RUTHFULLY YOURS

It’s said that everyone has a doppelganger. Well, in a weird twist to the saga of the high school shooting survivor-turned-gun control activist, David Hogg, it might just be true.

David Hogg of North Carolina has the same name as the David Hogg of Parkland, Florida; resembles the other teen; and is nearly the same age – he’s actually slightly younger, and he’s already studying engineering at the University of North Carolina.

He’s different from the Parkland David Hogg in two noticeable ways, though: he’s mature, and he favors gun rights.

He’s written a brilliant readable essay in the Wall Street Journal (paywall, unfortunately) on his own experience of being mistaken for the Parkland David Hogg. He wrote of the bad harassment and abuse a lot of trolls have thrown his way (which makes one wonder with a certain sympathy what the other David Hogg must be dealing with,) and how, actually, he’s in favor of gun rights, as well as gun education in schools. He tweets at @David_Hogg16

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a good summary of the piece here, noting:

Although he empathizes with the Parkland students and appreciates their use of their First Amendment right, he said gun rights are important, too. This Hogg’s solution is not gun control, but instead mandatory gun education and armed security officers in schools.

Hogg’s op-ed in the Journal is a real gem. He states his views and comes off as kind and empathetic to all sides in the debate, injecting civility into a debate that has long lacked it on multiple sides. Take a look at this passage to his entirely worth reading op-ed:

Bit by bit, congressional investigators have wrested important truths from a recalcitrant Federal Bureau of Investigation about its suspect 2016 election dealings. But there’s one secret the G-men jealously guard: how central that Steele dossier was from the start.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes on Wednesday sent another letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to demand yet again that they comply with an August 2017 subpoena and hand over, among other things, the electronic communication—“EC” in investigative jargon—that officially kicked off the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion.

That EC has taken on a central importance thanks to the FBI’s own leaks. The bureau exploded it on the country at the end of last year after the news broke that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National had paid for the infamous dossier. The public still doesn’t know how much the FBI used it. Critics started asking: Was it part of the application for a surveillance warrant against Carter Page ? Could it even have launched the investigation?

Thus the FBI’s scramble to minimize the dossier. And sure enough, the New York Times in December ran what became the “origin” story, titled “How the Russia Inquiry Began.” The story asserted definitively that the cause of the investigation “was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign.” It was rather information from an Australian diplomat claiming to have heard a drunk Trump junior aide, George Papadopoulos, talking about Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Yet despite that claim being out there, the FBI and Justice Department have refused to verify it. The Nunes letter says the FBI has provided only a “heavily redacted” version of the EC and indicated on March 23 that it would “refuse to further unredact” the document.

The only plausible reason the FBI might have for denying House Intelligence access to an unredacted EC is that it contains intelligence from foreign sources. Intelligence-sharing agreements between allies sometimes include restrictions on dissemination. But it was precisely that intelligence that was already leaked to the press. We know the Papadopoulos story came via Australia, and we know what was said.

The media only recently reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was fed up with the FBI’s spurning Congress and ordered it to be more cooperative. Yet here it is again inviting a contempt citation, and that says something about how badly the FBI wants this EC kept out of sight. CONTINUE AT SITE

Just last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray released a statement saying he was unhappy with how the bureau was responding to “legitimate congressional requests” for information—and promised a “transparent and responsive” FBI. But already both the FBI and the Justice Department are back to their old tricks.

At issue is a memo related to the opening of a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties with Russia in 2016. Such information is crucial for Congress to get an accurate picture of how Justice and the FBI handled this investigation. House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) has written to both Director Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asking for an unredacted version for all committee members to see. The bureau says it will not provide the material because it is too sensitive.

Mr. Nunes notes this is ridiculous, given that the document “is not highly classified.” More to the point, if an Intelligence Committee made up of elected representatives of the American people is not qualified to see such material, no one is.

Mr. Nunes says he’s willing to go to federal court to enforce his subpoena. We are further told that the House leadership supports this and other efforts to compel cooperation from Justice and the FBI.

In a better world Mr. Wray and Mr. Rosenstein would have worked out a good faith solution. In the apparent absence of that good faith, we hope Congress is willing to use all its powers, including contempt and impeachment if necessary, to persuade Mr. Wray and Mr. Rosenstein it is in their interests to make good on the FBI’s promise of transparency and responsiveness.

Now more than ever, as the economy continues to pick up steam, it is vitally important to reduce the barriers to economic growth. Nowhere is this more important than in the manufacturing sector.

In manufacturing, lengthy permitting processes can still be the death knell for projects that would otherwise expand operations and create new jobs. The Clean Air Act (CAA) has created delays so great that they kill some projects in their infancy before the permitting process has even started. While there has been bipartisan support for addressing permitting delays, Congress has only recently laid out a starting point from which improving efficiencies in permitting can be obtained.

In the meantime, the Environmental Protection Agency has stepped in to make some common sense reforms that were long overdue. Citing President Trump’s push to streamline regulatory permitting, the EPA recently announced its intention to clarify the permitting process under the New Source Review (NSR) analysis, which pertains to potential increased emissions at project sites.

Simply stated, the CAA’s NSR considers whether a manufacturer’s expansion of operations will result in a significant increase in emissions. Then, if there is a projected significant increase, the agency looks to see if there are any potential offsets to mitigate the net increase. Previously, the EPA calculated off-sets during the first step of the review process in such a way that it added unnecessary time and complexity.

As testimony in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee revealed last year, going through the analysis could result in unnecessary delays even when there was no chance of a significant increase. In some cases, manufacturers decided to abandon projects altogether and put their resources elsewhere. The EPA’s proposed modification would address this problem by first asking whether there will be a significant increase in emissions, and if the answer is “no,” the project is allowed to move forward without a permit.