Farmers recycle millions of pounds of plastic

Cedar Rapids:Gazette

Minnesota and Wisconsin farms generate 60 million to 80 million pounds of plastic each year but until now had no real options to recycle it. They had to make a choice of paying for it to go to a landfill, burying it on their own land or illegally burning it — none of them, they knew, good for the environment.

An Arkansas company has come up with a solution: In the past two years, it has given more than 4,400 dumpsters to farmers in the two states and then picked up the waste to turn into trash bags that are being used in parks locally.

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American College of Pediatrics reaches decision: Transgenderism of children is child abuse

BizPac Review

The American College of Pediatricians issued a statement this week condemning gender reclassification in children by stating that transgenderism in children amounts to child abuse.

“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The policy statement, authored by Johns Hopkins Medical School Psychology Professor Paul McHugh, listed eight arguments on why gender reclassification is harmful.

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Illinois: Gov. Rauner signs law allowing 16-year-old organ donors

Crystal Lake:Northwest Herald

If you're old enough to drive in Illinois, you're now old enough to be an organ and tissue donor.

Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a law Tuesday authorizing 16- and 17-year-olds to join the statewide registry .

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Report: US assesses NKorea can fit nuke inside a missile

Carmi:Times>

North Korea may have successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, passing a key threshold in becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, according to a Japanese defense paper and a U.S. media report.

The U.N. Security Council this weekend slapped its toughest sanctions yet on North Korea over its latest test of a ballistic missile that could be used to deliver a nuclear weapon. Despite the rapid tempo of these tests, uncertainty has lingered over the isolated nation’s ability to couple such a missile with a nuclear device.

Those uncertainties appear to be receding.

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Omaha officers involved in mentally ill man's death ‘will no longer be employed by the city’

Conyers:Rockdale Citizen

Two Omaha police officers who were involved in the June death of an unarmed, mentally ill man will stop working for the city today.

The police labor contract bars the city from releasing disciplinary information in most cases, so Assistant City Attorney Bernard in den Bosch didn’t say whether the officers had been fired.

But he said Thursday: “As of tomorrow morning two officers will no longer be employed by the City of Omaha.”

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Free access to tampons gains national political traction

Colorado Springs Gazette

A topic that for so long was rarely discussed above a whisper has recently been taken up by growing numbers of lawmakers.

Spurred by grass-roots activism aimed at lifting the stigma surrounding menstruation, the lawmakers are proposing measures to provide broad access to menstrual products for women. Their efforts include exempting tampons and pads from state and local taxes, compelling prisons to stop charging inmates for the supplies and making them available for free at public schools and workplaces.

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LaMalfa defends health care reform, president’s policies at ‘spirited’ town hall

Chico Enterprise-Record

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, was met by a crowd often noisy with opposition at a town hall Monday morning, though he didn’t walk off the stage this time.

It was nearly a full house, with a representative for the Chico Elks Lodge estimating about 400 were in attendance. Some of the most intense moments of the morning included one man’s comment that he hoped the congressman would die — drawing mostly boos from the audience — and one woman being escorted out for continuous yelling.

However, the congressman said by the end the audience was “spirited” but “pretty good,” not as raucous as at Oroville’s town hall in April. The meeting went a little past the allotted time, from 8-9 a.m.

Some of the top questions residents wanted their representative to answer included why he supported cuts to health care coverage, backed tax breaks for the wealthy, and refuses to acknowledge impacts of climate change?

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Ending the EPA’s Billion Dollar Green Energy Rip-Off

Washington, D.C. - August 8, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- In recent years, the Environmental Protection Agency has created its own power of the purse independent of Congress by negotiating broad settlements with alleged violators of environmental statutes that require them to pay for the president’s—not Congress’s—political priorities. The Volkswagen settlement is the most recent example. In order to mitigate penalties paid to the U.S. Treasury for its “defeat device” scandal, the car company agreed to spend $1.2 billion on electric vehicles, despite the fact that Congress had rejected President Obama’s request for $300 million for this same purpose. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s latest report, Ending the EPA’s Billion Dollar Green Energy Rip-Off, provides the context and the solution for ending the agency’s political slush fund.

“While the Trump administration has taken the right steps to put an end to this attempt by the EPA to act with the power of the purse that it doesn’t have, more can be done both by the agency and Congress to ensure this political behavior doesn’t return,” said CEI Senior Fellow and report author William Yeatman.

See Yeatman’s report Ending the EPA’s Billion Dollar Green Energy Rip-Off.

New DHS Data Reveals 4 Million 'Half-Amnestied' Aliens

Washington, D.C. - August 8, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies finds a little-known foreign-born labor force of close to four million people. These workers are not included among the one to two million temporary workers or the estimated seven million illegal workers. These "half-amnestied" aliens have Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allowing them to work legally, but they do not have legal permanent status.

David North, a Center fellow and author of the analysis, bases his estimates on newly released DHS raw immigration data, which also reveals that most of this population receives temporary legal status for reasons unrelated to their skills. They are "as free to move around the labor market as citizens or permanent resident aliens," North writes, and "with a handful of exceptions, they are free of ties to a given employer."

"This is a huge, rarely discussed alien labor force that is all but hidden from the public," North said.

View the full analysis by clicking HERE

The U.S. immigration system has 58 sub-classifications of EAD holders. The largest categories are DACAs (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), asylum applicants, two subgroups of adjustees, plus workers in Optional Practical Training (i.e. foreign college alumni) and Temporary Protected Status.

The numbers recently made public are of annual issuances, and therefore misleadingly small because most EADs are good for 18 months or longer. That means the published numbers do not reflect the full impact of the EAD population on the labor force at any one time. The estimate of four million is thus a snapshot of the current total number of EAD workers rather than the annual flow of approved applications.

North writes, "The major policy point here is that there is a huge alien workforce that remains unrecognized because it is never seen as a group, the way it should be viewed."

National Security Advisor’s Serial Insubordination and Personnel Actions Undermine Trump Presidency, Requires His Termination

Washington, D.C. - August 7, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- The Center for Security Policy has joined with others who are alarmed at the disloyal and subversive behavior of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. They have joined together in calling on President Trump to dismiss McMaster from his office immediately. Such disloyal and subversive behavior from McMaster includes undermining the President’s policies on virtually every important foreign and defense policy issue and purging staff members who support these issues, while retaining or hiring others – including large numbers of Obama holdovers – who do not.

“No voter in this country – not one – elected H.R. McMaster to run U.S. foreign policy. Actually, the winner of the 2016 election was a man who opposed virtually every aspect of the McMaster agenda – and that of the president who made its architect a three-star general, Barack Obama,” said Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney in a nationally syndicated radio commentary today.

“It may be hard to square that reality with what has happened since McMaster became Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor. At every turn, the Army general has been insubordinate to his Commander-in-Chief. For example, he has openly opposed Mr. Trump on “radical Islamic terrorism,” Syria, Qatar, Iran, Russia and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Of late, McMaster has taken to purging Mr. Trump’s most loyal staff members, including senior intelligence advisor Ezra Cohen-Watnik – a man the President had previously, personally insisted be retained. If such misconduct is tolerated, Trump voters will have unknowingly elected President McMaster.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates described the administration’s redoubled efforts to stop leaks that compromise national security. One place that must receive close scrutiny is McMaster’s own office in light of Thursday’s revelation by Sara Carter of Circa News that last April, the National Security Advisor personally granted one of his most notorious predecessors, Susan Rice, continued access to classified information and vouched for her trustworthiness with respect to safeguarding it. Given Ms. Rice’s record of playing fast-and-loose with sensitive information for partisan political purposes, this action speaks volumes about Gen. McMaster’s poor judgment and loyalties – and affirms the necessity of his termination forthwith.