Notations On Our World (Special Friday Edition): As We Prepare To Go Dark-#DreamStillLives

On behalf of all of us at the Daily Outsider, we wish to express our appreciation to the great Stevie Wonder for this beautiful 5 minutes as we say that the Dream Still Lives.   Our mission is to help to do whatever we can to sustain this Dream--and that we shall!!!

We will be dark in our properties over the ensuing days as we hope all enjoy our Broadcast Partners and our Twitter Channel Updates. 

Notations On Our World (Special Edition): @SpeakerRyan Will not Seek Re-Election

This has just been confirmed by multiple News Sources (Including NBC News Below)  as the US Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, Will not seek Re-Election which can be quite a game changer: 

Paul Ryan will not seek re-election, NBC News confirms House Speaker Paul Ryan will not seek re-election, NBC News confirms. NBC’s Garrett Haake and Kasie Hunt report on how the House Speaker’s decision to not seek re-election will affect the Republican Party in Congress. Read More

(Update:  The House Speaker just concluded a Press Conference within the past hour noting his justification citing his Family and touting his achievements.    One of the key questions was on the Trillion Dollar Deficits and how he noted his attempts at Entitlement Reform.     The comments from Professor Turley Was quite interesting in this regard as we await the interesting times before us as he (and we) ...".remain(s)  astonished that 

there was not more of an uproar over the massive budget just passed after lifting debt ceilings by both parties.  Now, the Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the combination of the new tax bill and our massive budget will push the national debt to nearly the same size as gross domestic product by 2028.  That is with an economic growth rate of 3.3 percent this year.

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Notations On Our World (Weekly Edition): On the Week That Was...

It has been quite a weekend as President Trump spoke up for Scott Pruitt,  Trump Officials went on The US Public Affairs shows to defend the President's Tariff plans and the President called out Putin by name in the aftermath of the Horrific Chemical Attack on Syria--and this is as the President went after the Justice Department and the FBI.

Facebook, in the meantime, is in the cross hairs in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica fiasco--This reporting last week from the Washington Post was troubling as all who use it may have been compromised--some 2 Billion Users.   The Top Two Facebook Executives made the media rounds to note how "sorry" they were.   Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook Founder, Chair and CEO, is due to appears before Congress on April 10. Our team maintains a presence on Facebook as we feature periodic updates on our curation of the World's On-going Media--and will continue to do so.   

It is bound to be interesting as we feature a sampling of the challenging week that was: 

Post: Two EPA Officials and A White House Official Say Pruitt Personally Instructed Staff To Approve Controversial Raises EPA administrator Scott Pruitt was adamant in his disastrous interview with Fox's Ed Henry that he was unaware of the controversial raises given to two aides and that he attempted to find out which officials were responsible.  The interview not only did not sit well many viewers, it clearly did not sit well with people at the EPA and the White House. The Washington Post is reporting that he personally instructed agency staff to approve raises for two top aides who had previously served under him in Oklahoma, The Post reports that two EPA officials and a White house official confirmed that Pruitt not only knew of the raises but instructed underlings to approve them. Read more of this post  What is also critical is to be aware of what is going on in our Home State of California.   California has been at the forefront of the so-called "resistance" to the Trump Administration including the enactment of the Sanctuary Cities Law that has prompted lawsuits and this on what the State has done to issue Drivers' Licenses:

California DMV Surpasses One Million Driver’s Licenses For Undocumented Individuals by jonathanturley

California reached a milestone recently in its immigration laws: the state has now given over one million illegal or undocumented immigrants driver's licenses.  Passed in 2013 by sponsor Luis Alejo, Assembly Bill 60  required the California Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants as long as they can prove their identity and residence within the state. As of March 31st, some 1,001,000 undocumented immigrants have received licenses.  The state has reached this goal at a time when it is on a collision course with the Trump Administration on immigration enforcement as well as some of its own cities.  The result is rising rhetoric on both sides and an inevitable court fight.

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In the meantime, the President has apparently made decisions to initiate cuts in spite of the Budget having been passed by Congress:  

GovExec Today      April 5, 2018 Trump Looks to Slash Agency Budget Increases He Just Signed Into Law // Eric Katz President could face lawsuit if he withholds funds without congressional approval.  As our team concluded our assessment for the week, what was interesting was this take by Corey Robin as he talked about how it appears that the Tax Cuts (that has been the driving force behind the GOP) seems to losing its' luster: Vote on the Reagan Tax Cuts of 1981 : House: 321-107 (131 of those 321 yes votes are Democrats; one Republican votes no) ; Senate: 89-11 (37 of those 89 yes votes are Democrats; one Republican votes no)  Vote on the Bush Tax Cuts of 2001:  House: 240-154 (28 of those 240 yes votes are Democrats; no Republican votes no); Senate: 58-33 (12 of those 58 yes votes are Democrats; two Republicans vote no) Vote on the Trump Tax Cuts of 2017: House: 227-205 (none of those 227 yes votes are Democrats; 13 Republicans vote no); Senate: 51-48 (none of those 51 yes votes are Democrats; 1 Republican votes no)  Interesting Times....