Editorial: What better time to rein in welfare handouts?

By the caterwauling of the Democratic politicians, you’d think federal bureaucrats were stealing into homes in the middle of the night and snatching food out of the pantries of starving families.

The Agriculture Department has announced plans to cut back on the eligibility waivers that states have been liberally granting to increase the number of people getting food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

“The Trump administration,” complained Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, “is driving the vulnerable into hunger just as the Christmas season approaches.”

Getty Images via WSJ

“Both the final and proposed rule changes to SNAP are unconscionable, and will have devastating impacts to low-income Nevadans who make up our most vulnerable citizens — including families, children, and veterans,” bemoaned Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak in a press release. “While we appreciate the issuance of a temporary waiver, the Administration’s rule changes, both final and proposed, have created uncertainty for the states, and I will be working with DHHS (Nevada Department of Health and Human Services) to determine next steps on how to address the increased hardship and hunger that will be created by taking away low-income families’ basic food assistance.”

The governor’s press release said 78,000 of the 400,000 Nevadans currently receiving food stamps could lose eligibility due to a tightening of eligibility rules.

In September, the Trump administration announced that it would no longer allow states to automatically issue food stamps to anyone receiving any federal welfare benefits whatsoever. Only those households receiving $50 a month for six months or more from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program would be eligible.

At the time Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue said, “For too long, this loophole has been used to effectively bypass important eligibility guidelines. Too often, states have misused this flexibility without restraint.”

But Gov. Sisolak then complained, “This is an absolutely unconscionable act that would have dire impacts on the most vulnerable populations in our state, especially those with disabilities, the elderly, and low-income children on free and reduced-price school meals.”

This past week the administration said it also is tightening the work requirements for childless adults. According to The Wall Street Journal, a 1996 welfare reform act said that childless adults had to work or train at least 20 hours a week to get food stamps. The new rule says waivers for this requirement will only be granted in areas with an unemployment rate in excess of 6 percent. Nevada’s October not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.7 percent.

This change does not affect families, the disabled or those older than 50 — only able-bodied adults living in a country where there are now 7 million job openings for only 6 million job seekers. The national unemployment rate is at a 50-year low. What better time to rein in the free ride?

Expensive welfare handouts should be reserved only for those truly in need and not become a universal entitlement. The current lax rules waste billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

A little ‘refer’ would not be madness … no, not that kind

Were I the editor of the morning paper, I would’ve been sorely tempted to insert a “refer” in the 4A story about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling  for nearly half a trillion dollars in subsidies to replace internal combustion engine vehicles with electric ones.

No, not that kind. In the newspaper biz a “refer” is a reference to another section or page on a related topic — like the one on today’s front page directing readers to a story inside related to the one about the dental board.

The Schumer news story simply cried out for a reference to today’s lede editorial about the futility of trying to reduce carbon emissions by coercing and bribing more people into electric cars.

The news story by the AP quotes Schumer as saying the “proposal to bring clean cars to all of America” would be a key part of climate legislation by Senate Democrats that “could position the U.S. to lead the world in clean auto manufacturing.”

The editorial on the other hand points out the huge carbon footprint created by the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries and the fact the electric cars are charged largely by fossil-fuel-burning power plants.

The editorial correctly explains the error of the Senate Democrats’ ways:

The lithium batteries that power electric cars have to come from somewhere. China produces 60 percent of the world’s supply, notwithstanding Northern Nevada’s Tesla plant. To produce a battery able to store as much energy as is contained in a barrel of oil, it requires the equivalent of 100 barrels of oil. That’s according to Manhattan Institute senior fellow Mark P. Mills.

“Importing batteries manufactured on Asia’s coal-heavy grid means that consumers are just exporting carbon-dioxide emissions,” Mr. Mills wrote recently in City Journal.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April on a German study finding that, given the country’s energy makeup, “the carbon emissions of battery-electric vehicles there, are, in the best case, ‘slightly higher than those of a diesel engine.’ ”

The carbon emissions don’t stop once the car is produced. Electric cars are charged on the grid. Coal and natural gas — both fossil fuels — produced 63 percent of that power in 2018. Almost 20 percent comes from nuclear power and 7 percent is from hydropower. Despite decades of hype and subsidies, wind and solar produced just a bit more than 8 percent. Solar and wind generation will likely increase in the coming decades, but absent an embrace of nuclear power, fossil fuels will be necessary to balance out the grid.

The factual opinion piece concludes by pointing out that electric cars merely exchange carbon emissions you can see for those you can’t — something the climate alarmists fail to grasp.

But since news and opinion are to be kept at arm’s length, I probably would have resisted inserting the “refer,” though it would’ve been a service to the reader and hardly madness.

Electric vehicle being charged. Photo accompanies R-J editorial online. (R-J file pix)

Newspaper column: Federal sports betting bill usurps state powers

Now, precisely where in the U.S. Constitution is Congress given the power to “maintain a distinct Federal interest in the integrity and character of professional and amateur sporting contests”?

But this is what a bill introduced this past week by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York — dubbed the Sports Wagering Market Integrity Act of 2018 — claim is grounds for imposing federal suzerainty over the eight states that currently allow sports wagering.

“This bill is the first step toward ensuring that sports betting is done right in the states that choose to legalize it,” Hatch said in a press release announcing the introduction of the bill.

“As a lifelong sports fan I treasure the purity of the game, and after Murphy v. NCAA, I knew that Congress had an obligation to ensure that the integrity of the games we love was never compromised,” Schumer was quoted as saying.

Murphy v. NCAA was the case in which the Supreme Court struck down the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992, which outlawed sports gambling, though Nevada and a couple of other states were grandfathered. Hatch was one of the authors of that overturned law, which dictated how states should regulate sports betting.

Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion stated, “Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own. Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not. PASPA ‘regulate[s] state governments’ regulation’ of their citizens … The Constitu­tion gives Congress no such power.”

This is because the 10th Amendment states that powers not delegated to the federal government are retained by the states and the people.

But Hatch and Schumer appear to be overreaching on Alito’s contention that Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, presumably under the Interstate Commerce Clause. But Nevada and the other states are regulating the intrastate commerce of sports betting, and doing just fine without federal meddling, thank you.

The bill would prohibit sports wagers on amateur sporting events, except the Olympics and college sports; prohibit sports wagering by anyone under 21, as well as athletes, coaches, officials and others associated with sports organizations; and would require sports betting operations to buy their data from sports organizations.

That latter requirement is one reason the various professional sports leagues are in favor of the bill. It lets them tap into the lucrative proceeds of legal sports betting.

The bill also dictates that sports wagering operators allocate an “appropriate percentage of the revenue from sports wagering” to treat gambling addiction and educate on responsible gaming. Might appropriate become confiscatory?

There is already a federal excise tax on sports betting that nets an estimated $12 million a year, which presumably would increase as legal sports betting spreads and the percentage rake is increased by revenue hungry lawmakers in D.C.

Of course, at some point the feds will want to take their cut from the state taxes on sports betting.

“This bill is the epitome of a solution in search of a problem, representing an unprecedented and inappropriate expansion of federal involvement in the gaming industry, which is currently one of the most strictly regulated in the country,” the Nevada Independent quoted Sara Slane, American Gaming Association’s senior vice president of public affairs, as saying. “Across the country, nearly 4,000 dedicated public servants already regulate all forms of gaming, including sports wagering, with more than $500 million committed to ensuring the integrity of commercial casinos’ operations and $822 million spent on regulation of tribal gaming in 2015 alone.”

The online news website also quoted Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, whose district includes the Las Vegas Strip, as saying, “This bill undermines Nevada’s expertise and experience in establishing a successful, regulated sports betting market. It would inject uncertainty into an established and regulated industry, weaken Nevada’s ability to promptly adapt to maintain its gold standard, and risk causing bettors and operators to leave the regulated market.”

As for integrity, who uncovered that 1994 point-shaving scheme at Arizona State? Oh yes, it was bookmakers.

This bill is a federal power grab that usurps the rights and powers of the states and does nothing for the “integrity” of sports.

A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

 

Newspaper column: Reid hypocritical about Supreme Court nomination

Some people are ambidextrous. Harry Reid is ambioratory. He speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

This past week one of Sen. Reid’s staffers penned an op-ed column that ran under his name in The Washington Post on the topic of replacing the late, great, conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died only days earlier.

The Democratic Senate minority leader took umbrage with something the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said shortly after Scalia was found dead at a West Texas hunting resort. McConnell said the American people should have a voice in the replacement process, meaning no new justice should be confirmed until the next president is seated, rather than allow lame-duck Obama to nominate someone like his two liberal rubber stamps on the court — Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Reid countered that the American people voiced their opinions by twice electing Obama president and handing him the constitutional power to nominate Supreme Court justices.

“That is how our system works and has worked for more than 200 years,” the op-ed proclaims. “Until now, even through all the partisan battles of recent decades, the Senate’s constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president’s Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable. This Republican Senate would be the first in history to abdicate that vital duty.”

A couple of days later Republicans McConnell and Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took to the same pages of the same newspaper to remind the same senator who had lectured them days earlier of what he had said in 2005 on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

According to a transcript of that speech, Reid chided President George W. Bush for rewriting the Constitution and reinventing reality when he said two days earlier that the Senate had a duty to promptly consider each nominee, debate their qualifications and give them an up-or-down vote.

“Referring to the president’s words, duty to whom?” Reid asked rhetorically back then. “The radical right who see within their reach the destruction of America’s mainstream values. Certainly not duty to the tenets of our Constitution or to the American people who are waiting for progress and promise, not partisanship and petty debates.

“The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential appointees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.”

Reid later lectured, “The Senate is not a rubber stamp for the executive branch. Rather, we are the one institution where the minority has the voice and ability to check the power of the majority.”

Fast forward to this past week’s op-ed in the Post. Reid concluded his thundering accusation against Republicans by saying, “Pursuing their radical strategy in a quixotic quest to deny the basic fact that the American people elected President Obama — twice — would rank among the most rash and reckless actions in the history of the Senate. And the consequences will reverberate for decades.”

We seem to recall that by 2005 Bush had been elected twice, but efforts to circumvent his high court appointees seem not to reverberate a single decade later.

It is just as we have come to expect from Harry Reid and his ilk — politics first, last and always. No argument is so compelling that it can’t be reversed, refuted or abandoned. Reid says Obama will nominate someone in two weeks.

If McConnell’s call to give the American people a voice in Scalia’s successor sounds familiar, perhaps it is because Reid’s Democratic Senate colleague Chuck Schumer said in 2007, two years before the end of Bush’s second term:

“For the rest of this president’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another (John) Roberts; or Justice Ginsburg by another (Samuel) Alito. Given the track record of this President and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court, at least: I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.”

Reid, Schumer, then-Sen. Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all voted to filibuster Alito and Roberts.

All ambioratory and hypocritical.

A version of this column appears this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Your morning newspaper: Where nary is heard a contrary word

WaPo illustration accompanying Reid op-ed.

Many newspapers like to give their readers a full menu of commentary, often printing adjacent pro and con op-eds on a given topic.

Today the Las Vegas newspaper devoted its entire op-ed page to essentially a pro-pro stance.

The paper reprinted an op-ed by Sen. Harry Reid that first appeared Monday in The Washington Post as well as a column by Steve Sebelius taking an identical stance, fulminating over Republicans threatening to block any Obama nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

They both attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell and all the Republican presidential candidates who said the replacement for Scalia should be named by whomever is elected president in November.

Sebelius fumed, “For the record, anyone in federal elected office who advises ignoring a presidential nomination or rejecting a nominee before that person’s name is even announced is simply unfit to hold office.”

Reid ranted, “Pursuing their radical strategy in a quixotic quest to deny the basic fact that the American people elected President Obama — twice — would rank among the most rash and reckless actions in the history of the Senate. And the consequences will reverberate for decades.”

The senator also claimed, “Until now, even through all the partisan battles of recent decades, the Senate’s constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president’s Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable. This Republican Senate would be the first in history to abdicate that vital duty.”

Pay no heed to his role in filibustering the nominations of both Samuel Alito and John Roberts for purely partisan reasons.

He also seems to have forgotten the speech by Chuck Schumer in 2007, late in George W. Bush’s second term, in which he said:

“For the rest of this President’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance.  We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts; or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito. Given the track record of this President and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court, at least:  I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.”

Both of today’s op-eds pounded on the Senate’s constitutional duty to provide advice and consent for Supreme Court appointees. There is no criteria spelled out for refusing to consent.

In fact, both Reid and Obama — along with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Schumer and Joe Biden — voted against confirming both Alito and Roberts as high court justices.

Both Obama and Reid stated of Roberts that he was not adequately committed to discrimination of the basis of race and gender — or was they euphemistically call it, affirmation action.

Reid said of memos written by Roberts, “But these memos lead one to question whether he truly appreciated the history of the civil rights struggle. He wrote about discrimination as an abstract concept, not as a flesh and blood reality for countless of his fellow citizens.”

Obama said of Roberts on the floor of the Senate, “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind Judge Roberts is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land. Moreover, he seems to have the comportment and the temperament that makes for a good judge. He is humble, he is personally decent, and he appears to be respectful of different points of view.”

But then he said he opposed Roberts because of his lack of agreement with him on matters of affirmative action:

“I want to take Judge Roberts at his word that he doesn’t like bullies and he sees the law and the court as a means of evening the playing field between the strong and the weak. But given the gravity of the position to which he will undoubtedly ascend and the gravity of the decisions in which he will undoubtedly participate during his tenure on the court, I ultimately have to give more weight to his deeds and the overarching political philosophy that he appears to have shared with those in power than to the assuring words that he provided me in our meeting.”

Of Justice Alito, Obama said he was eminently qualified for the job but he was supporting a filibuster of his nomination “because I think Judge Alito, in fact, is somebody who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values, you know.”

Obama also said back then that “there are some who believe that the president, having won the election, should have the complete authority to appoint his nominee, and the Senate should only examine whether or not the justice is intellectually capable … I disagree with this view.”

How dare any Republican disagree with this view.

It is all about partisanship and rewriting the Constitution to fit their political solutions, not the least bit about constitutional duties.

Chuck Schumer in 2007:

Obama admits appointments are purely political:

He uses the everybody does it excuse.

 

 

Reid now says he is undecided about the Iran nuke deal

Harry Reid during Sun interview that was not worthy of being printed in the Sun section in the morning paper. (Sun photo)

Sen. Harry Reid took the opportunity Wednesday to sit down with both the Review-Journal and the Sun to discuss issues.

He told the R-J he is undecided about how to vote on the Iran nuclear deal crafted by the Obama administration, while the Sun simply quoted him as saying: “It’s a difficult deal.”

The Sun posted its interview online at 2:59 p.m. Wednesday and the R-J posted its story an hour later, along with a dozen videos from the interview. Today Reid’s interview was the banner in the R-J, but the Sun, as is typical, printed not a word of its interview.

Only July 14, Reid effusively stated:

“Today’s historic accord is the result of years of hard work by President Barack Obama and his administration. The world community agrees that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable and a threat to our national security, the safety of Israel and the stability of the Middle East. Now it is incumbent on Congress to review this agreement with the thoughtful, level-headed process an agreement of this magnitude deserves.”

But now he tells the R-J, “I just have to work through some of my personal issues, because when it all boils down to it, it’s a question of conviction. It’s not a (Long pause as he appeared to search for the right word or struggled with the fact that he uttered the word “conviction.”) political calculus for me anymore,” adding, “If Israel weren’t involved, it would be much easier for me.” The printed version delved no deeper into the matter or any specifics, but in a video Reid said there were certain people he felt he needed to talk to about the deal.

Chuck Schumer, Reid’s expected leader of the Democrats in the Senate, has come out against the deal, and has been smeared by the political calculators on the left for doing so.

Reid’s new-found conviction comes on the heels of his blasting Republicans in February for daring to demand a vote on sanctions to pressure the Iranians to negotiate, accusing Republicans of injecting “partisan politics into the mix.”

In March, Reid called a letter — penned by 47 Republicans to Iranian leaders reminding them of Congress’ role in any deal — a “hard slap in the face” of the United States, as well as a “juvenile” attack and an attempt to undermine Obama “purely out of spite.”

“Before this compromise (on the Iran deal) even came to the floor, certain Senate Republicans were determined to destroy it,” Reid said on the Senate floor in May. “A number of Senate Republicans are prioritizing presidential politics over national security. Others are simply trying to undermine President Obama.”

This appears to be the first time, Reid has shown anything but partisan political calculus on this topic. That did not appear to warrant a mention in either newspaper.

For some reason the Sun, which usually trumpets anything to do with Israel and positively worships the ground on which Reid walks, gave the Iran deal short shrift toward the bottom on the story. The Sun’s lede as about Reid criticizing NV Energy for opposing additional rooftop solar panels in Nevada. The Sun online has numerous photos of Reid but no video.

The comments under the stories at both websites included a number questioning Reid’s integrity in pithy language.

Henry Payne cartoon

 

Trump is not a Republican

Donald Trump cannot call himself a Republican and contribute thousands of dollars to the likes of Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rangel and Shelley Berkley.

Look it up on fec.gov.

His excuse? Just currying favors.

“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal. “As a businessman, I need that.”

For no heed to how they were ruining the country and the economy, just look out for No. 1.

WSJ allowed as how Trump has given to more Republicans than Democrats over time, but …. he gave nearly $10,000 to Harry Reid and $5,000 to Ted Kennedy. Days after donating $2,000 to George W. Bush in 2003, he gave the same amount to John Kerry.

The paper didn’t bother to mention the $67,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the $24,000 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Trump also donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. WSJ said Trump was “practicing situational politics” — a polite way of saying turncoat?

Trump