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The Trump administration is accelerating plans to jettison hundreds of regulations spanning the entire government, but the process is off to a slow start and risks failing to match the White House's lofty goals for deregulation.

On Thursday, the White House's Office of Management and Budget is planning to release a list of rules it plans to weaken or eliminate. The list will note that 469 proposals that were in the works during the Obama administration have been scrapped, and another 391 have been slowed. The administration is not releasing a full list of which regulations it's targeting until Thursday, but they willrun the gamut from significant policy measures to minorprocedural measures, saidNeomi Rao, who heads the White Houses Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Proposals that are being scrapped are expected to be listed as inactive in the White House release.

Its really the beginning of fundamental regulatory reform and where were going with regulations, Rao said.

OIRA is essentially the regulatory clearinghouse for the White House, with any new regulation coming to it first before it can be issued.

Thelist will bepart of a semiannual report onthe entire governments regulatory agenda. Thursday will be the first edition of the report issued under President Trump.

[Meet Neomi Rao: Trump's rules czar]

Trump has said federal regulations are harming businesses and making it hard for them to hire and grow, and his advisers say cutting back on rules is a central part of his agenda. But some of the rules that he is moving to eliminate are ones the Obama administration pursued to boost consumer and environmental protection.

Trump has promised to jettison 80 percent of all federal regulations, a vow that likely means eliminating many thousands of existing policies across the federal government.

The White Houses list of proposed steps to deregulate will fall far short of that, but Rao said the process is expected to intensify even further later this year. Rao said federal agencies are more accustomed to adding new regulations and not stripping regulations away, and this new process is taking time to adopt.

She said she has asked OMB officials how many federal regulations there are and was told that it was impossible to get a precise number. Many regulations are required by federal law and cant be unilaterally removed by the White House or regulators, but Trump and Congress have worked together to removed a number of regulations so far through a process authorized by the Congressional Review Act.

These deregulation moves by Congress and Trump, among other things, rolled back a gun safety rule and made it harder for the Federal Communications Commission to block Internet service providers from selling customer data.

Still, even after the release of the updated list on Thursday, it will be difficult to ascertain all of the regulations that are being pulled back. The updated agenda will have 1,732 regulations that are in the works either short term or long term a 20 percent reduction from the end of the Obama administration. But some of those regulatory moves could be efforts to weaken existing rules.

Part of this is a reflection that the process is much more complicated to eliminate rules than Trump suggested it would be during his presidential campaign, but he seems to be changing the process, albeit slowly.

It's not easy, said Ted Gayer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. It's not nearly as easy as they thought coming in. I think Trump and his senior advisers thought, 'Well, hell, well just delete some regulations.' It's not that easy. They are grasping and learning the process by which they can gum up regulations.

Rao joined the White House from George Mason University, where she was a law professor who has called for abolishing the independence of federal agencies and subjecting regulations to White House review.

Trump has called for agencies to eliminate two regulations for every new one they plan to propose, but so far the agencies have far outpaced this standard. An OMB official said that in the past five months, agencies have sought to eliminate about 18 rules for every new one.

OMB provided a small list of regulations that the White House is moving to rewrite or eliminate. They include the Bureau of Land Managements plan to repeal a 2015 rule that regulates hydraulic fracturing and an Environmental Protection Agency plan to regulate oil and gas development in parts of Utah.

Other deregulatory steps they plan to take include streamlining the Labor Departments approval process for new apprenticeship programs and making it easier for rail companies to use different kinds of equipment as long as they meetpublic safety rules.

Trump has also said the federal government should do more to streamline the permitting process for development, as he believes this is causing big delays in construction and building.

Rao said they will put out a more comprehensive list of regulations they are looking to eliminate in a few months as they expect to pick up steam. Getting rid of rules, or weakening rules, must follow legal procedures that takes time.

You are going to see a rollback of regulations, Rao said. What the magnitude is Im not sure what that percentage is. Its pretty hard to say.

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Trump administration to reveal which Obama-era rules its ...

Samantha Power / Getty Images

BY: Adam Kredo July 19, 2017 2:45 pm

Former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power's involvement in the unmasking by former Obama administration officials of sensitive national security information is raising red flags over what insiders view was an attempt by the former administration to undermine President Donald Trump and key figures on his team, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the situation.

Power appears to be central to efforts by top Obama administration officials to identify individuals named in classified intelligence community reports related to Trump and his presidential transition team, according to multiple sources.

The names of Trump allies in the raw intelligence reports were leaked to the press in what many in Congress and the current administration claim is an attempt by Obama allies and former officials to damage the White House.

The House Intelligence Committee, which is spearheading the investigation into these efforts, has issued subpoenas for Power and other top Obama administration figures, including former national security adviser Susan Rice, as part of congressional efforts to determine the source of these leaks.

Power's role in this unmasking effort is believed to be particularly questionable given her position as the U.N. ambassador, a post that does not typically require such sensitive unmasking activities, according to former U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the matter.

"Unmasking is not a regular occurrenceabsolutely not a weekly habit. It is rare, even at the National Security Council, and ought to be rarer still for a U.N. ambassador," according to one former senior U.S. official who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

"It might be defended when the communication in question relates directly to U.N. business, for example an important Security Council vote," explained the former official, who would only discuss the matter on background. "Sometimes it might be done out of other motives than national security, such as sheer curiosity or to defend a bureaucratic position. Or just plain politics."

The Intelligence Committee's focus of Power and other key Obama officials is a prime example of the Obama administration's efforts to spy on those close to Trump, according to sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.

"The subpoena for Power suggests just how pervasive the Obama administration's spying on Americans actually was," said oneveteran GOP political operative who has been briefed on the matter by senior Congressional intelligence officials."The U.N. ambassador has absolutely no business calling for the quantity and quality of the intelligence that Power seems to have been asking for."

The source questioned why Power would need to uncover such classified intelligence information in her role at the U.N.

"That's just not the sort of thing that she should have been concerned about, unless she was playing the role of political operative with the help of the intelligence community," the source said. "It gives away what was actually going on: the Obama administration was operating in a pervasive culture of impunity and using the intelligence community against their political opponents."

Rice was scheduled to speak to House Intelligence Committee this week, but the meeting wasreportedlypostponed. Some sources speculated this could be a delaying tactic by Rice aimed at pushing the testimony back until after Congress's summer recess.

Leading members of Congress have begun pushing for the Intelligence Committee and other oversight bodies to investigate former Obama administration officials who they believe are responsible for the leaks.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Oversight Committee and chair of its National Security Subcommittee, told the Free Beacon last week that these leaks appear to have come from former senior officials, potentially including Ben Rhodes, the Obama national security adviser responsible for creating what he described as an in-house "echo chamber" meant to mislead the public and Congress about the landmark Iran nuclear deal.

"I think Congress and some members on the Intelligence Committee can call Ben Rhodes to testify," DeSantis said. "He may be able to invoke executive privilege from when Obama was president, but he definitely can't do that in any interactions he's had since then."

DeSantis identified Rhodes and other senior Obama administration officials as being "involved with feeding journalists some of these [leaks]. I believe he's in touch with people on the National Security Council. It would be absolutely legitimate as part of leak investigation to bring him in and put him under oath, and I would absolutely support doing that."

Senior Trump administration officials also have decried the leaks, which have expanded to operational information and are now impeding U.S. national security operations.

The anonymous sources for these articles "are obviously the same Obama holdovers who constantly leak classified information" to various newspapers, one senior administration official told the Free Beacon earlier this month.

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Fmr. U.N. Amb. Power Emerges As Central Figure In Obama ...

In a widely-circulated video from the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain calls for respect for his then-opponent and eventual victor, President Barack Obama.

A woman came up to McCain at a rally and said, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him, and he's not, he's not he's an Arab." Her comment prompted McCain to immediately shake his head and take the microphone from her.

"No ma'am," McCain said. "He's a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about."

McCain continued to defend Obama during the event even as his supporters voiced their surprise in the background.

"He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as Pf resident," McCain said. "If I didn't think I'd be one heck of a better President I wouldn't be running, and that's the point. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, I will respect him. I want everyone to be respectful, and let's make sure we are. Because that's the way politics should be conducted in America."

McCain was recently diagnosed with a form of brain cancer , it was announced Wednesday. Obama joined other politicians in tweeting his support for McCain, tweeting that "John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I've ever known. Cancer doesn't know what it's up against. Give it hell, John."

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Watch John McCain Strongly Defend Barack Obama During the 2008 Campaign - TIME

The Obama administration was poised to send armed federal agents to polling places, deploy the military and launch full-scale counter-propaganda measures in case hackers disrupted the vote on Election Day, according to a report.

The 15-page playbook, produced in October, outlined the enhanced measures the government was prepared to take in the event of a significant incident, Time magazine reported Thursday, citing a copy of the document.

In almost all potential cases of malicious cyber activity impacting election infrastructure, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, to include their law enforcement agencies, will have primary jurisdiction to respond, it says.

The playbook coordinated the responsibilities of the different government agencies Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and FBI and dictated how they would activate enhanced procedures and allocate the resources described in their enhanced coordination procedures to coordinate incident response activities.

It would allow for stationing armed federal law enforcement agents at polling places and deploying Active and Reserve military forces and the National Guard upon a request from a federal agency and the direction of the Secretary of Defense or the President.

The plan also called for increased vigilance for three days after the election to address any post-election cyber incidents (e.g., planted stories calling into question the results).

The US intelligence community concluded that the Kremlin, under the authorization of Russian President Vladimir Putin, meddled in the election to undermine the US democratic process.

A number of congressional panels, as well as the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating Russias involvement and any connections to Trump campaign officials.

Link:
Obama's secret plan to deploy the military on Election Day - New York Post

The dollar amount of assets seized by federal authorities via civil asset forfeiture more than doubled under Obama's watch.

When CBS news announced that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had reinstated rules allowing seizure of assets by the federal government, the broadcast news network painted it as a serious departure from the Obama era:

A change would likely represent another reversal by Sessions of Obama-era Justice Department policies. His Democratic predecessor Eric Holder had tightened control of the departments asset forfeiture operations amid concerns that property could be seized without judicial oversight and without the owner ever being charged with a crime.

Almost nothing in this paragraph is accurate.

Eric Holder was Attorney General from 2009 to early 2015. During that time, the total annual dollar value of assets seized by federal law enforcement went from less than $2 billion to more than $5 billion, exceeding criminal burglary losses in 2014.

Just two months before the end of his six-year tenure and attendant support of the program, Holder received accolades for supposedly ending the program. Some civil libertarians warned that he hadnt actually ended the program. They were right.

One of the few journalists to follow the program and report on its abuses is Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post. He reported in March of last year, The feds have resumed a controversial program that lets cops take stuff and keep it. That story, from which the above graph is taken, noted:

Reformers had hoped that the suspension of the program in December was a signal that the Justice Department was looking for ways to rein in the practice. But that no longer appears to be the case.

This really was about funding, not a genuine concern about the abuses rampant in the equitable sharing system, said Scott Bullock, president of the Institute for Justice (IJ), in an interview. IJ is a civil liberties law firm that researches asset forfeiture and advocates on behalf of forfeiture defendants. It has reported extensively on what it calls the profit motive created by the Equitable Sharing Program: Because police get to keep a share of the items they seize, they have an incentive to take more stuff.

Bullock said the suspension and return of equitable sharing demonstrate the need for Congress to act on the issue. Changes to forfeiture policy can be swept away by the stroke of a pen, he said.

Sessionss order opening up the gates received well-deserved condemnation from libertarians and conservatives yesterday (see here, here, here, for example). Libertarians and conservatives are long-time critics of the program that allows governments to seize property without even feinting toward due process. However, the issue never generated much anger among liberals during the Obama administration. The American Civil Liberties Union technically joined with the libertarian Koch Foundation to oppose the program and liberal John Oliver did a segment on it in 2014.

A Nexis search for civil asset forfeiture and Eric Holder of all English language news from the date of Eric Holders nomination as attorney general through the end of 2014, just before the program was supposedly altered, found only 45 mentions, almost all of them reprints of state or federal Justice Department press releases. A couple of libertarian and conservative publications, including The Federalist, ran multiple articles critiquing the practice and its proponents, and Republican Jim Sensenbrenners criticism of the program drew minor coverage. The Wall Street Journals editorial page expressed concern and the San Francisco Chronicle did as well.

More general and less political coverage of civil asset forfeiture that is, coverage that didnt mention the top Democratic dog responsible for the program was more common 1,054 articles. Compare that to 1,119 articles in the last six months alone.

Liberals did condemn Sessions yesterday, though their voice would have been more valuable during the Obama era when civil asset forfeiture skyrocketed.

The group that most consistently opposes the unconstitutional civil asset forfeiture programs whether theyre tolerated and encouraged by Democratic attorneys general or Republican is the Institute for Justice. Its Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture report is available here. The Department of Justices Office of Inspector General report on the Drug Enforcement Agencys decade-long abuses of the program, most of which occurred during the Obama administration, received little coverage upon its release in March. It is available here.

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Civil Asset Forfeiture Skyrocketed Under Obama - The Federalist