Trump pushing for crackdown on homeless camps in California

President Donald Trump has ordered White House officials to conduct a sweeping crackdown on homelessness in California, citing the state's growing crisis, according to four government officials aware of the effort.

The planning has intensified in recent weeks. Administration officials have discussed using the federal government to get homeless people off the streets of Los Angeles and other cities and into new government-backed facilities, according to two officials briefed on the planning.

But it is unclear how they could accomplish this and what legal authority they would use. It is also unclear whether the state's Democratic politicians would cooperate with Trump, who has sought to embarrass them over the homelessness crisis with repeated attacks on their competency.

Trump's directive is part of his broader effort to target California and a number of major U.S. cities in recent months, including Baltimore and Chicago. He has complained about what he says are years of failed Democratic leadership that have led to sustained poverty and crime.

Top officials representing the White House and Department of Housing and Urban Development arrived in California this week for a round of meetings. A particular focus has been the "skid row" section of Los Angeles, officials said. The president is directly involved with the initiative, officials said, and has asked for updates.

Among the ideas under consideration is razing existing tent camps for the homeless, creating new temporary facilities, or refurbishing existing government facilities, two officials said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning hasn't been publicly revealed. The changes would attempt to give the federal government a larger role in supervising housing and health care for residents.

The talks are fluid and concrete plans had not been reached.

Trump repeatedly assailed Democratic politicians in California over the state's growing homelessness issue, which he has called a "disgrace to our country." He has also criticized liberal-led cities such as Baltimore as "rat and rodent infested."

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The Crackers and Frackers Could Hold the Keys to 2020

MONACA, Pennsylvania -- All Darrin Kelly wanted for the energy workers in Western Pennsylvania was that the Democratic presidential hopefuls would talk to them before going to war against shale.

That opportunity slipped away last Friday when Elizabeth Warren joined Bernie Sanders in calling for a total fracking ban.

"On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that puts a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases for drilling offshore and on public lands. And I will ban fracking -- everywhere," Warren tweeted.

"It is disappointing that any national candidate would not come in here and want to talk to the men and women of this area first before unilaterally making that decision," said Kelly, a charismatic Pittsburgh firefighter who is also the head of the powerful and influential Allegheny Fayette Labor Council, which represents workers stretching from Pittsburgh to the borders of Maryland and West Virginia.

The rest of the Democratic hopefuls will follow suit, with the possible exceptions of Joe Biden and Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan. At least, that's the prediction of Keystone College political science professor Jeff Brauer.

"The natural gas industry employs well over 40,000 people just in this region alone," Kelly said. "Countless more indirectly, providing economic opportunity for generations of families and communities that had been hollowed out by the demise of manufacturing and coal in this area."

Donald Trump won Pennsylvania with just over 40,000 votes in 2016.

Kelly doesn't think he is entitled to the presidential candidates' time. He just knows what happens when the energy labor force in Western Pennsylvania isn't behind the Democratic nominee. "You cannot win the presidency if you are a Democrat without Pennsylvania," Brauer reminds bluntly.

Democrats have won Pennsylvania in past presidential years because of outsized margins in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and their suburbs. That support has been declining since Bill Clinton won 28 of the state's 67 counties in 1996.

Barack Obama won 13 of the 67 counties in 2012.

Trump's magic came in rural and post-industrial counties such as Luzerne and Erie, but most importantly in the populous counties around Pittsburgh, where shale is king and fracking is seen as the second coming of the steel industry.

They may look like ordinary construction cranes to someone unfamiliar with the history of this region. But if you're from here, they look like something different. Building the ethane cracker plant, each of these cranes looks like a new colossus rising from the ashes of yesterday's despair.

Building the plant has brought in 6,000 good-paying jobs, with more to come. Ultimately, there will be 600 permanent jobs at the plant, with industry analysts predicting triple that amount in supporting industries.

Jobs postings are everywhere touting opportunities, no matter the skill level -- high school education, trade school certificate, chemists, engineers, information technology, labor. If you reliably turn up for work, there is likely a career for you in the oil and gas industry.

"And if you think our workers don't care for the environment or climate change you are wrong," said Kelly. "They are the ones not only working in the industry, but they live here, play here, raise their kids here, hunt, fish, boat, ski, swim, and hike. They want to be in a responsible industry," he said.

The high tides of the frackers and crackers will be offset by the sinking tide of the broader U.S. economy, experts predict. "We're going to probably enter at least a little bit of an economic downturn," Brauer warns, "which is the natural part of the cycle. And it's probably not going to be the greatest timing for President Trump since that's his strength."

"But if the Democrats continue to make these arguments and push these issues which are going to hurt the economy and these key states, then it plays right into Trump's narrative," he adds with a twist.

Brauer suggested Trump could easily argue: "This is part of the cycle and what's going to happen, but would you rather have me, who's going to have less regulations and not wipe out entire industries and try to build back the manufacturing base and try to get jobs to come back in the United States, or you have a Democrat who is so far to the Left, who's willing to get rid of entire industries because of some environmental concerns that can be addressed, without destroying the whole industry?"

That's not a tough question for most Western Pennsylvanians. But it poses a tough question for Biden and the other 2020 Democrats.

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Do You Know What the Democrats Said at Their Debate?

 BY DENNIS PRAGER

The last debate among 10 Democrats seeking their party's nomination for president set a new low for demagoguery, contempt for America and just plain foolishness.

Here are some examples:

Andrew Yang: "In America today, everything revolves around the almighty dollar -- our schools, our hospitals, our media, even our government."

It is difficult to imagine a more contemptuous, not to mention erroneous, view of America. I would like to ask Mr. Yang: Does everything in your life revolve around "the almighty dollar"? In your friends' lives?

If his answer is yes, he is projecting the shallowness of his life onto that of all Americans -- a common trait on the left ("All whites are racists," white leftists tell us, admitting to how contemptible they are).

If his answer is no, he thinks he is morally superior to all other Americans. In either case, what is clear is his disdain for his country, a disdain that underlies all leftism.

Andrew Yang: "We have to get our country working for us again, instead of the other way around." Yang's statement is literally the opposite of one of the most famous lines spoken by an American politician since World War II: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country," from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address in 1961.

Upending JFK's message is a perfect example of what the left has done to the moral fabric of America.

Kamala Harris: "President Trump, you've spent the last two-and-a-half years full-time trying to sow hate and division among us ..."

In reality, it is the left that has spent full-time "trying to sow hate and division among us" -- and not for the last two-and-a-half years but for the last 50. It is the left that has mocked the notion of America as a "melting pot." It is the left that has defined Americans by their race and ethnicity.

Kamala Harris: "We know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, regardless of our race, where we live or the party with which we're registered to vote."

This is false on two grounds.

First, the left constantly tells us that every American who voted for Donald Trump or supports him is a racist at best and a white supremacist at worst. Does Harris have more in common with people whom she considers white supremacists -- or does more separate her from them?

As I constantly note, truth is a liberal and a conservative value but has never been a left-wing value. The left's only criterion in determining whether or not to say something is not whether it is true or false but whether it is effective or ineffective.

Second, the notion that we all have more in common than what separates us is not true no matter who says it. The only thing that the left and the non-left have in common is biological -- we are all homo sapiens. Valueswise, we are utterly different.

Elizabeth Warren: "Let's be clear: I've actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company."

One can only marvel at the ease with which leftists lie. In Warren's case, she had decades of practice, having promoted herself as one of Harvard's Native American professors of law.

The fact is, tens of millions of Americans like their health insurance company just fine (I was one of them until I was forced onto Medicare) -- far more than veterans who like their single-payer government health care.

Bernie Sanders: "'Medicare-for-All' ... allows you to go to any doctor you want."

Why did none of the moderators ask him the most obvious question: How is that possible?

Let's say an oncologist in Dallas had a stellar reputation and, therefore, tens of thousands of Americans wanted to see him either because they or a loved one had cancer. How would Medicare for All make that happen? Again, leftists will say anything to further their agenda.

Pete Buttigieg: This debate "reminds everybody of what they cannot stand about Washington: scoring points against each other, poking at each other and telling each other that -- my plan, your plan. ..."

Mayor Buttigieg seems incapable of uttering anything that isn't pablum. Even his fellow Democrat Julian Castro immediately responded: "Yeah, that's called the Democratic primary election, Pete. That's called an election."

ABC News correspondent Linsey Davis: "I'd like to start with young black voters. Several recent polls indicate their No. 1 concern is racism."

Nothing more clearly divides left from right than this statement. The left says the No. 1 problem facing black Americans is racism. No one else does. Anyone who says racism is a greater problem than, for example, the absence of black fathers (more than three-quarters of black children are born to unwed mothers) either is woefully ignorant or purposefully wants to spread racial division.

Furthermore, if such polls exist and they are right, there is no hope for black America in this generation. It means that the left has successfully indoctrinated young Americans, white and black, into believing that a truly decent country is so indecent it hates its black population.

Beto O'Rourke (in response to Davis): "Racism in America is endemic. ... It is found in our education system, where in Texas, a 5-year-old child in kindergarten is five times as likely to be disciplined or suspended or expelled based on the color of their skin."

This is one of the left's "proofs" of "endemic" American racism: America is so racist even kindergarten teachers and school principals -- all notorious Trump supporters -- expel black students solely because they are black, not because black students are disruptive at rates higher than their percentage in the classroom. Yet, despite the contempt in which Democrats hold teachers, teachers will overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

Joe Biden: "Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime."

After such a statement, that this man is taken seriously is a comment on those who take him seriously.

Unfortunately, the left and right do, in fact, have far less in common than what unites them. Reading these statements, you can see why.

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Warren's Corrupt 'Anti-Corruption' Plan

Elizabeth Warren, who corruptly exploited her own bogus claims of Native American heritage to advance her academic career, has a plan to eradicate corruption from Washington. You might say she wants to borrow a popular refrain to "drain the swamp."

Warren laments, "In 1958, the National Election Survey first asked Americans a simple question: Do you trust the government to do the right thing most of the time? That year, 73% of Americans said yes. In 2019, that number is just 17%. Five out of every six Americans do not trust their government to do the right thing. Why have so many people lost faith in government?"

The senator blames "right-wing politicians" for spending "a generation attacking the very idea of government," before launching on her tired refrain about the "wealthy and the well-connected" — of which Warren herself is a prominent member. But we can think of two answers to her question that are intimately related. The first is this admonition from Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address: "A wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

The second is that the warning issued by James Madison, author of the Constitution we celebrate today, has come to pass: "The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

Why don't Americans trust the government? Because it's doing things poorly that it was never constitutionally empowered to do in the first place. Power, meet abuse. To say so is not "attacking government." It's advocating a limited and constitutional one.

Virtually the entire Democrat platform since, oh, about 1958 has been along the lines of the so-called "Great Society" — unconstitutional and failed welfare programs that "take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned," only to give it to someone who didn't earn it. Of course, Democrats really began traveling down the "progressive" road with Woodrow Wilson's income-tax-funded administrative state and stomped on the accelerator with Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" socialism.

Naturally, Warren only doubles down on the Democrats' top-down, government-control approach. Regulate this, outlaw that, tax the other thing. That's why it's almost comical that her plan echoes Barack Obama in its call for "big, structural change to fundamentally transform our government." How is it fundamental change to do more of what government has spent the last century doing?

In all honesty, we do indeed need a fundamental transformation — one that returns the federal government to its proper, constitutionally limited role. That means things like prioritizing national defense while ceasing the income redistribution that consumes two-thirds of the $4 trillion budget and feeds the very lobbying problem Warren claims to want to eradicate. Warren and her fellow socialists demand even more redistribution programs that would only exacerbate the corruption they claim to want to solve.

But as a final thought, the Founders thought the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" (i.e., lobbying) was important enough to place in the First Amendment. Yes, lobbyists can be corrupt, but no more so than the politicians and unelected bureaucrats crafting reams of rules dictating everything from what kind of light bulb we use to how much water our toilets flush. Warren's plan to gut the First Amendment simply because she doesn't want to hear from lobbyists who oppose such things isn't removing corruption; it's adding tyranny.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

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