The move goes a long way toward fulfilling a top goal of anti-abortion groups that have lobbied hard for it. But scientists say the tissue is crucial for studies that benefit millions of patients.
"Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump's administration," the department said in a statement. It added that about 200 research projects involving fetal tissue and conducted at universities with N.I.H. grants would be allowed to continue until their funding expires, but that ethics advisory boards would review and recommend whether to fund future individual projects involving aborted fetal tissue.
Here's how the plan's architect described it: "By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90% of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan. The other 99% of the people would get deep reductions in their federal income taxes."
His name? Donald Trump.
Trump's idea was that paying off the national debt would reduce federal interest rate costs, allowing for a middle-class tax cut. Instead, the debt volume has increased dramatically since 1999, but federal debt service payments as a share of GDP are actually lower than they were back then, since interest rates have fallen dramatically.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality--mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. "It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct," said a U.S. official involved in organizing the event.
Although the decriminalization strategy is still being hashed out, officials say it's likely to include working with global organizations like the United Nations and the European Union, as well as other countries whose laws already allow for gay rights.
A central theme of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign had been bringing back jobs that had been outsourced to other countries. That point was something he emphasized last week with a deal that was to retain some jobs at Carrier, which manufactures air conditioners in Indiana, rather than having those jobs exported to Mexico.
Trump tweeted: "Any business that leaves our country for another country... fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the US... without retribution or consequence, is WRONG! There will be a tax on our soon-to-be-strong border of 35% for these companies...wanting to sell their product, cars, A.C. units etc., back across the border."
But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. We are one nation--and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.
The president, who regularly brings up Chicago when talking about crime, said that city should strongly consider the controversial "stop and frisk" policy used when his lawyer Rudy Giuliani was mayor of NYC.
"I have directed the attorney general's office to immediately go to the great city of Chicago to help straighten out the terrible shooting wave. I'm going to straighten it out and straighten it out fast," Mr. Trump said. "There's no reason for what's going on there. I've told them to work with local authorities to try to change the terrible deal the city of Chicago entered into with ACLU, which ties law enforcement's hands and to strongly consider stop and frisk. It works and it was meant for problems like Chicago. Got to be properly applied, but stop and frisk works."
Trump said Be Best would have three main areas of focus: well-being, social media use and opioid abuse. "Let us teach our children the difference between right and wrong, and encourage them to Be Best in their individual paths in life," Trump said.
Saying she first learned about "the real consequences of our nation's opioid epidemic" during her husband's White House bid, Trump told the crowd she intends to "work with those who are fighting drug addiction."
President Trump was on-hand for the initiative's launch. As his wife looked on, Trump signed a "Be Best" proclamation, declaring Monday as "Be Best Day."
29 states have enacted effective medical marijuana laws. Marijuana is legal and regulated for adults in 8 states.
[But Trump's] Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded the Department of Justice policy that directed federal law enforcement not to target individuals or businesses that are in compliance with state law.
From August 2013 until yesterday, the Department of Justice policy had been not to enforce federal marijuana laws against individuals or businesses in states that are complying with state medical or adult-use marijuana laws, provided that one of eight federal priorities is not implicated.
Trump unveiled an anti-opioid abuse plan, including his death penalty recommendation, new funding for other initiatives and stiffer sentencing laws for drug dealers. He said the US must "get tough" on opioids. "And that toughness includes the death penalty," he said. Neither Trump nor the White House gave further details as to when it would be appropriate to seek the death penalty.
Trump said that he was working with Congress to find $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid crisis. The plan will also seek to cut opioid prescriptions by a third over 3 years by changing federal programs, he said.
Addiction to opioids--mainly prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl--is a growing problem, especially in rural areas. 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016.
The action demonstrated anew the administration's deep skepticism of affirmative action in education. Under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department had made legal arguments in support of how colleges use race in admissions.
The Justice Department concluded: that Harvard has failed to explain exactly how it weighs race against other factors in an application; that Harvard uses a "personal rating" that may be biased against Asian Americans; and that "substantial evidence" indicates admissions officers monitor and manipulate the racial makeup of incoming classes, despite court rulings that have found "racial balancing" unconstitutional.
Trump made clear that the United States had no intention of meeting the commitments that his predecessor had made to curb planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution, turning denials of climate change into national policy. Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency to start the complex and lengthy legal process of withdrawing and rewriting the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which would have closed hundreds of coal-fired power plants, frozen construction of new plants and replaced them with vast new wind and solar farms.
"C'mon, fellas. You know what this is? You know what this says?" Trump said to the miners. "You're going back to work."
Short Answer: Yes, mines are opening, including a new one in Pennsylvania.
Long answer: That doesn't reverse the overall decline of the coal mining industry from its glory days. The mines that are opening produce a special kind of coal used in steelmaking and are opening largely because of events unrelated to federal policy, experts say. The market for the kind of coal used in electricity--the biggest use for coal--remains down relative to where it was several years ago. In other words, the industry has rebounded slightly after years of layoffs and closures caused mainly by competition from cheap natural gas.
Trump called climate change a hoax in November 2012 stating, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." He later said he was joking about the Chinese connection, but in years since continued to call global warming a hoax.
As far as climate "changing back," temperature records kept by NASA show that the world hasn't had a cooler-than-average year since 1976 or a cooler-than-normal month since 1985.
Trump, a vocal supporter of corn ethanol, will order EPA to allow year-round sales of gasoline with 15% ethanol content, an increase over the 10% blends that are sold at most gas stations around the nation. The sale of the blends, known as "E15," is currently prohibited during the summer months in several states because of Clean Air Act restrictions, and corn growers have long sought to expand sales of the higher concentrations.
Trump has previously called for increased sales of ethanol, which consumes about 40% of the US corn crop. He strongly backed the biofuel during the 2016 campaign, a stance that appealed to Midwestern farmers, but which the oil industry staunchly opposed.
More specifically, the decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has stirred worries about the consequences for summer flounder, one of the most fished species in the Northeast. Ross earlier this month dismissed the findings of the 75-year-old Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which concluded that New Jersey was violating a conservation plan for summer flounder that all the other states in the compact approved.
The decision, which effectively allows New Jersey to harvest more summer flounder, marked the first time the federal government had disregarded such a recommendation by the commission, and it drew a swift rebuke from state officials along the East Coast.
Republican opponents, agriculture groups and real estate developers have decried the Obama administration's 2015 rule--which included smaller streams and tributaries--as a regulatory overreach.
As a candidate and president, Donald Trump painted the Obama-era rule in a similar light, calling it "one of the worst examples of federal regulation," and making its repeal and revision a priority for his administration.
At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, "how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity." We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.
We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action--constantly complaining but never doing anything about it. The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.
Trump amplified his position by posting the statement on Facebook and Twitter as well: "The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed." His words closely echoed the positions expressed by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has treated the impending UN vote as a crisis, posting on his own Twitter account a message urging Obama to veto what he called the "anti-Israel" resolution. Egypt, who drafted the resolution, withdrew it afterwards.
Narrowly focused on criminalization, rather than broader LGBT issues like same-sex marriage, the campaign was conceived partly in response to the recent reported execution by hanging of a young gay man in Iran.
While the Trump administration has had some success in pressuring Iran through stepped-up U.S. penalties, efforts to bring the Europeans along have thus far largely fallen flat.
Reframing the conversation on Iran around a human rights issue that enjoys broad support in Europe could help the US and Europe reach a point of agreement on Iran.
Yet by using gay rights as a cudgel against Iran, the Trump administration risks exposing close US allies who are also vulnerable on the issue and creating a new tension point in the Arab world.
One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been redistributed across the entire world. But that is the past.
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it's going to be America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.
President Trump has shown no sign of stopping the use of tariffs as an economic weapon. Trump has been attempting to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. On Friday, Trump tweeted that a trade deal with Mexico was "coming along nicely," but threatened Canada with auto tariffs if Washington and Ottawa can't forge an agreement.
"They had that long early voting in Florida. It's so long, and so many things can go wrong when you have that long period of time, right?" Trump told the crowd in Baton Rouge. "That long, long, long period. Used to be you'd have a day, you vote. Now you're going forever. Weeks and weeks."
The president-elect, who continually suggested throughout his campaign that the election was rigged against him, added that he's curious about what occurs when early voting precincts are "locked": "I wonder what happens during the evenings when those places are 'locked,' right?" Trump said, using air quotes.
"Heading to Helsinki, Finland--looking forward to meeting with President Putin tomorrow," Trump tweeted. "Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn't good enough--that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!"
"Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people and all the Dems know how to do is resist and obstruct!" Trump added. "This is why there is such hatred and dissension in our country--but at some point, it will heal!"
Florida now joins six other states-GA, KS, SD, TN, TX, and WY--with laws allowing public school employees to carry firearms to work. President Donald Trump has voiced support for the idea, also espoused by the NRA.
Critics have said arming school staff only heightens the risks of gun violence, and poses a particular risk to minority students, who they said were more likely to be shot in the heat of a disciplinary situation or if mistaken as an intruder.
Scott said he remained dissatisfied with the guardian provisions but signed the bill nonetheless, saying it would enhance school safety overall. "I am glad, however, that the plan in this bill is not mandatory, which means it will be up to locally elected officials," Scott said.
Critics have said arming school staff only heightens the risks of gun violence, and poses a particular risk to minority students, who they said were more likely to be shot in the heat of a disciplinary situation or if mistaken as an intruder.
Scott said he remained dissatisfied with the guardian provisions but signed the bill nonetheless, saying it would enhance school safety overall. "I am glad, however, that the plan in this bill is not mandatory, which means it will be up to locally elected officials," Scott said.
Trump tweeted, "THE SECOND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER BE REPEALED! As much as Democrats would like to see this happen, and despite the words yesterday of former Supreme Court Justice Stevens, NO WAY. We need more Republicans in 2018 and must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!"
When asked if Trump had a reaction to Stevens' call for repeal, Trump's press secretary said, "We think that the focus has to remain on removing weapons from dangerous individuals, not on blocking all Americans from their constitutional rights."
In practice, the Democratic Party's so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. Under the Democrats' plan, today's Medicare would be forced to die. The Democrats' plan also would mean the end of choice for seniors over their own health care decisions. Instead, Democrats would give total power and control over seniors' health care decisions to the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
Delaying reform will make it worse. Half of America skimps to pay for health care. The only fix is to cut waste.
Trump tweeted his support for the ruling, saying, "ObamaCare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!" He continued, "Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions." Another tweet said, "Wow, but not surprisingly, ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas. Great news for America!"
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to become House speaker in January, vowed to fight what she called an "absurd ruling."
This is the third time in recent days that Trump has unloaded on a defense program. Last week, Trump claimed the government's second-largest defense contractor, Boeing Co., had run up costs in the development of new Air Force One aircraft. The developer of the F-35 program is the government's largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp.
"Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th," Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the day he is sworn in as president.
The comment was similar to criticism Trump made on Fox News Sunday, when he told an interviewer the F-35 program was "out of control."
Trump didn't mention Lockheed or any other company by name in his criticism. He hasn't said how he would push down costs.
Trump said, "I am the first one that would like to see nobody have nukes, but we're never going to fall behind any country, even if it's a friendly country. It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we're going to be at the top of the pack."
Russia has 7,000 warheads and the United States, 6,800. The New START treaty between the US and Russia requires that by February 5, 2018, both countries limit their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons to 800 ICBMs for 10 years. Trump called New START "a one-sided deal."
Of course, Trump also included a plug for his latest initiative, creating a Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed services. "That's very exciting. We need it. That's the new frontier. And I'm not just talking about sending rockets to the moon. I'm talking about militarily, that's where it's at."
In addition, the secretary of homeland security is ordered to hire 10,000 more immigration officers, create a publicly available weekly list of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and review previous immigration policies.
The order also creates an office to assist the victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and calls on local and state police to detain or apprehend people in the United States illegally.
Other parts of the order call for hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents, building facilities to hold undocumented immigrants near the Mexican border and ending "catch-and-release" protocols, in which immigrants in the United States without documentation are not detained while they await court hearings.
The first lady's parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became American citizens this week thanks to the program. Trump's own grandfather, Friedrich Trump of Germany, and his Scottish-born mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, followed their siblings into this country.
"Calling this 'chain migration' is really outside of the ethos of what was intended," Wildes said. "This whole notion of chain migration is actually a beautiful bedrock of immigration law and policy called family reunification." The host played clips of the president calling chain migration "horrible, horrible," and a "disaster." "You bring one person in, and you end up with 32 people," the president said in one of the clips. "We have to end chain migration."
"It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said. "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress, but now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order. We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the US for 85 years with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous, and it has to end."
An historian explained that guaranteeing automatic citizenship was the intention of the men who drafted the 14th amendment: "Read the debate in the US Senate, Jan. 30, 1866. The framers clarified that children born in the U.S. were citizens regardless of the immigration status of their parents."
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished--but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered--but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
That all changes--starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you. What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now.
Government-run health care is just the beginning. Democrats are also pushing massive government control of education, private-sector businesses and other major sectors of the US economy.
Every single citizen will be harmed by such a radical shift in American culture and life. Virtually everywhere it has been tried, socialism has brought suffering, misery and decay.
Indeed, the Democrats' commitment to government-run health care is all the more menacing when paired with some Democrats' absolute commitment to end enforcement of our immigration laws. That means millions more would cross our borders illegally and take advantage of health care paid for by American taxpayers.
Today's Democratic Party is for open-borders socialism. This radical agenda would destroy American prosperity. Under its vision, costs will spiral out of control.
We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work--rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.
The bill uses a little-known tool called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that allows the president to overturn recently passed agency regulations. Before Trump took office, the CRA had only been successfully passed once, under Pres. Bush in 2001. Trump has signed 10 bills overturning Obama-era regulations, including the internet privacy rule.
The bill caused an uproar when it passed the House and Senate last month, with critics accusing Republicans of selling their constituents' privacy.
The order directs the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), within 30 days of a request, to determine a project's environmental impact and decide whether it is "high priority." Project review deadlines are to be put in place by the CEQ's chairman.
The order is widely believed to have been issued in response to the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, [an incomplete project for shale oil which many protest on environmental grounds].
The project is widely considered to be among the most pressing and most expensive infrastructure needs in the country, and state and local leaders have long sought federal funding to jump-start work on it. But the Trump administration threw the project into doubt late last year by casting aside an agreement reached during the Obama administration that would have the federal government pick up half the project's cost.
And now, Trump has taken a personal interest in making sure no federal dollars flow to a project that is considered critical to his hometown's long-term economic prosperity. The motivations behind Trump's opposition are not entirely clear.
"For months, we have urged China to change these unfair practices, and give fair and reciprocal treatment to American companies," Trump said in a statement. "We have been very clear about the type of changes that need to be made, and we have given China every opportunity to treat us more fairly. But, so far, China has been unwilling to change its practices."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said during his annual New Year's address that preparations for launching an intercontinental ballistic missile have "reached the final stage." The development came after the country claims it tested its first hydrogen bomb last year.
North Korea, which has been at odds with the United States since the start of the Korean War in 1950, first tested a nuclear weapon in 2006. A nuclear test was conducted last year on Jan. 6.
The suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, who took turns explaining to Trump how military action could backfire and risk losing hard-won support among Latin American governments.
But Trump pushed back. Although he gave no indication he was about to order up military plans, he pointed to what he considered past cases of successful gunboat diplomacy in the region, like the invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s.
The idea, despite his aides' best attempts to shoot it down, would nonetheless persist in the president's head. Shortly afterward, he raised the issue with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Two high-ranking Colombian officials confirmed the report.
A National Security Council spokesman reiterated that the US will consider all options at its disposal to help restore Venezuela's democracy and bring stability. Under Trump's leadership, the US, EU, and Canada have levied sanctions on dozens of top Venezuelan officials, including Venezuelan leader Maduro, over allegations of corruption and human rights abuses.
Maduro has long claimed that the U.S. has military designs on Venezuela and its vast oil reserves. Even some of the staunchest U.S. allies were begrudgingly forced to side with Maduro in condemning Trump's saber rattling.
At the time, it seemed unlikely he would ever have to make good on the promise. However, Trump's surprise victory gave him the chance to back up his claim. Many were openly skeptical he could do it.
But one year into the Trump administration, the facts on the ground--in Syria and Iraq--have changed dramatically. The 'Caliphate' announced with such fanfare in the summer of 2014 was in tatters. "We have made, alongside our coalition partners, more progress against these evil terrorists in the past several months than in the past several years," Trump proclaimed last fall. So is ISIS now defeated?
President Trump deserves credit for hastening the downfall of their Caliphate. However, ISIS 2018 will launch an insurgency in its former territory. ISIS has access to electronic spaces where it can continue recruitment efforts.
"When a car is sent to the United States from China, there is a Tariff to be paid of 2-1/2%. When a car is sent to China from the United States, there is a Tariff to be paid of 25%," Trump tweeted April 9. "Does that sound like free or fair trade. No, it sounds like STUPID TRADE-- going on for years!"
Trump's 25% figure matches up with international trade data: we rate this Mostly True. But economists raised some important details that Trump omitted: Some experts suggested Trump had cherry-picked the facts by singling out "cars" instead of a broader category of automobiles or car parts. The U.S. tariff on light trucks from China is 25%. And Chinese tariffs on American auto parts sent to China are well below 25%. For example, China places a 10% tariff on automobile engines.
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The above quotations are from Campaign promises compared to follow-up actions taken by the Trump Administration.
Click here for other excerpts from Campaign promises compared to follow-up actions taken by the Trump Administration. Click here for other excerpts by Donald Trump. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump.
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