American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on President Donald Trump's Executive Order on Free Speech

by: American Federation of Teachers

Washington, D.C. - March 21, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after President Trump signed an executive order on free speech on college and university campuses:

“President Trump’s concept of free speech is speech that he agrees with, which is, in fact, the antithesis of what the First Amendment seeks to protect. He has repeatedly indicated his interest in ‘shutting down’ journalists and media outlets that criticize him, and he uses hateful and many times inciteful words on a daily and public basis. With a track record like this, there is no reason to believe that the speech he wants to ‘protect’ on college campuses won’t both suppress speech and enable incitement. If the framers of the Constitution were alive today, they would tell President Trump: ‘No, no, no, sir. You can’t use executive orders to suppress the speech of those with whom you disagree.’

“As educators, we are staunch supporters of a free exchange of ideas, the free expression that is crucial to intellectual discourse, and the responsibility that all speech must be coupled with an ability to reject that which will incite hatred or violence. Free and unfettered speech is supposed to be exactly that—free and unfettered—not subject to executive branch policing and interference.

“This order also sets a dangerous precedent that makes public activities at our nation’s colleges and universities susceptible to punitive action if they don’t meet a predetermined, purposefully ambiguous benchmark set by a White House with a very obvious political agenda. When schools are committed to civilized discussion and debate, we should be investing in more research to defend those democratic ideals, not denying them resources.”

EEOC Union Condemns Drastic $23.7M Budget Cut to Civil Rights Enforcement in #MeToo Era

by: American Federation for Government Employees

Washington, D.C. - March 21, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- President Trump’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 would slash the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s historically low budget by $23.7 million, which will make it harder for workers facing discrimination to get the help they need, the union representing EEOC workers said today.

“The EEOC enforces federal laws barring workplace discrimination, including sexual harassment, and cutting our budget frustrates those efforts,” said Gabrielle Martin, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 216, the National Council of EEOC Locals. “Victims of workplace discrimination will feel the punch of this cut when they can’t get an appointment or an investigation of their complaint.”

The administration is proposing to slash EEOC’s current budget from $379.5 million to $355.8 million in fiscal 2020, even while the agency is facing rising workloads. EEOC had a backlog of 49,608 cases in fiscal year 2018, and cases continued to pile up while EEOC was closed during the 35-day shutdown. It takes workers months to get an appointment with EEOC and over an hour to reach a live person by telephone. EEOC’s workload this year included 200,000 inquiries, 76,418 charges, 40,000 interviews, and 105,600 calls.

Sexual harassment claims were up 13.6 percent in 2018. While Congress modestly increased EEOC’s budget in response to the #MeToo movement, the agency still has not been able to keep up with demand. Last year, the EEOC’s workforce dropped below 2,000 employees for the first time since before 1980. The president’s budget plan would slash another 180 positions, including mediators, judges, intake representatives, and 50 investigators. The agency’s budget justification concedes there will be a “steady rise in pending inventory” as “there will be no replacement of staff.”

“In a time of rising awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace, it sends the entirely wrong message to cut funding and staff at the agency that handles those complaints,” Martin said.

One consequence of the massive workload and short staffing is a push by EEOC to swiftly close cases by tagging them as “C charges” under the agency’s triage system.

“Ravaging the budget will make matters worse,” Martin warns. “The vast majority of workers who come to EEOC for help receive a dismissal with a ‘right to sue’ letter and are left to find help on their own. Likewise, federal employees with discrimination complaints are affected by EEOC pressing a shrinking unit of administrative judges to hit unattainably high quotas by closing cases through summary judgement or without discovery.”

Martin called upon Congress, civil rights groups, and concerned citizens to take action. “Contact your lawmakers to save EEOC from drastic cuts. Email the EEOC to request a budget in line with its workload. Tweet #StopEEOCbudgetcut. The #MeToo era is not the time to slash EEOC’s budget.”

AAM Letter to Congress: Support Legislation to Keep Federal Funds from Enriching Chinese SOEs

by: Alliance for American Manufacturing

Washington, D.C. - March 21, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- The Alliance for American Manufacturing is urging members of Congress to support the bipartisan Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act, introduced by U.S. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). This vital legislation would ban Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds from being used to award a contract or subcontract to a Chinese state-owned, controlled or subsidized enterprise (SOE).

In a letter submitted today, Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul wrote:

"America's tax dollars should not be used to support Chinese state-owned firms seeking to undermine market competition."

Letter reads as follows:

Dear Senators and Representatives:

On behalf of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a partnership between the United Steelworkers (USW) and leading U.S. manufacturing companies, I am writing to express our support for the Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act. This legislation would ban Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds from being used to award a contract or subcontract to a Chinese state-owned, controlled, or subsidized enterprise.

Backed by deep government support and Beijing's "Made in China 2025" initiative, China's electric bus and rail state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are rapidly altering the U.S. competitive landscape for rolling stock manufacturing. This is having a profoundly negative impact on established, private-sector U.S. firms and jeopardizing supply chains that employ tens of thousands of American workers.

China Railroad Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) – a Chinese SOE – has drastically altered the competitive landscape for domestic railcar manufacturing. Since 2014, CRRC has secured major metro transit car contracts in Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Chicago with impossibly low bids. In Boston, CRRC's bid was hundreds of millions of dollars below the next lowest bidder. In Philadelphia, another bidder was quoted as saying, "I cannot grasp how they are able to do it at that cost." There should be no doubting CRRC's strategy to establish itself in the U.S. market and to eliminate legitimate competition through any means necessary, even if it means losing substantial sums of money along the way. With deals in DC, Atlanta, and Miami within CRRC's sights, it is vital for U.S. national security, innovation, and jobs that we stop subsidizing the destruction of our domestic rolling stock manufacturing base with federal dollars.

The electric bus industry is also in Beijing's sights. BYD, or Build Your Dreams, assembles electric buses in the United States and is both influenced and subsidized by the Chinese government. BYD has been plagued by quality issues and a recent OIG investigation by the City of Albuquerque suggests that "the majority, if not all, parts were manufactured in China and shipped to the United States" – including the bus frame, chassis, walls, drive train, axels, motor, lights, seating and seat belts, and more. BYD not only aggressively undermines healthy market competition in the electric bus procurement market, it threatens to displace supply chains here in the United States with imported parts and components shipped in from China.

It is vital that the United States act to prevent the destruction of the U.S. competitive landscape for rolling stock manufacturing before it is too late. America's tax dollars should not be used to support Chinese state-owned firms seeking to undermine market competition. Please support the bipartisan Cornyn-Baldwin-Crapo-Brown Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act.

Sincerely,

Scott N. Paul

President

Alliance for American Manufacturing

President Trump issues executive order supporting free speech at universities

by: Alliance Defending Freedom

Washington, D.C. - March 21, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, regarding President Donald Trump’s executive order Thursday that requires public universities to respect the constitutionally protected free speech rights of students in order to continue receiving federal research funds:

“The administration is right to recognize the threats to freedom of speech on public university campuses and the need to do something about preserving the marketplace of ideas. In the course of winning more than 400 legal victories since 2006, the ADF Center for Academic Freedom has continued to encounter massive free speech and other First Amendment violations, unconstitutional policies, and many repeat offenders. We appreciate the administration’s understanding of this problem as well as actions it has taken to help, including the briefs that the Department of Justice has filed in support of ADF clients who have stood up for their freedoms in the face of having those freedoms jeopardized. Today’s university students will be tomorrow’s voters and civic leaders. That’s why it’s so important that public colleges and universities exemplify the First Amendment values they are supposed to be teaching to students.”

Three ADF Center for Academic Freedom clients—Ellie Wittman, Bernadette Tasy, and Isaac Edikauskas—are scheduled to be present on stage with President Trump for the announcement of the executive order.

MADD, Rep. Hammoud Call for .05 BAC Law, Ignition Interlocks for All Offenders

by: Alcohol Justice

Lansing, MI - March 19, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- — Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) today joined Michigan Representative Abdullah Hammoud and traffic safety partners in calling for a state law that lowers the threshold for impaired driving in Michigan to .05 blood alcohol concentration (BAC). MADD also strongly supports Representative Hammoud’s legislation that would require ignition interlocks for all drunk drivers, which would make Michigan the 34th state with an alloffender ignition interlock law.

Today’s announcement marks the first time MADD has advocated for lowering a state’s BAC law.

“Today, we are proud to stand with Michigan to support this proposal that research shows will save lives,” said MADD National President Helen Witty, whose 16-year-old daughterHelen Marie was killed by a drunk and marijuana-impaired driver while rollerblading on a bike path. “Research shows that critical driving skills are impaired at .05 BAC, significantly increasing the risk of a horrible, 100 percent preventable crash. We want to do anything we can to support states that are trying to stop these tragedies and keep drunk drivers off the road.”

Representative Hammoud has filed legislation that would set Michigan’s impairment level at .05 BAC. If passed, Michigan would become the second state to lower the legal threshold for drunk driving.

“We must address drunk driving, which is a completely avoidable epidemic,” said Representative Hammoud. “As a former public health professional, I am motivated by facts and statistics, and as a legislator I know our current policies in place to prevent drunk driving are not working, which is why we must do more. The loss of the Abbas family, a beautiful family of five, due to a drunk driver, has further motivated a community of
advocates to step up and propose real solutions backed up by the scientific community. These critical proposals will do more to prevent drinking and driving, and ultimately save lives.”

In December, Utah became the first state in the nation with a .05 BAC law. In addition to Michigan, proposals in Oregon, New York and California are being considered this year. MADD is not seeking a national .05 BAC standard at this time, but will support .05 BAC legislation as it is proposed state by state.

Statement from Feeding America on Release of President Trump’s FY2020 Budget Details

by: Feeding America

Washington, D.C. - March 20, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- “If the cuts to federal nutrition programs included in the administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget released today became law, they would undermine local economies and increase hunger, particularly among children and seniors.

“The budget makes drastic changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It cuts the program by nearly one third, in part by reintroducing the inefficient and high-cost America’s Harvest Box plan. From our experience, the complications and costs of this program would result in taking food away from hungry families to run a large and bureaucratic system.

“The current SNAP system works because it’s a partnership with businesses and grocery stores that do the heavy lifting to connect families with food. The administration’s proposal to switch to government distributed food boxes would result in losing out on the many efficiencies of building on the free market grocery store food chain network.

“The budget also makes devastating cuts to programs for children and seniors. The budget would impair student access to free and reduced-price school meals by adding red tape and significant administrative burdens to schools and families. In addition, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides nutritious USDA foods each month to supplement the diets of more than 730,000 lower-income seniors age 60 and over, would be eliminated.

“We also want to highlight potentially harmful changes to the structure of Section 32. Currently, USDA uses Section 32 to provide market support to U.S. grown food and distributes the food to food banks and schools. The proposed budget would cap the funds available for this program. The real-world impact of this change would be to reduce the overall assistance to growers and producers as well as the nutritious food provided to food banks and schools.

“We urge Congress to reject the proposed budget and work together to find solutions that will help Americans struggling to put food on the table.”

Government Agencies Encouraging New Voting Systems with a Paper Record Nationwide

by: Pennsylvania Department of State

Harrisburg, PA - March 19, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- Pennsylvania counties continue to make great progress transitioning to more secure and accessible voting systems with paper records that voters can verify before casting their ballot.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along with the U.S. Senate and House intelligence committees and many security experts, are calling on Pennsylvania and other states to have voting systems with a paper trail by the 2020 presidential election.

Already 19 counties, or 28 percent, have taken official action toward acquiring new voting systems, either through a vote to purchase or lease a system, or a vote to approve funding. The counties are Beaver, Berks, Bradford, Butler, Centre, Clinton, Crawford, Greene, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Mercer, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Pike, Susquehanna, Venango and Westmoreland. Almost 80% of counties report they have received, selected or are in the process of selecting new voting systems.

An estimated 52 counties have already reported plans to implement the new systems as follows:

Eight to 10 counties expect to use new voting systems for the May 2019 primary.

An additional 32 counties are working to implement new systems for the November 2019 election.

About 11 counties expect to deploy for the April 2020 primary.

15 counties remain undecided about their deployment date.

"We are very pleased that more than a quarter of the commonwealth's counties have already taken steps to acquire their new voting systems, and more than three-quarters have plans to implement their new systems," Acting Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said. "County officials continue to demonstrate how committed they are to acquiring voting systems that best meet their voters' needs and provide the most secure, auditable and accessible voting systems to all Pennsylvanians."

In April 2018, the Department of State informed counties they must select new voting systems that provide a paper record, meet 21st-century standards of security and accessibility, and can be more thoroughly audited than current systems allow. Counties must choose their new voting systems by Dec. 31, 2019, and implement them no later than the 2020 primary election.

In Pennsylvania, every voting system and paper ballot must include plain text that voters can read to verify their choices before casting their ballot. Election officials will also use the plain text to perform pre-election testing and post-election audits and recounts.

Governor Wolf has proposed a minimum of $15 million in state funding each year for the next five years, for a combined total of at least $75 million to assist counties in acquiring the new systems.

The governor has already committed $14.15 million in federal and state funding to counties for new voting systems.

The Department of State will continue to pursue more federal assistance and other funding sources to assist counties in paying for their new voting systems.

The department also has provided a statewide purchasing contract that counties can use to negotiate their best deal, while including specifics that will best meet their needs. Bids from five vendors have been approved under the contract.

Under the Pennsylvania Election Code, every county must employ voting systems that are certified by both the federal Election Assistance Commission and the secretary of the commonwealth. Four new voting systems are certified under the state's new security and accessibility standards. A fifth voting system has successfully completed state and federal testing and official certification will be released shortly. A sixth system is nearing the conclusion of its certification testing.

Misinformed Children Skip School to Protest for 'Climate Change' Agenda, States Physicians for Civil Defense

by: Physicians for Civil Defense

Tucson, AZ - March 19, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- On March 15, an estimated 1.4 million schoolchildren in 123 countries skipped school to protest governments' failure to drastically cut back on the use of carbon-based fuels. They believe they have no future because of imminent climatic disaster caused by human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).

The figurehead leader of the Fridays for Future "strike" movement is Greta Thunberg, who reportedly started the movement at age 15. She was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential teens of 2018. Her appealing image is a lucrative money-maker for Swedish entrepreneur Ingmar Rentzhog, founder of We Don't Have Time, who claims to have discovered her.

"It is not surprising that so many schoolchildren are terrified about their future," states Physicians for Civil Defense president Jane Orient, M.D. "They are immersed in groupthink and apocalyptic environmentalist scenarios in school. Major news outlets censor opposing views about climate science."

A helpful antidote might be the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Climate Change IQ Test, she suggested.

"Children's Crusades have long exploited passionate but uninformed young persons to promote a movement," Dr. Orient noted.

"The policies the marchers are advocating would have a negligible if any effect on climate. But cutting off the fuels that power 80 percent of the world's economy would cause abject poverty and mass death, especially in the world's poorest nations."

According to EIKE (Europäisches Institut für Klima & Energie—European Institute for Climate and Energy), the projections of UN climate models have been consistently wrong, but the UN is using the climate-change apocalypse as a tool (Werkzeug) to bring about global economic transformation. "The goal is a socialist, global energy-rationing regime," explained Dr. Orient.

Physicians for Civil Defense distributes information to help to save lives in the event of war or other disaster.

Dream and Promise Act Introduced in the House of Representatives of theUnited States

by: Embassy of The Republic of Haiti

Washington, D.C. - March 19, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- On Tuesday, March 12, 2019, the House Democrats introduced the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, which would create a pathway to permanent residency for over fifty-thousand (50,000) Haitian nationals who are Temporary Protective Status (TPS) recipients, millions of Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) recipients. H.R.6 was introduced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, Rep. Nydia Velázquez, Rep. Yvette Clark, and other House Democrats.

If the legislation passes, TPS holders could immediately apply for a green card. This bill only applies to petitioners who have been in the country for at least three years, had status as of September 2016, and can successfully pass a background check. In addition, within five (5) years of obtaining a green card, all three groups could apply for citizenship.

However, immigrants who have been convicted of crimes punishable by more than one (1) year in prison, or have been convicted of three or more offenses that carry sentences of more than 90 days in jail, would not be eligible.

Former Defense Intelligence Officer Pleads Guilty to Attempted Espionage

by: U.S Department of Justice


Washington, D.C. - March 19, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, a resident of Syracuse, Utah, and a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer, pleaded guilty today in the District of Utah in connection with his attempted transmission of national defense information to the People’s Republic of China. Sentencing is set for Sept. 24, 2019.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney John Huber for the District of Utah and Special Agent in Charge Paul Haertel of the FBI’s Salt Lake City Field Office announced the charges.

Hansen retired from the U.S. Army as a Warrant Officer with a background in signals intelligence and human intelligence. He speaks fluent Mandarin-Chinese and Russian. DIA hired Hansen as a civilian intelligence case officer in 2006. Hansen held a Top Secret clearance for many years, and signed several non-disclosure agreements during his tenure at DIA and as a government contractor.

As Hansen admitted in the plea agreement, in early 2014, agents of a Chinese intelligence service targeted Hansen for recruitment and he began meeting with them regularly in China. During those meetings, the Chinese agents described to Hansen the type of information that would interest the Chinese intelligence service. During the course of his relationship with the agents of the Chinese intelligence service, Hansen received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for information he provided them, including information he gathered at various industry conferences. Between May 24, 2016 and June 2, 2018, Hansen solicited from an intelligence case officer working for the DIA national defense information that Hansen knew the Chinese intelligence service would find valuable. Hansen agreed to act as a conduit to sell that information to the Chinese. Hansen advised the DIA case officer how to record and transmit classified information without detection, and explained how to hide and launder any funds received as payment for classified information. The DIA case officer reported Hansen’s conduct to the DIA and subsequently acted as a confidential human source for the FBI.

As Hansen further admitted in the plea agreement, Hansen met with the DIA case officer on June 2, 2018, and received from that individual documents containing national defense information that Hansen previously solicited. The documents Hansen received were classified. The information in the documents related to the national defense of the United States in that it related to United States military readiness in a particular region and was closely held by the United States government. Hansen reviewed the documents, queried the DIA case officer about their contents, and took written notes about the materials relating to the national defense information. Hansen advised the DIA case officer that he would remember most of the details about the documents he received that day and would conceal some notes about the material in the text of an electronic document that Hansen would prepare at the airport before leaving for China. Hansen intended to provide the information he received to the agents of the Chinese intelligence service with whom he had been meeting, and Hansen knew that the information was to be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation.

Hansen pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government. The plea agreement calls for an agreed-upon sentence of 15 years.

Special agents of the FBI, IRS, U.S. Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, U.S. Army Counterintelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency were involved in the investigation.

The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert A. Lund, Karin Fojtik, Mark K. Vincent and Alicia Cook of the District of Utah, and Trial Attorneys Patrick T. Murphy, Matthew J. McKenzie and Adam L. Small of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington assisted with this case.