents the government from using information collected from surveillance to destroy the lives of the citizens whose privacy it is pledged to protect. The leaking of Flynn’s name was part of what can only be described as a White House campaign to hype the Russian threat and, at the same time, to depict Trump as Vladimir Putin’s Manchurian candidate.”
UPDATE: Related:

31Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/261185/

Loyalty Oaths Return with Faculty “Diversity Statements.”

GEORGE LEEF: Loyalty Oaths Return with Faculty “Diversity Statements.”

One of the worst features of America in the 1940s and 50s was the persistent demand for national loyalty oaths. In those days, people were expected to declare their support for the U.S. and if they didn’t, they could be blackballed, expelled, or otherwise punished.
The ideological fervor for conformity abated for decades, but has recently returned on our college campuses in the form of mandatory “diversity statements” by faculty members and especially prospective faculty members. The difference is that instead of having to pledge adherence to America in its battle with communism, the new pledge is adherence to the “diversity” agenda in its battle against a color-blind, merit-driven academia.
This recent paper by the Oregon Association of Scholars illuminates the problem of mandatory diversity statements. While the paper focuses chiefly on schools in the Oregon higher education system, it observes that more than twenty major universities and systems across the nation now require diversity statements for hiring or promotion, including the University of California, Carnegie-Mellon University, and Virginia Tech.
Traditionally, faculty candidates have been evaluated on the basis of four documents: a cover letter, their curriculum vitae, research statement, and teaching statement. Now, a fifth document is being added—a statement in which the individual expresses his or her commitment to “diversity.” That is, how important it is to the individual, how he or she acts to further diversity, and so on.
This is not merely idle curiosity, of course. The diversity statement has a purpose. That purpose, writes the paper’s author, Professor Bruce Gilley of Portland State University, is to weed out non-leftist scholars.
At many universities, he explains, there is an unspoken ideology that “emphasizes group identity, an assumption of group victimization, and a claim for group based entitlements.” On the other hand, “Classical liberal approaches that emphasize the pluralism of a free society, the universalism of human experience, and the importance of equality before the law have been regarded as invalid.”
Scholars who don’t demonstrate enough zeal for the former or any sympathy for the latter are put under a great disadvantage. The ideological purists who often dominate in hiring and promotion decisions don’t want dissidents in their schools if they can be kept out.

What they want, of course, is to absolutely eliminate intellectual diversity. Fortunately, there’s a solution:

The Higher Education Act is currently before Congress for reauthorization and quite a few good amendments have already been suggested. (Here, for example, are several suggested by the National Association of Scholars.) We could end the use of “diversity statements” if Congress amended Title IV to say that no school that receives federal funds may require any current or prospective faculty member to declare his or her position on or actions regarding any political or social issue.
After that, perhaps the Department of Education could send out a “Dear Colleague” letter explaining what that means: no ideological screening for faculty members and a commitment to enforcing it.

Endorsed.

47 by Glenn Reynolds

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/261182/

The Democrats' Anger Management Issues Are Terrible for the Country (UPDATED)

The Democrats' Anger Management Issues Are Terrible for the Country (UPDATED)

 

BY ROGER L SIMON 

They say the fish rots from the top and so does Trump Derangement Syndrome.  The night before last, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lost his cool -- let's hope so anyway -- at a swank Manhattan Italian restaurant. From the New York Post:

He was dining with friends when he encountered Joseph A. Califano Jr. — the former US secretary of health, education and welfare under President Jimmy Carter and domestic policy adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson — and his wife, Hilary, who were having a quiet dinner.

Onlookers said Schumer was incensed that Hilary — the daughter of William S. Paley, the founder and chairman of CBS — had voted for Trump, even though her husband, Joseph, is a well-known Democrat.

One witness said of the restaurant rant, “They are a highly respected couple, and Schumer made a scene, yelling, ‘She voted for Trump!’ The Califanos left the restaurant, but Schumer followed them outside.” On the sidewalk, Schumer carried on with his fantastical filibuster: “ ‘How could you vote for Trump? He’s a liar!’ He kept repeating, ‘He’s a liar!’ ”

Hilary confirmed the confrontation, telling Page Six, “Sen. Schumer was really rude . . . He’s our senator, and I don’t really like him. Yes, I voted for Trump. Schumer joined us outside and he told me Trump was a liar. I should have told him that Hillary Clinton was a liar, but I was so surprised I didn’t say anything.”

Or maybe she was too polite.  Anyway, sounds as if Chuck has anger management issues. He's had quite a few of late with political ramifications. Speaking of filibusters, he wants to  filibuster Judge Gorsuch, despite that being a pointless waste of public time. He also called for Devin Nunes to step down from the House Intelligence Committee, as did several other Democrats who seem panicked about what the rather mild-mannered chairman has found regarding surveillance of the Trump transition and are out to kill the messenger before he brings the bad news. This, although anyone paying attention realized months ago that the supposed Russia collusion was imaginary -- but that hasn't stopped Democrats from pursing it with a vengeance that's somewhere between Sisyphean and psychotic.

Counting Votes: Gorsuch May Need Nuclear Path to Supreme Court

They're all in on Russia.  It's as if they all had a sex change operation and the former party of peaceniks that spent years excoriating Reagan as a war monger leading us into nuclear conflagration with the Soviets are now the most rabid hawks. It doesn't give you much confidence in the depth of the Dems' political beliefs, but who cares about consistency?

And Schumer is far from the only one with anger issues. It's permeated his party to a degree way beyond anything I can remember seeing in my lifetime and I cast my first vote for LBJ.  Since November, almost all of them act as if they received a narcissistic wound so great it could never ever heal under any circumstances unless Trump were impeached, so help me Maxine Waters. Nor do they examine, even for a second, why they are feeling that way or if they themselves might have something to do with it.

Well, a few do, like Bret Easton Ellis, but he's no politician and he's always been a renegade.  The rest of the Democrats -- from the politicians to Hollywood to their great enablers/clones in the media -- have been in a non-stop nervous breakdown for going on six months now.  For people who swear by their psychotherapists, if they've been going to see them, they're not making much progress. Maybe they should switch.  Or just take a long shower.

So Tuesday evening Donald Trump -- of all people -- reached out to them byinviting moderate Democrat senators and their spouses to the White House. Chuck came, as duly noted by Donald with a certain irony in the president's opening greeting. No doubt Trump was well aware of the "flattering things" said of him by Schumer at the Italian restaurant.

While this sudden burst of collegiality by the president is undoubtedly motivated to a great degree by the failure of the healthcare bill, I still wish him well with it. Frankly, even though the Democratic Party I knew and voted for all the way up to 9/11 has gone completely crackers with tens of thousands of women marching with pussy hats and who knows what's going to happen now that long-existing immigration laws might actually be enforced for once, I think I speak for a lot of my fellow citizens when I say: "Alright, already.  Can't things quiet down for awhile?  Aren't we allowed to go about our lives without friends and family screaming at each other over the dinner table all the time?"

Chuck, are you listening?

TWO UPDATES FROM THE COMMENTS:

1. Menahem is one hundred percent correct when he says the primary beneficiary of the Democrats' Russia obsession is Iran.  Many of them are too clueless to know this, but Schumer certainly isn't, which makes him all the more shameful.
2. To those who referenced Chris Matthews' comparison of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to Uday and Qusay Hussein, thank you. I forgot to bring that up for some reason - perhaps it was too horrible even to contemplate. Indeed, it is the most morally and psychological disturbed comment I may have ever heard from an American political pundit. It's hard to imagine what is going on inside of Matthews' brain to say something that deranged.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media.  His latest book is I Know Best:  How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If  It Hasn't Already. You can follow him on Twitter @rogerlsimon.

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2017/03/28/the-democrats-anger-management-issues-are-terrible-for-the-country/

Oregon Seeks To Regulate ‘Dangerous, Preventable’ Cow Farts

Oregon Seeks To Regulate ‘Dangerous, Preventable’ Cow Farts

It all just goes to show how government regulation can be silent, but deadly.

By Patrick Fletchall

The state of Oregon is considering legislation to regulate farting. Cow farts, that is. Advocates of the bill argue that government regulation of cow farts, or “dairy emissions” as they call them, is a commonsense measure to prevent global warming and the safety of the public.

Citing the dangers of bovine flatulence, a spokesperson for Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility stated that cow farts are dangerously unregulated and preventable. According to a letter sent to the Senate Committee on Environmental and Natural Resources, in addition to smelling bad and causing global warming, cow farts can irritate your eyes, cause memory loss, and even death. These are all good things to keep in mind the next time you find yourself eye-level with the business end of a cow. You won’t even remember what killed you.

What else can you expect from a state thatmakes it illegal to pump your own gas or whistle underwater (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it)? Senate Bill 197 is in response to the construction of new industrial dairy operations that would house 30,000 cows, produce 210,000 gallons of milk daily, employee up to 150 people in an economically disadvantaged area, and be the second largest dairy operation in the state.In a county where the average yearly income is just around $20,000, this dairy operation would invest $50 million into the local economy every year.

Two Years Down the Crapper

In a letter to the editor, the owner of the proposed dairy, called Lost Valley Farm, outlined the exhaustive steps they are taking comply with environmental law, including using existing water rights, protecting water quality, and developing a zero-waste, zero-discharge system that is the best in the industry. Despite efforts to be sustainably conscious, the operation’s final permit has been held up for two years by an outcry of Oregonians worried about breathing moo fluffs.

Lost Valley Farm’s groundwork to be sustainable and environmentally friendly is not unique by any means, but reflects an industry standard. While opponents to dairy farming want to reduce the numbers of cows in Oregon through government regulation, the dairy industry is inspired by a desire to minimize inefficiencies by reducing unwanted cattle poofs.

“As we get new science,” says Troy Downing, a dairy specialist at Oregon State University, “our industry is adopting it quicker than we would through regulation.” Dairy farms have voluntarily begun implementing their own emission programs by installing methane digesters to turn gasses into energy production. In typical backward fashion, big government advocates throw roadblocks in front of innovation, while industry advocates are busy turning the ghosts of poo into electricity.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Oregon has a longstanding tradition of disrupting economic growth. Dairy represents one of the top agricultural commodities in Oregon, contributing more than $1 billion to Oregon’s economy, thanks to around 228 dairy farms and 125,000 cows. Milk is even Oregon’s official state beverage, for crying out loud!

Additionally, Oregon is consistently ranked in the top five states for milk quality. You can only achieve that kind of quality through good environmental stewardship and healthy, tooting cows. In contrast, Oregon is consistently ranked as one of the poorest states in the union behind West Virginia and New Mexico. So why would Oregonians try to shoot themselves in the hoof by regulating to death one of the major contributors to their economy?

We’ve Smelled This Before

Well, we’ve done it before. In the mid ’80s, an environmentalist group petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the spotted owl as an endangered species, setting off years of controversy between the timber industry, environmentalists, and the government. Finally, in 1990, the spotted owl was declared a threatened species, which led to severe regulations of restricting logging within a 1.3 mile radius of spotted owl activity.

The move effectively gutted the Oregon timber industry, which accounted for 65 percent of Western wood, leading to a radical decline in employment and the Oregon economy, and higher consumer prices. It’s not an uncommon sight to drive through practical ghost towns on the Oregon coast that were once bustling hubs of the timber industry. For about $3 million you can even buy your own former timber town.

To environmentalists, the benefits of their perceived goals outweigh the human collateral damage, even when their efforts accelerate the outcomes they fear. New research from the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office propose that the very actions used to protect the spotted owl have encouraged its extinction. In the end, the declining spotted owl population had little to do with logging and more to do with the fact that spotted owls just don’t like having sex with each other (unlike barred owls, which love having sex).

So a new strategy by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service involves federal wildlife biologists shooting barred owls in an attempt to save spotted owls. Ultimately, when big government steps in the save the day, it typically becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy made more amusing by the bungling of incompetence.

History is repeating itself with the dairy industry. Although dairy has been a major industry since before it was even a state, Oregon is largely considered to have some of the best air quality of any state. Likewise, Oregon’s air quality consistently maintains the highest rating by the Environmental Protection Agency as well as passing theAmerican Lung Association’s air quality analysis. With this kind of track record, OSU’s Troy Downing has every right to be confused. “Oregon really has no air quality problem,” Downing said, “What problem are you trying to fix?”

If successful, Oregon would join California in taking the fight against global warming to ol’ Bess. Regardless of revolutionary innovations, meeting rigorous regulatory standards, and providing a necessary benefit to the economy, environmental advocacy groups are still raising a stink. Ultimately, restrictions like the one proposed in Oregon are successful in reducing dairy emissions, just not in the way you’d think.

California has seen a dramatic reduction in dairy production with an exodus of dairies like Lost Valley Farm to other states. These types of laws have proven not to help the environment, but only attack businesses. Once passed, this law could prove silent but deadly for Oregon’s economy.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/28/oregon-seeks-regulate-dangerous-preventable-cow-farts/