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Aug. 15 To the Editor:

Former President Obama played a huge role in the violence we witnessed last Sunday in Charlottesville. Do you remember his quote from the movie The Untouchables? If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. He said those words at a Philadelphia fundraiser during the 2008 presidential campaign. Remember the New Black Panthers outside Philadelphia polls on that Election Day? Dressed in para-military gear and waving long night sticks to intimidate white voters whom they referred to as crackers." Obama and Holder did not bring these thugs to account for their actions. They had everything needed for arrest and trial but chose to not prosecute. "Equal justice under the law" is a concept foreign to that administration.

These were only two of the many seeds of racial unrest sewn by Obama and his fellow travelers. The riots, business burning and looting during his administration were many and he did nothing to stop them. Those seeds sprouted and grew into what we saw in Charlottesville last weekend.

The Democrat mayor of Charlottesville ordered the police to stand down during these protests on Sunday. Why were these violent, incompatible groups not kept away from each other? They were allowed to collide and the end result was predictable. Did the Democrats want a confrontation to happen? It would fit their play book and give the liberal media some red, bloodied body parts to chew on and spit out all over the president.

We now see where Charlottesville Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy is on administrative leave for making racist, misogynistic and homophobic tweets before he was elected to City Council.

People on the left have been weaned on the hate filled words and actions from the last administration, not the present one. Where democrats rule, chaos reigns.

Michael Dow

York, Maine

See the original post here:
Obama administration sowed the seeds of racial unrest - Seacoastonline.com

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it will be revisiting the Obama administration's greenhouse gas and fuel efficiency rules for big-rig trucks and trailers in response to industry concerns.

"In light of the significant issues raised, the agency has decided to revisit the Phase 2 trailer and glider provisions," said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. "We intend to initiate a rulemaking process that incorporates the latest technical data and is wholly consistent with our authority under the Clean Air Act."

The Obama EPA and Transportation Department updated previous rules for large tractor trailer trucks almost a year ago in October. The update to the previous 2014-2018 model year standards began regulating truck trailers and gliders, which are older remanufactured trucks, "for the first time under the GHG program -- with compliance deadlines beginning in 2018," according to EPA.

The heavy-duty truck rules were part of former President Barack Obama's climate change agenda and put into place as part of the U.S.'s commitment to the 2015 Paris climate agreement. President Trump announced on June 1 that the U.S. would exit the Paris deal. Trump also scrapped Obama's climate agenda called the Climate Action Plan.

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EPA looks to redo Obama-era climate rules for big rigs - Washington Examiner

The former president's message after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., was brief, but it hit the right note for many.

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion ... ," Barack Obama tweeted, accompanied by a photo of himself, jacket slung over his shoulder, smiling at four young children gathered at a windowsill.

Twitter has announced that Saturday's tweet is the most-liked tweet ever. It attracted more than 3.3 million likes and 1.3 million retweets as of Wednesday morning.

Obama tweets infrequently in his post-presidential life. But in a couple of tweets, he added a few more words from former South African President Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

In the passage quoted by Obama, Mandela writes:

"I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur. Not only because of the great heroes I have already cited, but because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country. I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps for just a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished."

White House photographer Pete Souza took the photo in the tweet in June 2011.

The caption explains how the moment came to be: "The President had attended the fourth grade closing ceremony for his daughter Sasha at her school in Bethesda, Md. As he was departing, he noticed some pre-school children peering out of a window at a child care facility adjacent to Sasha's school so he walked over to say hello to them."

The previous most-liked tweet was posted by Ariana Grande in May, following a bombing at her concert in Manchester, England.

Two other tweets by Obama are in the top five most-liked: one in which he calls John McCain "an American hero" and one just hours after his presidency ended, in which he jokes, "Is this thing still on?"

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Quoting Mandela, Obama's Tweet After Charlottesville Is The Most-Liked Ever - NPR

The Obama administration expanded the program beyond children last year to include more categories of migrants.

By this summer, of the approximately 10,000 people who had applied for entry, 2,193 had been approved as refugees, said R. Carter Langston, a spokesman for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

An additional 1,465 did not meet the legal criteria to become refugees, but were allowed to come to the United States and work legally as parolees, a kind of halfway status that does not offer a pathway to citizenship as refugees have, but protects them from deportation for two years.

Those who have already received parole will not see any immediate changes when the parole program ends on Wednesday. But, as before, they will have to reapply for parole when the two-year period is up, Mr. Langston said.

Once they do, they will be petitioning an agency that Mr. Trump has ordered to be less lenient than it was under President Barack Obama. The parole program was one of several moves that Mr. Obama made to protect young immigrants from deportation and that conservatives protested as stretching the limits of presidential power.

Though the parole program is ending, children and their families can still apply for refugee status as before.

Lisa Frydman, the vice president for regional policy and initiatives for Kids in Need of Defense, a group in Washington that provides legal assistance to unaccompanied immigrant children, said the decision to shut down the parole option would drum up more business for the smuggling networks that Mr. Trump has vowed to dismantle.

It is not a surprise, but it is a disgrace, she said. This is the Trump administration completely turning its back on Central American children, slamming the door on them.

For the 2,714 people in the process of applying to the program, gaining what is known as conditional parole status, the future is hazier. Their conditional approvals will be revoked. Some, after being interviewed by refugee officers, may qualify as full-blown refugees. The rest may ask for parole individually, according to the announcement, but the agency will no longer automatically consider them for parole.

No one has entered the United States through the program since February, when the Department of Homeland Security suspended it while officials reviewed what Mr. Trumps executive order would mean for it, Mr. Langston said.

Ms. Frydmans organization has three cases in which the child began the application process but has not been able to travel to the United States. In one case, two siblings applied; one was granted refugee status and the other conditional parole. The refugee is free to come; the parolee is not.

In another case, the mother had already bought the plane ticket for her child, who had received conditional parole.

Its so cruel, Ms. Frydman said.

A version of this article appears in print on August 16, 2017, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Policy Blocks Obama-Era Path to U.S. for Central Americans.

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Policy Under Trump Bars Obama-Era Path to US for Central American Youths - New York Times

President Donald Trump will revoke an Obama-era executive order on Tuesday that required strict building standards for government-funded projects to reduce exposure to increased flooding from sea level rise, sources said.

Trump will sign his own executive order this afternoon to revoke the standards as part of his administration's plan to "streamline the current process" for infrastructure projects, a government official said.

The official said the Trump order will not prohibit state and local agencies from using a more stringent standard if they choose.

The sources gave details of an announcement the White House said was coming. Trump's order will establish "discipline and accountability in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects," the White House said on Monday.

The Trump administration has complained that it takes too much time to get permits and approvals for construction projects. The administration has issued dozens of rules and orders to reverse or rescind Obama-era regulations addressing climate change and its consequences such as rising sea levels and more severe storms.

The Obama-era standard required that builders factor in scientific projections for how climate change could affect flooding in a certain area and ensure projects can withstand rising sea levels and stronger downpours.

Obama required all federal agencies apply the standard to all public infrastructure projects from public housing to highways.

It raised base flood levels to a higher vertical elevation to "address current and future flood risk and ensure that projects funded with taxpayer dollars last as long as intended," according to a 2015 Treasury Department presentation on the order.

U.S. officials have estimated that the United States suffered $260 billion in flood related damages between 1980 and 2013.

Flood policy expert Eli Lehrer, president of the libertarian R Street Institute, has been critical of many Obama initiatives. But he said revoking this order was a kneejerk political reaction by the Trump administration, which will end up costing taxpayers money.

"The Trump administration is acting very rashly in part out of the desire to undo a climate measure under the Obama administration," he said. "This is an enormous mistake that is disastrous for taxpayers. The (Obama) rule would have saved billions of dollars over time."

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Trump to revoke Obama-era flood risk building standards - CNBC