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Penny PressNevada, USA Volume 14 Number 36 MAY 11, 2017

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THE PENNY PRESS,MAY 11, 2017 PAGE 2

By MICHAEL SCHAUSSpecial to the Penny Press

It comes as no surprise that the Nevada legislature is, yet again, going to try to micromanage the energy market through a variety of

new renewable energy mandates and subsidies.

Sadly, it is even less of a shock that opposition to these initiatives is scarce, to say the least.

After all, the “green energy” movement has done a fantastic job portraying itself as the defender of the environment — indifferent to the profit motive and agnostic about the self-interests of various

energy industries.It’s been a remarkable marketing

accomplishment. Consider the quintessential picture of a polar bear stranded on a floating iceberg — an image now intrinsically tied to the debate of global warming. That single image helped shape the hearts and minds of an entire generation of young adults concerned about the impact mankind has had on the environment.

Of course, pictures aren’t always the whole story. Polar bears, for example, can swim nearly 200 miles, and icebergs float at a mere 0.5 miles per hour. If the polar bear in that iconic photo had truly become hopelessly stranded hundreds of miles from land on a slow-moving iceberg, it would have had more to do with Darwinism than global warming.

Nonetheless, lobbyists and indeed entire industries have adopted the environmental cause as a manipulative way to strum the public’s heartstrings — while building support for regulatory favoritism and taxpayer-subsidy schemes.

Solar companies, for example, are pushing for a return to more favorable “net-metering” rates, in an effort to reestablish a government-created regulatory scheme that made their Nevada businesses profitable.

But the “green energy” agenda in the Silver State goes further than just rooftop solar. One bill, AB206, would aggressively amp up the state’s already costly Renewable Energy Mandates.

Under the initial language of AB206, half of all the energy in the

state would be required to come from “renewable” sources by 2030, and more than 80 percent by 2040.

As excessive as these mandates are, it’s important to realize why the green movement believes such over-the-top government coercion of the marketplace is necessary: because such “reforms” necessarily mean unbearably hefty price tags for consumers and ratepayers.

A 2014 study published by the center-left Brookings Institution concluded that replacing more conventional power supplies with solar power would roughly triple electricity prices.

Even the Obama Administration — which promoted higher renewable energy mandates through numerous regulatory means — confirmed that new “renewable” energy sources created in 2016 would contribute

Penny PressNEVADA USA 16 PAGES VOLUME 14 NUMBER 36 MAY 11, 2017

Penny WisdomTry not to suck. —Joe Madden

The Conservative Weekly Voice Of NevadaInside:Airline C-Suite IdiotsNow Riding Delta

See Editorial Page 6

RON KNECHT PAGE 5FRED WEINBERG PAGE 6ROBERT RINGER PAGE 7DOUG FRENCH PAGE 9NATALIA CASTRO PAGE 10ROBERT ROMANY PAGE 11CHUCK MUTH PAGE 14

Taxpayers Getting Screwed Green

Commentary

Continued on page4


significantly to future rate increases.Of course, it’s all “worth it” to keep polar bears from becoming

stranded on icebergs, right? After all, the green energy lobbyists tell us, a larger energy bill is a tolerable price to pay for “protecting the environment”.

The truth, however, is that these mandates are far more about protecting crony industries than they are about protecting the environment.

The sun certainly does shine every day in Nevada, but solar arrays don’t exactly grow on trees. In fact, there is very little about the production of solar equipment — including the rare-earth materials that are largely sourced from developing countries with little or no environmental oversight — that can be described accurately as “renewable.”

To drive this point home, it’s worth pointing out that Nevada’s current

energy standards don’t actually take into account the overall environmental impact of the energy it mandates.

According to a 2016 study done by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, wind power is among the most overall environmentally damaging. And yet, “wind power receives favorable treatment under Nevada’s renewable power mandate, while environmentally superior hydro, nuclear and natural gas are discouraged.”

And while solar is rated fairly clean — compared to dirty alternatives such as coal — the high price suggests that other forms of energy would better balance economic and ecological concerns.

Unfortunately for ratepayers, it seems clear that a few politically connected “renewable energy” cronies have a pretty effective marketing campaign — and even better lobbyists

Protecting Crony Industries At Your ExpenseContinued from page 3

The Internet Should Be Free, Not a Regulated Monopoly

Bureaucrats love regulation. It provides jobs for some of them, so usually they’re happy to create new regulations and expand existing ones.

One hobbyhorse of some federal bureaucrats for years has been to regulate the Internet as a public utility. As with utilities like water or natural gas distribution, these bureaucrats seek to restrict competition among providers and set Internet subscription and bandwidth prices by government fiat.

In 2015, Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama’s ambitious Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman, finally pushed through regulations to classify Internet service providers as “common carriers” subject to government rate-setting and other control. If you’ve heard of “net neutrality,” such regulation is what it means.

Ron spent 17 years as a principal economist for the public utility commissions of Nevada and California, plus more years consulting to other commissions. So we have some expertise in the theory and economics of utility regulation. We know there’s no defensible reason to make the Internet a regulated utility.

The basic premise of utility regulation is that some industries can’t operate competitively due to “market failures”. Mainly, these are industries that deliver goods

or services to ultimate consumers using interconnected physical networks such as roads, sewers or electric lines. Imagine trying to serve each property with multiple sets of sewers or power lines so customers could choose which competitor to use.

Another alleged but false cause of market failure is high capital intensity of an industry. In fact, capital-intensive industries such as oil refining do quite well with competition.

With real market failure, government either grants a monopoly franchise to a single firm to act as a common carrier or provides the service itself. When it grants a franchise, it regulates the practices and prices charged by the utility to protect consumers from abuses by the monopoly.

In recent decades, vertically integrated industries such as electrical service have been broken up, with transmission and distribution, the natural monopolies, remaining regulated; and power production, not a natural monopoly, becoming competitive. Last year, Nevadans voted to create retail electric service choice here, a move we generally support.

The Internet, however, has grown and flourished for more than two decades without being classified as a public utility. Today, it is ubiquitous and affects much of most folks’ lives. So, it’s bizarre that without any natural monopoly characteristic or problems in the marketplace, the Obama Administration classified the Internet as a utility.

Although second-generation Internet providers have carried signals over a network of fiber optic cables, fiber owners can allow multiple Internet providers to use their lines, similar to electrical wires carrying power to customers from multiple power suppliers.

Moreover, fiber is not the only way to carry Internet signals.

Originally, the Internet was hosted mainly through telephone lines. Now, it is carried largely through wireless providers. So there’s no legitimate reason to regulate it as a utility.

If you don’t remember Obama’s Internet regulation changing things, it’s because the FCC recognized it had no expertise on how to police the Internet or its pricing. It wasn’t until ten days before last November’s election that the FCC finally pushed through rules for regulating it.

But Congress voted to reject the misguided plan, and new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai recently said he would reverse the original regulatory directive. As he stated, “We need a free and open Internet for the 21st Century.”

We agree. The Internet, with its capability for rapid dissemination of ideas and information, has been one of the most democratizing forces in human history. No longer do we need to get our information from established news outlets pushing their own agendas.

The Chinese government treats the Internet as a utility and also uses its regulatory powers to restrict the access of its citizens to ideas of individualism, personal liberty, etc. People who wish to enact such a bizarre regulatory structure in America may also have content-control motives.

Congress and the Trump Administration can’t (and shouldn’t) stop regulatory radicals from spreading misinformation regarding “net neutrality” and decrying recent acts of Congress and the Administration to stop this bad regulatory idea.

However, don’t be fooled by the tyranny of words, “net neutrality.” The Internet should remain free just like its users.


The Penny Press Tips Its Cap To:Donald Trump for his firing of FBI Director James Comey for what was probably a long, long laundry list of reasons starting with the fact that Comey simply blew the Hillary Clinton email investigation and should have resigned after Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch last summer and Lynch dumped the results on him. Trump played his role on the Apprentice perfectly.

District Judge Timothy C. Williams who granted a Las Vegas Review-Journal request for the Clark County School district to search the email accounts of all school principals, Diversity and Affirmative Action Office staff, trustees and staff who were copied about complaints on Trustee Kevin Child. The order also includes searching for hard copy files on such complaints. The district also must provide a form of certification to guarantee the accuracy of the searches.

The Penny Press Sends A Bronx Cheer And A Bouquet of Weeds To:

The Washoe County School District, which is mulling a plan to give a different lunch to those students who owe lunch fees. Of all the money that school district urinates away, feeding kids is hardly where to start spending cuts. They could just fire one bad teacher to make up the difference. Surely, there is one bad teacher left over from the Pedro Martinez era. www.pennypressnv.com

Tips Of Our Capand

Bronx Cheers

Commentary: Ron Knecht & Geoffrey Lawrence

RON KNECHT and GEOFFREY LAWRENCE

You would think that after United Airlines hauled a 69-year-old physician of a plane because he refused to give up his seat to four crew members who some dork at the airline thought needed to be repositioned from Chicago to Louisville and the company lost a BILLION dollars from its market cap, the rest of the legacy airlines would take note.

United wrote Dr. David Dao a check for an undisclosed but probably huge amount of money in an attempt to make it go away, but the words, “United Airlines” have become a punchline in many standup comedy routines.

Still, you’d have thought that other people in the industry would have taken note.

They apparently don’t supply cabin crews and gate agents at Delta Airlines with pencils and notebooks because last week, a Delta employee told a father of an infant and a two year old that in spite of the fact he bought a ticket for the infant so he could sit in a car seat, AS DELTA AND THE FAA RECOMMEND, they would have to give up that seat to a standby passenger and hold the infant, which is decidedly NOT recommended by either the airline or the FAA.

When he politely declined, here’s what Delta employees told Brian Schear of Huntington Beach, CA;

“So this is a federal offense. You and your wife could be in jail and your kids will be in foster care.”“We’re going to be in jail and my kids are going to be what?” Schear interrupted.“It’s a federal offense if you don’t abide by it,” she said.“I bought that seat … you’re saying you’re going to give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat. That’s not right,” Schear responded.

The geniuses at Delta then continued to both misquote Federal regulations and Delta’s actual policy on a number of issues.

Then they kicked all four Schears off the plane.

There seems to be a culture at the legacy airlines (those which have all gone bankrupt and merged) that any member of the flight crew or gate agent is some kind of a mall cop with Federal authority.

Those morons at Delta in the video could probably have been arrested for impersonating a human being.

Of course, Delta has now “apologized” and made a financial settlement with the Schears.

It’s about time that both the management of these so-called airlines make clear to their employees that a) they have virtually NO legal authority as regards anything but cabin safety and, then,

only when they are in the air, and; b) they are not even mall cops.

As I’ve mentioned before, I do not have these problems because most of my heavy travel schedule is done on a real airline, Southwest.

I’ve probably talked to 15 Southwest flight attendants since the United incident and most of them could not even offer a legal defense of the United position since it wasn’t even an overbooking situation in spite of bad media reporting.

Nobody could defend what was done because those things are simply not done by real companies which care about their reputations.

United hasn’t had “friendly skies” for years. American isn’t “something special in the air” and Delta is just a crappy airline without any memorable advertising to its credit.

But there seems to be a corporate culture at each of them which allows them to abuse their customers without any consequence.

We don’t need a new law here. We need customers to continue to tell the airlines to go to hell. ON THE GROUND. Enough of these incidents and sooner or later, there WILL be an airborne safety situation in which the flight crew is ignored with disastrous consequences.

When you have 175 people in a pressurized steel tube at 31,000 feet moving at 500 miles an hour, there is really no room for stupidity. Unfortunately, most of the legacy airlines seem to have gone out of their way to at least appear stupid. During the boarding process.

The bulk of these incidents happen on the ground during boarding.

The relevant international convention which addresses such regulation, the Tokyo Convention in September of 1963, frankly gives state actors no specific authority to either deputize gate agents or prosecutors to prosecute such incidents.

Who’s to blame here?

The C-Suite executives who are so afraid of the unions they do nothing to the employees who precipitate these incidents.

If they set a corporate culture which made stupidity like we have seen a fireable offense and enforced it, it wouldn’t happen. And, if they can’t?

Nobody should be too big to fail.

FRED WEINBERG


OPINIONFrom The Publisher...

Airline C-Suite Pinheads Ride Again—At Delta


Are Democrats Beyond Hope?As you know, I have repeatedly expressed the importance of prosecuting

Horrible Hillary, for the simple reason that if you’re serious about draining the swamp, you have to start by prosecuting the most high-profile political criminal first.

Just the handful of her crimes that dirty-cop James Comey listed on national television should be enough to put the Cackling Creature from Chappaqua away for the rest of her life. But since then, we’ve learned much more about her — the 13 hammer-smashed Blackberries, outrageous speaking fees and Clinton Foundation donations by foreign governments in search of political favors, and using Bleachbit on her personal server, a program that makes it impossible to recover deleted emails.

All this is important because Comey, to his shame, found a way to let Hillary off the hook — and insult the intelligence of the American electorate in the process — by saying, with a straight face, that there was no evidence of intent on her part.

You don’t install a private server in your home if you have no intention of doing anything untoward. You don’t smash 13 Blackberries if you have no intention of hiding the truth. And you certainly don’t bleach your server unless you want to make absolutely certain that no one can ever retrieve your emails (which, by the way, belong to the government).

I can just hear hard-core freedom fighters screaming, “But what about Obama? Everything he did was illegal, because he wasn’t even a legitimate president, yet no one laid a glove on him.” No doubt that’s true, but Obama had (and still has) the luxury of having millions of folks who were, and are, willing to defend him to the death no matter how many crimes he commits.

These minions have proven again and again that they are fully prepared to continue lying for him and obstructing any attempt to get at the truth (e.g., refusing to have his college records unsealed), while a goodly portion of Dirty Dems (especially Uncle Bernie’s supporters), on the other hand, actually hate Hillary.

And what about Mad Maxine, Nancy Pelosi, Chuckie Schumer, and the rest of the criminal cast in Washington? Yes, they should be thoroughly investigated, but only after Horrible Hillary is first put on trial.

Sadly to say, however, in all likelihood the worst criminal offenders in D.C. will succeed in slipping quietly into the night, retire with millions, and be forgotten by taxpayers — much like Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd. Unlike the arrogant and delusional Clintons, these people are content with keeping a low profile and leading the good life with their ill-gotten gains.

But every now and then, as a result of arrogance and ignorance, these crooks operate so openly that they actually get caught, are prosecuted, and sent to the big house for a little R&R. Poor Congressman William Jefferson couldn’t get anyone to go to bat for him when $90,000 of cash mysteriously found its way into his freezer.

Now, along comes arrogant dummy Corrine Brown, a Florida Democrat, has been indicted on 24 counts of operating a fake charity through which she funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money into her own coffers. If convicted on all 24 counts, she could receive 357 years in prison and $4.8 million in fines.

In the meantime, contrary to what the MSM would like us to believe, the Democratic brand is being shredded to pieces on a daily basis by their lies, their foul mouths, their unabashed support of violence, and their inability to come up with a single substantive idea to improve the lives of Americans.

So, the Dirty Dems are hard at work coming up with a whole new set of plans to endear themselves to voters, right? Not quite. In fact, wine-and-cheese Nancy, even in the face of possibly being primaried in 2018, recently said in response to a question on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “I don’t think people want a new direction.” Now that’s what you call refusing to surrender.

And if you had any doubts about it, you knew things were not going to change one iota when the Dirty Dems elected a foul-mouthed zombie, Tom Perez, to take over the reins of their party after the odious Debbie Wasserman Schultz got caught cheating on behalf of Horrible Hillary in the Democratic primaries.

Coming out of the starting gate, Perez spewed out language so foul that it could embarrass Madonna … well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. I guess his hope was

that perhaps swearing would be the secret weapon that would finally bring down those Republican meanies.

As scary as it may be to think about it, potty-mouth Perez may be even dumber than the Cackling Creature from Chappaqua, who famously called nearly half the country “deplorables” and gave coal miners her assurance that, if elected, she would take their jobs away from them.

In an apparent attempt to out-stupid the little lady from Chappaqua, the distinguished Mr. Perez stated out loud that the nearly 25 percent of Democrats who are against killing unborn babies are not even welcome in their own party! That’s not hate; it’s unvarnished stupidity.

On top of that, lunatics in the Democratic Party are using their time (paid for by you, the taxpayer) to chase Trump-Russian conspiracy theories that have yielded zero evidence in eight months and to try to figure out how to impeach a president who clearly has committed zero impeachable offenses. The Dirty Dems are too dumb to understand it, but their childish antics are bringing the Democratic Party nearer to extinction every time they open their mouths.

My hope is that the Dirty Dems are so disconnected from reality that they might just finish themselves off by running Uncle Bernie (or a younger socialist handpicked by him), Pocahontas, or even Horrible Hillary again, any of whom would guarantee defeat for their rapidly shrinking Party.

But before we get too overconfident, let us not forget the elephant in the room — the con artist who goes by the name of Corey Booker. In all probability, he will be the Party’s nominee in 2020, mainly because he possesses that most cherished of all political attributes: He’s black!

Well, he’s not really black. Like Obama, he’s part black and part white, which in today’s sick America qualifies you as “black.” Like Obama, Booker has a past that is saturated with corruption. While it’s true that corruption never hurt Obama, it’s not as certain that Booker would be able to pull off another Obama scam.

It really all depends on what Trump and the unprincipled, cowardly Republicans do between now and 2020. If the economy is booming, if some semblance of a workable healthcare plan is passed, if ISIS is on life support, and if illegal immigration is almost nonexistent, Booker will probably have no chance of hoodwinking enough voters to buy in.

But if the country is still coming apart at the seams, many Trump supporters will ignore the lessons of history, jump ship, and embrace socialism. One thing is for certain: Cory Booker will shamelessly try to imitate Obama in the hopes of once again pulling the wool over the eyes of gullible voters who will so desperately want to believe that Booker is the new Obama-like savior.

Meaning that they will find a way to delude themselves into believing that this chocolate and vanilla con artist is something new. But, as Thomas Sowell said long ago, “Everything is new if you are ignorant of history.”

My advice to Trump and his allies is to start disrobing Booker as early as possible and undertake the project with a no-holds-barred determination. The only thing more dangerous than a Barack Obama is someone who tries to pretend to be Barack Obama. What a scary thought.

Parting message to the Dirty Dems: If you’d like to see just how colorblind Americans are, try nominating an African-American who totally supports the Constitution and has led a corrupt-free life. Of course, even when millions of Americans knew that Barack Obama failed on both counts, the man still found a way to fool enough people to get elected not once, but twice. Go figure. ROBERT RINGERRobert Ringer (© 2017)is a New York Times #1 bestselling author who has appeared on numerous national radio and television shows, including The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, ABC Nightline, The Charlie Rose Show, as well as Fox News and Fox Business. To sign up for a free subscription to his mind-expanding daily insights, visit www.robertringer.com.


Commentary: Robert Ringer



Commentary: Doug FrenchGetting Small Will Mean Sellin’ with Yellen

The Fed plans to channel Steve Martin and “get small.” Not really small, you understand, but smaller, like maybe granular, as MarketWatch reports,

The minutes reveal that central bank officials had an in-depth discussion of the technical details of the balance sheet policy, including whether to phase out reinvestment of principal payments or do it all at once. Fed watchers were not expected such a granular discussion at the meeting, thinking it would wait until the May or June meeting.

William Dudley hinted to Bloomberg that he wanted his employer to get small. B-Dud, as David Stockman calls the New York Fed President, told Bloomberg, “It wouldn’t surprise me if sometime later this year or sometime in 2018, should the economy perform in line with our expectations, that we will gradually start to let securities mature rather than reinvest them.”

No doubt it’s time. Grant’s Interest Rate Observer points to the Fed’s 111.7 to 1 leverage ratio this week and quips “the central bank’s financial documents come to look like exhibits from some Delaware bankruptcy-court proceeding.”

Stockman points out that politicians won’t like a shrinking Fed much as “for the first time in most of their careers they will be attempting to sell government bonds into a rising yield market.” At the same time, traders, instead of buying treasuries with the confidence that the Eccles Building has their back, will be sellin’ with Yellen.

In economics we learn, more supply with static demand equals lower prices. Not so with the U.S. Treasury market and hungry central banks. “The supply of publicly-held Federal debt soared from $2.4 trillion to $14 trillion between 1988 and 2017, but prices did not fall; they marched steadily higher—-causing yields to steadily decline toward the zero bound,” Stockman writes (and emphasizes).

Politicians, not strong in economics anyway, figured they could keep doing this forever. Not hardly. “So the real meaning of B-Dud’s bomb is

that the law of supply and demand will soon be back in operation in the government bond pits. The long central bank financed holiday is over,” says Stockman

So when B-Dud and Yellen start getting small, traders will be way ahead of them and the idea of a nice, smooth increase in rates managed by the PhD Fed army is fantasy. “When it starts shrinking its balance sheet and the fast money starts front-running the short-side of the bond market, yields will soar far higher than the CBO’s Rosy Scenario assumptions (emphasis is Stockman’s).” Then, the federal government’s debt service will be a trillion a year plus and suddenly, Uncle Sam’s will be falling in the Greece pit.

As for the eight-year, less-than-booming recovery, what happens when the Fed removes its gargantuan punch bowl, was described by Murray Rothbard in Economic Controversies:

the business cycle phenomenon, the recurring alternations of boom and bust with which we have become all too familiar, cannot occur in a free and unhampered market….expansion of bank money causes an artificial lowering of the rate of interest, and an artificial and uneconomic overinvestment in capital goods: machinery, plant, industrial raw materials, construction projects. As long as the inflationary expansion of money and bank credit continues, the unsoundness of this process is masked, and the economy can ride on the well-known euphoria of the boom; but when the bank credit expansion finally stops, and stop it must if we are to avoid a runaway inflation, then the day of reckoning will have arrived. For without the anodyne of continuing inflation of money, the distortions and misallocations of production, the overinvestment in uneconomic capital projects and the excessively high prices and wages in those capital goods industries become evident and obvious. It is then that the inevitable recession sets in, the recession being the reaction by which the market economy readjusts itself, liquidates unsound investments, and realigns prices and outputs of the economy so as to eliminate the unsound consequences of the boom. The recovery arrives when the readjustment has be completed.

Fed gets small, interest rates increase, and finally the realignment begins. It should be a doozy. Stay tuned. DOUG FRENCH


Congress Still Needed to Defund Sanctuary Cities

President Trump’s war on sanctuary cities came to a sudden halt when a federal judge deemed the President’s executive order to defund the cities unconstitutional. While the clearly left-leaning judge called into question the executive office’s ability to act on this issue, it is important to remember how necessary action against sanctuary cities is — in fact, now is a better time than ever for Congress to step up to the plate.

Conservatives were rightly frustrated when this week’s budget resolution did not include a defunding for sanctuary cities, something Trump has been expecting Republican support on since his own executive order. The purpose of this legislation is to defund the cities who knowingly violate federal immigration guidelines in order to provide a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants, something well within Congress’s Article I power of the purse responsibilities to the people.

The urgent need for Congressional action is clear.In South Portland, Maine, City Council members considered a proposal which defied federal

immigration law by directly forcing local police to neglect their jobs. The Portland Press Herald explained, “the proposed amendment says South Portland police will not assist, cooperate or provide information in any federal raids, detentions or deportations of immigrants.”

Presumably that would include no longer submitting criminal records to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database — which state and local police departments voluntarily cooperate with and assist in automatically alerting federal officials when individuals wanted for federal crimes are booked — including those wanted for violations federal immigration law.

Meanwhile, in Maryland’s most populous county, Prince George’s, the county began refusing to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests in 2014 unless ICE procured a judicially issued warrant as opposed to the administrative warrants used by the agency. In 2016, the county board unanimously passed a resolution calling ICE’s immigration enforcement procedures “unduly aggressive.”

While preventing local police to enforce federal laws seems to have become common in sanctuary cities, often cities take their sanctuary status a step further; not only rejecting federal immigration enforcement but hindering federal investigations as well.

In California, legislation deeming the state a sanctuary state, rather than just a city, if enacted would bar state and local law enforcement agencies from “[m]ak[ing] agency or department databases, including databases maintained for the agency or department by private vendors, or the information therein other than information regarding an individual’s citizenship or immigration status, available to anyone or any entity for the purpose of immigration enforcement.” Essentially, telling law enforcement officers not to utilize databases led by the FBI to locate illegal immigrants, usually after they have committed minor crimes or traffic infractions.

This legislation passed the Senate in California last month on a 27-12 vote, meaning if

California does not experience repercussions for violating federal law, they could prevent the estimated three million illegal immigrants living in California’s borders alone from being tracked by FBI databases or being detained by ICE.

Clearly action must be taken against these cities, which is exactly why President Trump’s January executive order “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” prevented these jurisdictions from receiving federal funds. But federal judge William Orrick felt these were “means that are so coercive as to compel [states] compliance,” too coercive, he claims, to be constitutional.

Yet even when the Supreme Court handled National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) v. Sebelius, a case Orrick relied on, that was a case that centered around the Obamacare’s forced expansion of Medicaid onto states, not terms and conditions for receiving existing federal grants.

In fact, all members of the court defended Congress’s right to offer grants to states and require states to comply with certain conditions in return. In fact, this case was the first time the Court has ever found that a federal condition on a fund to states was unconstitutionally coercive. The difference, according to the decision led by Chief Justice Roberts, is that “Congress may offer states grants and require states to comply with accompanying conditions, but states, as independent sovereigns, must have a genuine choice about whether to accept such offers.”

Judge Orrick’s main concern seems to be that this is coming from the executive branch, rather than the legislative so while this judge partially limited the impact of Trump’s executive order, it merely underscored that there are limits to what President Trump can accomplish on his own and the need for Congress to prove they will not back down on this issue. If the courts are going to circumscribe executive power to rein in sanctuary cities, then Congress must exercise its own power to defund them.

Congress ultimately has the power of the purse.In South Dakota v. Dole the Supreme Court ruled that under the spending clause of the

Constitution the federal government could withhold highway funds to exert control over the states. Providing clear legal precedent for Congress to deny funds, while the courts are debating Trump.

Moreover, under the 14th Amendment, each state has a duty to guarantee every citizen of the U.S. equal protection of the laws, and “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Unfortunately, Kate Steinle who was tragically gunned down in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant, and the 14 year old girl in Rockville Montgomery High School who was allegedly raped by two illegal immigrant men, did not have equal protection of the laws — because their cities chose to let illegal immigrants live within their borders.

When cities and states refuse to enforce the law, they place every day Americans at constant risk. Sanctuary cities are evolving, and finding new ways to circumvent the law to make the federal government’s job even harder. While Trump’s executive orders are held up in federal courts, Congress must take action; it is no longer just their job, but their duty. NATALIA CASTRONatalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.

Commentary: Natalia Castro

Millennial Housing Crunch Underscores Urgent Need for Economic, Jobs and Income Growth

The home ownership rate among 25 to 34 year olds peaked in 2004 at 49.5 percent and then plummeted when the housing bubble collapsed, to 39.2 percent in 2015, according to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. It still has not stopped dropping.

The cause? Apparently, the gap between incomes and home prices, if a comparison of Census and Freddie Mac data are to be believed.

Starting in the 2000s, as home prices were rising, incomes for 25 to 34 year olds did not keep up — even as home ownership among 25 to 34 year olds was still rising — until the affordability gap ultimately dragged the ability for 25 to 34 year olds to own a home.

The head of household median income to Freddie Mac Home Price Index ratio charted well with home ownership rates for 25 to 34 year olds until about the year 1998. Then the two diverged all the way until the housing collapse, with the income to home price ratio dropping from 48 percent in 1998 down to 30 percent in 2006.

Now the affordability gap is approaching levels seen in 2002 and 2003 (and still dropping), and younger Americans increasingly are steering clear of the U.S. housing market and from the dream of home ownership. If you were lucky and bought in say 2010 or 2011 then you caught that once in a generation (some would say once in a century) market bottom, then it’s far more likely your mortgage payment is less than the current rent prices seen today.

Unfortunately, that was the point in the downturn when unemployment was essentially at its peak and incomes were flat, so the opportunity to take advantage of that bottom in regions that track national indices was narrow indeed.

Since then home values have once again far outpaced income growth, and so the dream is now that much further away for Millennials. It’s only a problem if you believe every generation should be better off than the preceding one. Whether they could get help from their parents while they were still around will wind up probably being the lesser of problems faced by Millennials. Saving for retirement will be even a potentially bigger problem for them if equities take another hit ala 2000 and 2008.

The real crunch could come as Baby Boomers look to downsize their homes for retirement and find that the potential pool of Millennial homebuyers for larger homes is smaller than anticipated. That could cause prices to fall in those neighborhoods, creating some buying opportunities for those currently living in starter homes to upgrade. But if you never got into a starter home to begin with, then that ship might sail too.

Like so many other problems, the solution is growth economically, which tracks with income growth, which, in turn, could support things like home purchases. Unfortunately, the past 10 years were the worst on record for economic growth — even worse than 1930-1939, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

If Washington, D.C. in GOP control proves to be impotent in implementing a pro-growth agenda, if the current policies being pursued do not create the growth of GDP, jobs and income we all hope and pray for, my guess is the political pendulum will swing dramatically in the opposite direction, and the push for things like guaranteed income will onset rapidly and change America irrevocably.

Fertility is certainly a factor to consider. To the extent that couples forego having children nowadays, fertility in the U.S. has been below 2 babies per woman since 2010 and still dropping, according to the World Bank, that removes an incentive to upgrade living conditions into a home. If you don’t need the extra space, why buy a home?

Of course, the decision to not have children appears tied to the economic downturn as well. If you don’t feel secure in your career and income, you are less likely to settle down and have kids.

Individually, these types of factors impact lifestyle and career choices, but those choices are not the cause, they are the symptom. It’s not that Millennials decided, suddenly, to stop buying homes. What appears to be a late-blooming effect for Millennials is not a matter of preference, it appears to be a matter of affordability. The growth of the costs of housing, education, etc. far exceeding the growth of income is the root cause.

Eventually lower rates of working, marriage, and fertility, plus slower growth in incomes, in the aggregate are going to affect rates of home ownership, the ability to retire, etc.

So, the solution are policies that foster growth. Economic growth. Job growth. And income growth. Lowering the cost of doing business. Locally, there are functions for government to fill as well, by not forbidding new construction in areas of high demand. Nationally, policies like Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing should be defunded, the goal of which appears to be to further boost central urban property values.

Overall, the lack of income growth and robust job creation while housing prices keep rising is creating an unaffordable housing situation for younger Americans — leaving the American dream of home ownership beyond reach. If jobs and incomes do not catch up and prices keep rising, we could eventually find ourselves in another housing downturn. ROBERT ROMANORobert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.


Commentary: Robert Romano




Watching Outfor Our Country, County and CityLIKE A HAWK!

KELY 1230AM

Ely’s Radio Station293-1875 Georgetown Ranch

CNN Bumpkins and BumpkinettesThe talking heads on CNN and other fake news channels continue to

whine and complain about President Donald Trump’s rally in Harrisburg, PA commemorating his first 100 days in the White House on Saturday.

One CNN bumpkinette actually compared the president to a vampire, saying he was “feeding” off his supporters. Another said Trump’s ego “needs” these public events.

Actually, it’s not the president who “needs” these rallies so much as the president’s supporters who are constantly hammered with one negative story after another by the media. Trump’s troops need to hear from their general and get reassurance, unfiltered, straight from the horse’s mouth.

I also love how media chatterboxes are whining that the president didn’t reach out to non-supporters.

Um, why should he? He’s never going to win over the Trump haters and radicalized liberal snowflakes who seem to organize an anti-Trump “march” every other weekend.

It’d be nice if, after the election, Democrats accepted their defeat and looked for ways to work with the new president. But they didn’t. They’re like the proverbial Japanese soldier stranded on a deserted island who never got the word that World War II had ended.

Indeed, Senate Democrats tried to obstruct almost every single one of Trump’s cabinet appointments and forced Republicans to use the “Reid Option” to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

The D’s are still operating in campaign mode; why shouldn’t the president? As long as the Democrats and their “amen” corner in the fake news media are in open warfare with the president, there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever to try to appease them.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he’s no Neville Chamberlain. Thankfully. CHUCK MUTH


Commentary: Chuck Muth Every week in Nevada, someone is trying to screw us.

Most of the time, we elected that someone.

That's why we conserva-tives NEED a WEEKLY voice.

That's why the Penny Press has made sticking up for us little guys a whole new Nevada tradition.

Penny Press775-461-1515

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Carson Citywww.LaMejorReno.com


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Penny Press 1, 2017 · integrated industries such as electrical service have been broken up, with transmission and distribution, the natural monopolies, remaining regulated; and power