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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Quinoa Apocalypse The food movement is cooked under the Trump administration By Julie Kelly

Liberal foodies are crying in their craft beer about what’s to come under a Trump administration.

For the last eight years, the food movement — a collection of celebrity chefs, food writers, and organic-food executives — has been a star player in the Obama administration, dictating policies that range from expanding subsidized school meals to micromanaging food labels. These are the same folks who lecture us about what we should and shouldn’t eat, force-feed us the idea of local, organic, non-GMO food, and tie food production to climate change. And yes, they are mostly elites who vilify the people who make and grow our food (guess what, foodies? the farmers won).

All of that will likely end under fast-food lover President Trump. The president-elect said little about food policy on the campaign trail, but there’s plenty of reason to believe he will roll back some of the most ineffective policies and stop bad ones from advancing on his watch. The culinary elites were hoping to use food issues to promote their overall agenda of higher taxes and more regulations under a Clinton administration; that agenda is now toast.

Trump’s win curbs the political influence of top food activists, who were all-in on a Hillary Clinton victory. That includes celebrity chef Tom Colicchio (head of the liberal Food Policy Action group, which worked against Republican candidates), who stumped for Clinton in Pittsburgh the day before the election. In his rambling introduction, Colicchio slammed Ronald Reagan and said the Republican party “refuses to include everyone, that fights your right to vote, that is out there right now, making sure that people can’t vote” (if you’re a Republican, you might want to think twice about patronizing Mr. Colicchio’s pricy restaurants). His Twitter timeline is a non-stop rant against Trump and the GOP. A few days after the election, a still-stung Colicchio tweeted out, “Sure let’s rally around the racist” and compared the feeling in New York City to the days following 9/11.

Another food-movement leader, Stonyfield Farm chairman Gary Hirshberg, raised more than $600,000 for Clinton and is a close ally of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Hirshberg’s pet project is mandatory GMO (genetically modified organism) labels, and several e-mails released by WikiLeaks reveal that he lobbied hard to get Clinton to come out in favor of those labels (she did not). President Obama signed a GMO-labeling bill last summer, but the details still need to be worked out at the Department of Agriculture over the next two years, and Hirshberg was poised to get his way if Clinton won. Now there’s a chance that anti-labeling Republicans could reverse the policy altogether. And other Obama-era labeling laws pushed by food activists could be on the chopping block: The American Action Forum recommended last week that Congress repeal two costly labeling rules, including newly revised nutrition labels.

Enemies of Language What would happen if conservatives started to change the words we use for political ends? By Victor Davis Hanson

Throughout history, revolutionaries of all stripes have warped the meaning of words to subvert reality.

And now here we go again, with another effort — spearheaded by the media and universities — to use any linguistic means necessary to achieve political ends.

“Sanctuary city” is a euphemism for the local and state nullification of federal law — a subversive tactic that dates back to the nullification crises during the Andrew Jackson administration and, later, in the years leading up to the Civil War.

This makes a mockery of the simple constitutional principle that cities and states cannot subversively pick and choose which federal laws to obey.

The term “sanctuary” would never apply to conservative jurisdictions that in similar fashion sought to offer “sanctuary” to those dissidents who disobeyed federal gun registration, income tax, or environmental laws.

College administrators boast of offering counseling and therapeutic help to students and faculty members distraught over the recent election. They use terms like “divisive” and “polarizing” in describing the election, when in truth they wish to hide from their donors, alumni, and half the country their own abject and one-sided contempt for incoming president-elect Donald Trump.

Note that in the highly emotional elections of 2008 and 2012, universities did not offer commensurate counseling services — because their own preferred candidate won and was thus his victory was not “polarizing.” Once upon a time, campuses did not worry about whether independent faculty and conservative students were sullen and depressed in adolescent style over the implications of President-elect Barack Obama’s radical promises to “fundamentally change America.”

Iran’s Khamenei Threatens Response If U.S. Extends Sanctions Supreme leader’s comments come after U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of extension By Asa Fitch

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened a response Wednesday if the U.S. extends sanctions against his country for another 10 years, just days after the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of an extension.

Mr. Khamenei, who has final say in most matters of state, didn’t say what action Iran would take if the sanctions are extended. The House voted almost unanimously last week to keep the Iran Sanctions Act in place for a decade more following its expiration at the end of this year.

Such an extension would violate the landmark nuclear deal brokered last year between Iran and six world powers including the U.S., Mr. Khamenei said in comments published to his official website, Khamenei.ir.

“If this sanction is put in place, it’s a violation of the [nuclear deal] and they should know that the Islamic Republic will certainly react against it,” he said.

Mr. Khamenei has asserted both during negotiations and after the deal was finalized that Iran would only remain committed to it as long as the U.S. and other powers honored their obligations. In June, after President-elect Donald Trump suggested reconfiguring the deal, Mr. Khamenei vowed to “light it on fire” in response.

Iran’s commitments under the deal include a reduction in the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges in operation, limits to the amount of nuclear material in its possession and international oversight of its nuclear program.

The House vote to renew the act signals wide agreement on a hard-line approach to Iran despite President Barack Obama’s nuclear diplomacy.

Mr. Trump staked out an antagonistic stance toward Iran during his presidential campaign, making criticism of the nuclear deal a familiar theme during rallies and debates. During the final presidential debate last month, he called it the “stupidest deal of all time.”

Trump Picks School-Choice Advocate Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary The former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman would be the second woman named to join the administrationBy Michael C. Bender

President-elect Donald Trump selected Betsy DeVos to be his secretary of education, putting a well-known Michigan philanthropist and school-choice advocate in charge of the agency tasked with promoting student achievement.

Ms. DeVos, 58 years old, a former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman, would be the second woman named to join the Trump administration. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was announced earlier on Wednesday as Mr. Trump’s choice to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“Together, we can work to make transformational change to ensure every student has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential,” Ms. DeVos wrote Wednesday on Twitter, adding that the “status quo” in education is “not acceptable.”

The post is subject to Senate confirmation.

She is chairwoman of American Federation for Children, a Washington-based group that advocates for the use of school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs. Ms. DeVos’s husband, Dick DeVos, was the Republican nominee for Michigan governor in 2006. The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway Corp. fortune, are major donors to Republican Party candidates and conservative causes.

Ms. DeVos, a prominent charter-school advocate, would enter the office at a time when traditional public schools are fighting charter schools for students, as enrollment drives state and local funding. Some school districts, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, have reported losing thousands of students and millions of dollars.

Charter schools, publicly funded campuses that are mostly privately run, are the fastest-growing educational option. Enrollment in charters rose 219% from 2004 to 2014 to more than 2.5 million students, while school-district enrollment dropped by 1%, according to an analysis of the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Advocates for charters, which are usually not unionized, have often clashed with teachers unions.

The Progressive Disintegration The self-destruction of so many failed progressive gods. Bruce Thornton

A month ago, progressives were having a conniption fit over Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election. So of course, now that Trump has won, they are rioting, vandalizing, staging “cry-ins,” ditching class, group-hugging, tweeting threats, calling names, seeking counseling, and doing everything in their power to make sure that their party declines even further. If this behavior continues, and if––a big “if” –– Trump governs the way he promised, we may be witnessing the start of the progressive disintegration.

Start with the melting snowflake millennials, all those “cocksure women and hensure men,” as D.H. Lawrence once described feminists of both sexes. These layabouts have become used to throwing tantrums whenever they don’t like something or they feel “unsafe.” Most of them are spoiled brats, the pampered detritus of the middle class. But don’t forget the Alinskyite activists who manipulate these juveniles and bus them in on George Soros’ dime. These two-bit Leninists are adept at using “useful idiots” in order to further their aim of destroying America’s political and social order. They’re skilled at manipulating empty slogans like “income inequality,” “fair share,” “social justice,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and all the other bumper-sticker bromides in order to consolidate and increase their power and influence.

If the delicate millennial Eloi were really interested in reforming their team instead of indulging phony moral exhibitionism, they would start with the Democrat party. No true leftist would have sat still for the nomination of a candidate so obviously part of the fat-cat ruling class as Hillary Clinton. (And no, he wouldn’t be happy with Bernie Sanders either, a bumbling blowhard who thinks imitating Sweden’s “social democracy” ––which means an overregulated capitalism leavened with over-generous social welfare benefits––is somehow an epochal revolutionary change.) It was electoral malfeasance to choose a geriatric insider and establishment plutocrat with no charisma and a long record of abusing her privilege and power. So, kiddies, go protest against the DNC and Barack Obama. They’re the reason the Republican party is the strongest it’s been since 1928.

Next, look at yourselves. As Piers Morgan––no conservative he––said recently, “The tragic truth is that America’s millennials are a bunch of phone-addicted, selfie-obsessed, hashtagging, snapchatting, kale-munching, twerking, lazy, whining, ill-informed, politically correct, cossetted narcissists who find absolutely everything mortally offensive and believe there are 165 ways to sexually identify.” It follows that your politics are merely symbolic, expressions of your inflated self-regard, privileged life-style, and arrogant pretensions to sophistication and intelligence. Unsurprisingly, as Morgan points out, according to the National Institutes of Health, 40% of you think you should be promoted every two years despite performance, 77% of you can’t name a senator from your home state, and 80% of you think you’ll be richer than your parents, even as you pile up student debt earning junk “studies” degrees utterly useless for employment in the real world.

The EPA Shows Again That It’s an Affront to Common Sense It’s cooking data to justify costly regulations with disproportionately small benefits. By Henry I. Miller & Jeff Stier

For decades, in administrations Democratic and Republican alike, the Environmental Protection Agency has been a paragon of waste, fraud, and abuse, a corrupt taxpayer-funded Evil Empire. “Science” there is just a tool to be manipulated in order to advance radical anti-technology and anti-industry agendas, even if it means distorting the intent of statutes and affronting common sense.

The EPA is the prototype of agencies that, driven largely by politics, spend more and more to address smaller and smaller risks. In one analysis by the Office of Management and Budget, of the 30 least cost-effective regulations throughout the government, the EPA had imposed no fewer than 17. For example, the agency’s restrictions on the disposal of land that contains certain wastes prevent 0.59 cancer cases per year — about three cases every five years — and avoid $20 million in property damage, at an annual cost of $194 to $219 million.

In his excellent book Breaking the Vicious Circle, written shortly before he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Stephen Breyer cited another, similar example of expensive, non-cost-effective regulation by the EPA: a ban on asbestos pipe, shingles, coating, and paper, which the most optimistic estimates suggested would prevent seven or eight premature deaths over 13 years — at a cost of approximately a quarter of a billion dollars. Breyer, appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, observed that such a vast expenditure would cause more deaths than it would prevent from the asbestos exposure, simply by reducing the resources available for other public amenities.

Also, perversely, the very act of removing asbestos from existing structures poses greater risk from asbestos than does simply leaving it where it is: During removal, long-dormant asbestos fibers are spread into the ambient air, where they expose workers and bystanders to heightened risk. When the EPA banned asbestos in 1989, it was already an old product whose risks and benefits were well understood. Nevertheless, political pressures from environmental activists pushed the EPA into making a decision that actually raised public-health risks.

Breyer also addressed the EPA’s counterproductive efforts to eliminate the “last 10 percent” of risk from a substance or activity, noting that it involves “high cost, devotion of considerable agency resources, large legal fees, and endless argument,” with only limited, incremental benefit. Such overly stringent rules are also more likely to be challenged in court and overturned on judicial review. Breyer quotes an EPA official as observing that “about 95 percent of the toxic material could be removed from [Superfund] waste sites in a few months, but years are spent trying to remove the last little bit.”

Hillary’s Actions Deserve a Special Prosecutor President Trump should hand Hillary’s fate to a nonpartisan investigator. By Deroy Murdock

Let her go or lock her up?

Hillary Clinton’s fate is one piece of old business that will sit on President Donald J. Trump’s desk and fester like a warm mackerel.

Trump’s ambitious agenda involves scrapping and substituting Obamacare, cutting taxes, liberating the energy sector, securing America’s southern “border,” and much more — nearly everything controversial.

Congressional Democrats will be unusually obstructive due to Hillary’s upset loss, a unified Republican government in Washington, and the GOP’s strongest position nationwide since 1928, according to RealClearPolitics. Liberal politicians and activists called Trump a latter-day Mussolini for saying in his final debate that he would “keep you in suspense” before agreeing in advance to accept Election Day’s results. Leftist street thugs then fascistically rejected the outcome of a fair and decisive election, trashed personal property, smashed windows, sparked fires, and — like dedicated Brownshirts — physically pummeled Trump supporters.

As such, Democrats on Capitol Hill — and their enraged base — likely will be in no mood to compromise. Despite Republican control of the Senate, incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York is no wallflower. He almost surely will tie Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s shoelaces together at every turn. This probably will include filibustering everything this side of legislation on National Asparagus Month.

Against this backdrop, it must be tempting for Team Trump to blow Crooked Hillary’s dank, lawless stench out the nearest window. Indeed, Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC Tuesday that “he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges.”

If true, this would abandon the pledge that Trump made to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who chanted “Lock her up!” at his rallies and the 61.9 million voters who sent Trump to Washington to purify Hillary’s ethical Superfund site.

Hillary auctioned off public favors as if the Clinton Foundation were Sotheby’s and abused state secrets so flagrantly that her maid reportedly printed out classified documents for the former secretary of state to read. According to the New York Post’s Paul Sperry, this may have included the Presidential Daily Brief, the most secret document in Washington.

Trump changes mind on waterboarding, global warming By Ed Straker

Donald Trump, after stating that he was going to reinstate waterboarding “and worse” for terrorists, now says he is against waterboarding. He also says global warming, which he once said was a hoax created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing uncompetitive, may be caused by man-made activities.

Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge that humans contribute to climate change Tuesday in a meeting with New York Times reporters, moving closer to widely held scientific opinion but away from the Republican Party line.

He is keeping an “open mind” when it comes to climate issues, he said.

“I think there is some connectivity” between human activity and climate change, Trump said[.]

There is no way any person who is informed about the “theory” of global warming can believe that. The theory of global warming is that human-produced carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. But human-produced CO2 is only 3% of all CO2 (most is produced naturally), which in turn is only 3% of all the chemicals in the atmosphere. Common sense would tell anyone that human CO2 production has no bearing on so-called global warming.

It’s sad that Donald Trump believes this, and worrisome. Will he reverse Obama’s Clean Power Plan rule, which is shutting down important power plants because of the myth of CO2 production?

As for the “climate change” treaty Obama agreed to in Paris, Trump said:

On climate change, he refused to repeat his promise to abandon the international climate accord reached last year in Paris, saying that, “I’m looking at it very closely.” But he said “I have an open mind to it[.]”

An open mind to it? To locking the U.S. into mandatory CO2 reductions, which, like Obama’s Clean Power Plan, will also shut down power plants, make electricity much more expensive, and kill jobs?

Hundreds March in Support of St. Louis Police Officer Who Was Shot in the Face in Ambush Attack By Debra Heine

A march in support of a wounded St. Louis Metropolitan Police sergeant drew hundreds of participants Monday night, 24 hours after the officer was shot in the face without provocation.

St. Louis Alderman Donna Baringer helped lead the march, which began at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in south St. Louis and went to the intersection where the 46-year-old officer was ambushed.

The unnamed officer was sitting at a stoplight in his patrol car Sunday night when a car pulled up next to him and a man inside fired at him, hitting him twice in the face. Amazingly, the officer was not critically injured and is now recovering at home.

Via Fox2Now:

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson shook the hands of people who lined up outside the church. He told them their presence makes, “all the difference in the world.”

Dotson said the wounded officer is now recovering at home.

One woman who stood in line is the wife of a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer and a friend of the wounded officer.

“We read a lot of unkind things towards police officers and it’s hard to be a police officer’s family right now,” she said. “But it means a lot to see everybody come together.”

“I’ve talked to a lot of spouses of police officers who say that could have been my husband, that could have been my significant other,” said Dotson.

The rally ended with a moment of silence and the crowd singing “Let there be Peace on Earth.” Dotson said the show of support should go a long way to helping officers do their jobs.

Chief Dotson told reporters that this neighborhood happens to be where the unnamed officer lives and that St. Gabriel’s is “very close to him.”

The Left’s Double Standard Discounts Cop-Killings Where is the progressive outrage when police officers are murdered? By David French

One year ago this Sunday, a man named Robert Lewis Dear attacked a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo. During the assault and resulting standoff, he shot and killed three people and wounded nine. While he suffered — like many mass shooters — from mental-health issues, his motives seemed clear. In court, he shouted that he was a “warrior for the babies.” In a rambling interview after his arrest, he allegedly said “no more baby parts” and made other statements indicating that his terrorist attack was motivated by an opposition to abortion.

The incident immediately kicked off yet another “national conversation,” this one about “Christian terrorism” and the threat of pro-life speech. Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, accused pro-life groups of igniting a “firestorm of hate.” She claimed that pro-life activists “knew there could be these types of consequences” yet “ratcheted up the rhetoric anyway.” Over at Patheos, atheist writer Dan Arel wrote a widely shared piece proclaiming Christian terrorism “a bigger threat to U.S. freedom than Islamic extremism.” ThinkProgress made sure to label the violence specifically Christian and went on to repeat what was (before San Bernardino and Orlando) a favorite left-wing talking point: that right-wing extremists had killed more Americans since 9/11 than Islamic terrorists.

After Dear’s horrific attack, the National Abortion Federation listed a total of eleven anti-abortion murders and 26 attempted murders since 1993. The rate of killings works out to roughly one death every four years since Roe v. Wade. Each death is inexcusable. Each attack is evil. It’s a sad toll, to be sure. But it can hardly be mentioned in the same breath as jihadist violence.

Fast-forward one year from Dear’s attack. Last weekend, four police officers were shot on a “bloody Sunday” for our nation’s law enforcement, three of them in what appeared to be targeted, ambush-style attacks. In San Antonio, an assassin killed a police officer and sped away. In St. Louis, a man shot a passing officer in the face and was later killed in a gun battle with other cops. In Sanibel, Fla., an officer was shot as he sat in his patrol car after a traffic stop.