Saturday, September 30, 2017

Interior secretary calls stories about his travel "a little B.S." - CBS News

By KATHRYN WATSON CBS NEWS September 29, 2017, 1:56 PM
Interior secretary calls stories about his travel "a little B.S."
Last Updated Sep 29, 2017 2:10 PM EDT
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on Friday, said stories about his travel are "a little B.S."
His comments come after Politico first reported he billed taxpayers for a $12,000 flight on an oil company's charter plane from Las Vegas to a place close to his home in Montana. Zinke dismissed the story, as other secretaries — especially Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price — are under scrutiny for their tax-funded plane travel. Zinke said he flies coach, only taking a charter when necessary on three occasions.
"I'd just like to address in the words of General Schwarzkopf, a little B.S., on travel," Zinke told his audience Friday. "And I just want to read a little statement for ya so you have it. I said, I believe taxpayers absolutely have the right to know official travel costs. It's common sense and at the department we make those documents and my travel schedule available to everyone. Using tax dollars wisely and ethically is a greatest responsibility and is at the good heart of good government. And there are times, however, we have to utilize charter services because we often travel in areas that are under circumstances that we don't have other flight options. I fly coach. Since being sworn in, I've used a charter on three occasions."
Zinke explained each of the instances when he took non-commercial flights. The first time as secretary, he said, was when he was invited on a bipartisan congressional delegation by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Commission to the Arctic Circle. The next flight was a late-night flight to Montana, where he was scheduled to speak to the Western Governors Association the next morning. The final flight involved ravel to and between islands in the U.S. Virgin islands, he said.
"Every time I travel I submit the travel plan to the ethics department that evaluates it line by line to make sure that I am above the law," Zinke said. "And I follow the law. Of course, we are always continuing to look at ways to lower costs in the department and also as you'll find out, to increase revenues. And I'll always be honest and up front about my travel. In fact, you can follow me on Twitter. So if you follow me on Twitter you knew that I traveled by suburban from Valley Forge this morning."
Zinke's travel, on its face, pales in comparison to Price's travel. Price's domestic charter travel exceeds $400,000, according to Politico, which first reported the story, and his international travel on military jets exceeds $500,000, also according to Politico. Price said he will pay back the federal government for the cost of his seat on domestic travel, which he believes is valued at nearly $52,000. But Mr. Trump this week said he was "not happy" with Price, and didn't rule out firing him. That was before Politico's story about the military jet travel broke. Price's travel is under investigation by the HHS inspector general.
Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt spent at least $58,000 on non-commercial travel, CBS News' Julianna Goldman has reported.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's travel is also under review by the Treasury Department inspector general, after he reportedly used a government plane to view the eclipse with his new wife.

White House investigating Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's use of personal emails - Independent

White House investigating Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's use of personal emails
Lawyers reportedly hunting for messages that could be relevant to Russia probes
Jon Sharman
White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, also a government employee Reuters
The White House is investigating officials’ use of private email accounts to conduct government business, it has been reported.
Of particular interest is a private email domain potentially used by Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, it is said.
Mr Kushner did not disclose his use of a personal email account when he met with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian election interference, who learned about it from news stories.
Citing four unnamed officials, Politico said the effort began this week after it reported Mr Kushner and other senior White House officials had used private email accounts to exchange messages for government business.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, asked if Mr Trump was concerned about the reported use of private emails, told reporters on Thursday, “The White House has been clear and instructs all staff to fully comply with the Presidential Records Act. All staff has been briefed on the need to preserve those records, and will continue to do so.”
During Mr Trump’s 2016 election campaign, the Republican real estate developer attacked Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server for official correspondence when she was Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
Some of Ms Clinton’s messages were later determined to have contained classified information.
The White House probe could take several weeks or even months to complete as officials are searching for all emails sent or received about government business, Politico reported. Its lawyers are said to be trying to find out whether any messages are relevant to ongoing Russia probes by Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mr Mueller, the former FBI director, is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election and possible collusion with Trump associates. Russia has denied any such efforts, and Mr Trump has dismissed any talk of collusion.
Politico earlier reported that other senior Trump aides had also used private email accounts, including former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and economic adviser Gary Cohn.
The New York Times reported on Monday that private accounts were also used by the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump after she became a White House adviser and by Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser.

Friday, September 29, 2017

White House approved $500K for Tom Price's military jet travel: Report - CBS News


By KATHRYN WATSON CBS NEWS September 28, 2017, 8:21 PM
White House approved $500K for Tom Price's military jet travel: Report
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price apparently spent $500,000 on tax-funded military aircraft travel for him and his wife, Betty Price, in addition to previously-reported private charter flights, according to a report in Politico.
Price announced earlier Thursday that he would be repaying the federal government $52,000 for private charter planes he took, a new report emerged that the White House approved more than $500,000 in taxpayer funds for military jets for business travel to Africa, Europe and Asia this year.
Politico also reported Price spent more than $400,000 on private charter planes on routes that often had commercial flights available. Price pledged to repay the government for his seat on domestic travel earlier Thursday, although his statement did not address international travel.
3 Trump Cabinet officials under fire for taking costly flights at taxpayer expense
On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter to Mr. Trump asking for his explanation on the travel of Price and other cabinet members. On Wednesday, the president said he was "not happy" about Price's travel habits. Asked if he would fire Price, the president said, "We'll see."
HHS did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment, but an HHS spokeswoman told Politico that Price's flights were necessary.
The White House told CBS News it closely reviews the use of military aircraft.
"Use of military aircraft for cabinet and other essential travelers is sometimes an appropriate and necessary use of resources," White House spokesman Raj Shah told CBS News. "In the first eight months of this administration, the White House has significantly reduced the number of military air White House support missions. The White House reviews requests for military air travel closely and has limited support missions to travel that is central to the White House's mission, such as for international trips and travel for which military air is necessary and appropriate."
Price's travel, according to Politico, included stops in Berlin, Geneva, Beijing Ho Chi Minh City and Tokyo, places where the secretary attended world health meetings and met with officials. Price also visited Liberia to address the Ebola virus. None of Price's domestic travel or travel abroad appears to be anything other than work-related.
The HHS inspector general is already investigating the secretary's travel. But Price isn't the only cabinet member under scrutiny. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt's non-commercial flights have cost more than $58,000 to taxpayers, as CBS News reported, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is under scrutiny by the Treasury Department's inspector general for his reported use of a government plane to view the eclipse in August.
HHS issued a statement from Price Thursday, in which Price said he would take no more private charter flights while secretary, "no exceptions," and write a personal check to the U.S. Treasury for the expenses of his travel on private charter planes.
"All of my political career, I've fought for the taxpayers. It is clear to me that in this case, I was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer," Price said in the statement. "I know as well as anyone that the American people want to know that their hard-earned dollars are being spent wisely by government officials."
When he was a member of Congress, Price preached fiscal conservatism, and criticized then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for taking a private plane.
On Fox News Saturday, the secretary admitted the "optics" of his flights "don't look good."

Beyond the daily drama and Twitter battles, Trump begins to alter American life - Reuters

Beyond the daily drama and Twitter battles, Trump begins to alter American life
John Whitesides
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even without delivering on his biggest campaign promises, President Donald Trump has begun to reshape American life in ways big and small.
Over his first nine months, Trump has used an aggressive series of regulatory rollbacks, executive orders and changes in enforcement guidelines to rewrite the rules for industries from energy to airlines, and on issues from campus sexual assault to anti-discrimination protections for transgender students.
While his administration has been chaotic, and his decision-making impulsive and sometimes whimsical, Trump has made changes that could have far-reaching and lingering consequences for society and the economy. Some have grabbed headlines but many, no less consequential, have gone largely unnoticed amid the daily controversies and Twitter insults that have marked Trump's early months in office.
The Trump Effect
See how Reuters is tracking President Donald J. Trump’s impact on energy and the environment, healthcare, immigration, and business and the economy
Under Trump, oil is flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline. Arrests of immigrants living illegally in the United States are up. More federal lands are open for coal mining.
The administration has left its mark in smaller ways, as well. Trump has rolled back or delayed Obama-era rules and regulations that protected retirement savings from unscrupulous financial advisers, made it harder for companies that violated labor laws to land federal contracts and restricted what internet service providers could do with their customers’ personal data.
Those kinds of low-profile policy shifts are far from the dramatic change promised by the headline-loving Trump, who won the White House with a vow to fundamentally reshape Washington. But the effects can be just as real.
“Trump is doing an awful lot to shape policy and blow up policy,” said Norm Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Stymied by his failure to win congressional approval for his big-ticket promises like a repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform, known as Obamacare, and a border wall with Mexico, Trump has turned to administrative action.
He has rolled back hundreds of rules and regulations, signed 47 executive orders and used a previously obscure legislative tool, the Congressional Review Act, 14 times to undo regulations passed in the final months of Obama’s presidency. The law had only been used once before, 16 years ago.
‘REGULATORY ROLLBACK’
The Trump administration has withdrawn or delayed more than 800 Obama-era regulatory actions in its first six months. Proposals for new rules, including those to delay or rescind existing rules, dropped 32 percent from the same period in 2016 under Obama, and are down from similar six-month periods under presidents George W. Bush, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat, according to the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute.
At the same time, Trump has limited new federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two rules for every new one they create. He has asked each agency to name a regulatory reform officer to take aim at unneeded rules.
“By far, this is the most significant regulatory rollback since Ronald Reagan,” said Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “The Trump mode so far is to regulate bureaucrats rather than the public.”
Many business leaders have applauded the moves, aimed at fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to end policies he says are strangling the economy. But critics say his reductions in environmental and worker protections put corporate profits before public health and safety - in direct contradiction to the populist campaign rhetoric that helped Trump win blue-collar votes.
“Where Trump has had success in changing the rules of the road it has been used against the very people who helped elect him,” said Ben Olinsky, vice president for policy and strategy at the liberal Center for American Progress.
Neomi Rao, who is helping to lead Trump’s deregulatory drive as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said the reforms would promote economic growth and job creation.
“Regulatory reform benefits all Americans,” she said in a statement, adding that it can have “particular benefits for low- and middle-income workers.”
The “Trump effect” also goes far beyond policy. After a precedent-shattering campaign, Trump has redefined presidential behavior with his freewheeling and sometimes confrontational use of Twitter, his refusal to step away from his businesses and his reliance on family members as top advisers.
He has rattled longtime foreign allies with his sometimes bellicose statements and stoked social and political divisions at home, most recently with his attacks on mostly black professional football players who kneel in protest against racial injustice during the national anthem.
Many of Trump’s biggest policy proposals, including a ban on transgender people serving in the military, withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord and an end to the Obama-era program protecting from deportation young adults brought to the United States illegally as children, remain in limbo or under review in an administration where policymaking is often messy.
But Trump has found ways to make headway on some other stalled initiatives. While a repeal of Obamacare has faltered in Congress, his threats to cut the subsidy payments that help cover expenses for low-income consumers have created enough uncertainty that major insurers have pulled out of some state markets or asked much higher monthly premiums for 2018.
TOUGH RHETORIC HAS IMPACT
The administration has slashed advertising and cut grants to community groups that help people sign up, raising fears that many people will forgo coverage or forget to re-enroll in health plans for next year.
While plans for a border wall are stalled in Congress, Trump’s tough rhetoric had an apparent effect on illegal border crossings, with the number of apprehensions on the southwest border falling 63 percent from 42,000 in January to nearly 16,000 in April. Since then, they have begun creeping up again, but are still below levels seen last year.
A crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally also led to a sharp increase in arrests in the interior of the country. In Trump’s first 100 days, the number of arrests by immigration agents increased by nearly 40 percent over the same period a year earlier. The number of immigrants without criminal histories arrested by immigration agents and booked into detention has jumped by more than 200 percent from January to July of this year, according to data reviewed by Reuters.
A flood of lawsuits has been filed against the new Republican administration, with Democratic state officials often leading the charge. The lower federal courts, stocked with judges appointed by Obama, have at least temporarily blocked several Trump initiatives.
Trump has been forced to rewrite a travel ban the administration says is aimed at protecting federal borders after the first two versions faced legal challenges from critics who said it discriminated against Muslims. The latest version imposes travel restrictions on eight countries.
One of Trump’s most lasting accomplishments is likely to be the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch, who restored the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority and at age 50 is likely to serve for decades.
“I think Trump actually has accomplished a lot. There are a lot of things for conservatives to be happy about,” said Tommy Binion, director of congressional and executive relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “And I‘m optimistic there will be more.”
Follow Trump’s impact on energy, environment, healthcare, immigration and the economy at The Trump Effect [www.reuters.com/trump-effect]

Military action over North Korea ‘worst possible option’, says UK diplomat - Guardian

Military action over North Korea ‘worst possible option’, says UK diplomat
Preventive war waged by Donald Trump would be likely to escalate very quickly, says ex-FCO political director Simon Gass
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Friday 29 September 2017 18.27 AEST First published on Friday 29 September 2017 04.53 AEST
The UK diplomat who negotiated the Iran nuclear deal has said a military response to North Korea is “the worst possible option”, and would lead to chilling and unimaginable consequences, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
Trump pledges to 'fix the mess' of North Korea's nuclear program
Sir Simon Gass, the Foreign Office political director until last year, was speaking at the launch of a paper by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British thinktank, that said war with North Korea was now a real possibility.
He also said North Korea has obtained a nuclear capability, adding: “The toothpaste is out of the tube.”
Gass said all the options in North Korea were now “extremely ugly”, but that at some point there would have to be a return to talks, facilitated by China. He said that the process “cannot be helped by name-calling and exchanges of ritual insults by the main two parties to the debate”.
In a further withering reference to Donald Trump, he said there was a particular difficulty with the US administration in predicting North Korea’s intentions. Gass said: “I have no doubt there is a massive US intelligence community that is specialising in North Korea and knows a huge amount about the country.
“What I have seen with Iran is that you sometimes get political leaders who because they have had very little contact with a country – and sometimes none – have formed a very clear and very erroneous two-dimensional understanding of what motivates the other side. So when their very intelligence community comes to them to explain some of the complexities, they are, if they are not careful, written off as apologists.”
He said it took an astute political leader to accept such advice, and not to be “over-influenced by a trope about what the other side is or thinks”.
The RUSI paper said a preventive war waged by Trump would be likely to escalate very quickly. In an assessment of the crisis sparked by Pyongyang’s intensified nuclear missile testing, the paper said combat would “not be surgical or short”.
War could be triggered by either North Korea or the US but there was a growing risk that Trump would decide to “resolve” the issue sooner rather than later, according to the report.
Gass also said he believed North Korea would have nuclear missiles capable of hitting US cities in two to three years.
Discussing the likely casualty levels, Gass said: “If you think that in metropolitan Seoul, just a few tens of kilometres from the border, there is a population of 26 million people and a North Korea artillery capability, even if that capability is suppressed steadily, none of us need to use our imagination tremendously to realise that levels of casualties could very easily run to hundreds of thousands, and in some circumstances be rather worse than that.
“If you add to that, dislocation of global economy, consequences of nationalism in China and for the US role in the Pacific for the next 50 years – all of these are unimaginably heavy consequences of conflict with North Korea.”
He also said he thought the political mood in the US “would change very rapidly if body bags came back to the US in the substantial numbers”.
Urging the world to think about a return to talks brokered by China, he said: “The version of geostrategic patience that we have been looking at over a period of time is not going to work in the form that it has been followed in recent years. In my judgment it it is too late to try to stop North Korea’s nuclear capability. It is there and it exists and I see very little likelihood that circumstances would arise in which North Korea would be willing to negotiate away its nuclear capability. There is a further question about ICBMs but in terms of nuclear capability, the toothpaste is out of the tube.”
He advised that if the negotiations with North Korea started with the assumption of eliminating its nuclear capability, or to secure an outcome in which the US wins and North Korea loses, the talks were simply not going to prosper.


He also warned Trump against tearing up the Iran nuclear deal since it would hardly send a message to North Korea that it was worth signing nuclear disarmament treaties if they were likely to be torn up by a future president.

Elon Musk plans London to New York rocket flights in 29 minutes - Telegraph


Elon Musk plans London to New York rocket flights in 29 minutes
The rockets would travel at up to 27,000 km per hour
James Titcomb
29 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 8:53AM
Elon Musk has revealed proposals for one of his most ambitious projects to date - intercontinental rocket flights for passengers that will take under half an hour.
The billionaire entrepreneur said the BFR spacecraft unveiled by his company SpaceX will be able to fly to most places on earth in under 30 minutes and anywhere in under an hour, with the cost roughly equivalent to an economy flight on a passenger jet.
The reusable rockets would apparently have a maximum speed of 27,000 km per hour (16,777 mph), although earth flights would travel at just over 7,000mph, allowing flights of thousands of miles in as little as 22 minutes.
The BFR (which stands for big f****** rocket) is a newly-unveiled spacecraft that Musk says will be able to travel to Mars, and which is due to be launched for the first time in 2022 before colonising the planet from 2024.
However, he said there was no reason why the rockets should not be able to travel to different locations on earth.
"If you build a ship that's capable of going to Mars, what if you take that same ship and go to another place on earth, so we looked at that and the results are quite interesting," he said. He later added that "cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft".
SpaceX claimed that it would be able to fly from Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes, New York to London in 29 minutes, and Sydney to London in 51 minutes.
Musk - who also apparently finds the time to run electric car maker Tesla, develop brain-computer interfaces, save the world from evil artificial intelligence and build underground high-speed trains - said the craft would be able to hold around 100 people.
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SpaceX @SpaceX
BFR is capable of transporting satellites to orbit, crew and cargo to the @Space_Station and completing missions to the Moon and Mars.
3:11 PM - Sep 29, 2017
An animated video released by SpaceX shows passengers embarking on the rocket by taking boats to floating launchpads. Once in orbit the spacecraft would split from its booster and vertically land on a launchpad in another city. By re-using rockets, Musk plans to dramatically bring down the cost of travel.


Musk says the BFR would be able to replace SpaceX's existing lineup of rockets, which are currently used for missions such as trips to the International Space Station.