Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 2-28-17

President News
Former President Obama Looking Relaxed And Happy In NYC Visit With Malia
Former president Obama was met with a large crowd and cheers while in NYC.
Trump’s First Primetime Speech Since Inauguration Is Tuesday As He Goes Before Congress
President Trump in- structed federal agencies on Monday to assemble a budget for the coming fiscal year that includes sharp increases in De- fense Department spending and drastic enough cuts to do- mestic agencies that he can keep his promise to leave So- cial Security and Medicare alone, according to four senior administration officials.
After a month and a week of political battle with Democ- rats, the media, and some Re- publicans, President Trump gets a chance to take his agenda to prime time.
And in Trump fashion, he will demand a budget with tens of billions of dollars in reduc- tions to the Environmental Protection Agency and State Department, according to four senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the plan.
President Trump and his team meet before his speech to Congress on primetime Tuesday.
Our 44th president, Barack Obama has mostly been laying low since wrap- ping up his presidential term, but the former POTUS reemerged in New York City last week to spend some time with his daughter, Malia. The duo hit up a Broadway production “The Price' at the American Airlines on Friday (Feb. 24) night.
After the show, father and daughter posed backstage with members of the cast, be- fore exciting out the theater’s side door to cheering crowds.
Malia is currently living in New York, and interning for the Weinstein Company. Meanwhile, her father has been feeling the love from the Big Apple.
Social safety net programs, aside from the big entitlement programs for retirees, would also be hit hard.
Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress, a quasi- State of the Union address, is expected to focus on his plans for tax and regulation cuts, health care, border security, and jobs issues.
"The theme will be the re- newal of the American spirit," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
Congressional Democrats and other critics, meanwhile, are expected to go after Trump's immigration and economic policies, as well as his attacks on the media and, in certain cases, the judiciary.
Donald Trump Will Not Attend
Attorney General Jeff Sessions Orders Privatized Prisons Back On Federal Table
Many civil rights activists did not want Jeff Sessions confirmed as Attorney General due to his actions in the past. However, many feel his move to mobilize the private prison industry is just the beginning.
Correspondents’ Dinner; First President To Miss It In 36 Years
"I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!" Trump tweeted.
On Sunday, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC's This Week, "This wasn't a president that was elected to spend his time with reporters and celebrities."
Sanders also addressed the major tensions between the president and the press. "I think it's kind of naive of us to think that we can all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend that some of that ten- sion isn't there," she added.
The annual dinner, some- times referred to — affection- ately and derisively — in Washington as "Nerd Prom," honors journalism with awards and scholarships. The presi- dent is a major draw to help in those efforts. What began in
President Trump announced Saturday afternoon that he would break from a decades-old tradition and skip the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner scheduled for April 29. He is pictured here at the 2015 dinner.
1921 as a simple awards dinner evolved into a highly glamor- ized affair that attracted Holly- wood stars.
The last president to not at- tend the dinner was Ronald Reagan in 1981. But he had a pretty good reason — he was recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt.
Attorney General Jeff Ses- sions is wasting no time mak- ing changes at the U. S. Department of Justice while si- multaneously making sure there will be enough prisons to hold all the prisoners in the United States’ future.
On Thursday he announced plans to rescind an Obama- era directive to scale back the use of private prisons. The Jus- tice Department's plan to phase out its use of private prisons — the result of declin- ing inmate populations and concerns about safety and se- curity — ended this week with- out ever really taking effect.
The reason is a new adminis- tration that has called for a crackdown on what it sees as a rise in crime.
That crackdown could lead to more arrests, which in turn could result in more people in prison.
Politico reports that Ses- sions wrote a directive that was sent to the acting Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Thomas Kane that said, “I hereby rescind the memoran- dum dated August 18, 2016, sent to you by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, entitled ‘Reducing our Use of Private Prisons.’
The memorandum changed long-standing policy and prac- tice, and impaired the bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional sys- tem.”
The new directive withdraws
Yates’ memo, which had asked the prisons bureau to “substantially reduce” its use of private prisons “in a manner consistent with law and the overall decline of the Bureau’s inmate population.”
A Justice Department spokesman wrote a statement explaining that Sessions’ new instructions would give the Federal Bureau of Prisons greater “flexibility.”
The stock prices of leading companies in the private prison industry were adversely affected when the Department of Homeland Security, under President Barack Obama, moved to wind down the use of private detention facilities, Politico reports.
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