DAILY BELLWETHER 05/08/2018 PRESIDENT TRUMP DOING ALL POSSIBLE TO CUT NEEDLESS EXPENDITURES!

Trump Asks Congress to Cancel $15 Billion in Spending The Trump administration intends to ask Congress to cancel $15 billion in spending Tuesday, although some conservative lawmakers say more could be done to reduce government waste. “Tomorrow the president is going to be using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to send up the largest rescissions package in history from a president,” a senior administration official said Monday evening on a conference call. “This first package will be the first of several,” the senior official said. “It will be designed to go after unobligated balances, things that have not been spent and programs from prior years.” ... Read More

Obamacare Premiums to Surge Next Year The first glimpse of what health-insurance companies plan to charge for Obamacare plans next year suggests there’s no relief ahead for consumers saddled with high premiums. Several insurers in Maryland and Virginia are seeking double-digit percentage increases in monthly costs for individual medical plans in 2019. The largest increases are being sought by CareFirst, which wants to nearly double the amount it charges on average for one coverage option in Maryland, and raise the cost of another in Virginia by 64 percent. Virginia and Maryland are the first states where 2019 rate requests have been made public. Increases are anticipated across the U.S. as ... Read More

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Republicans’ Hold on House Could Rest on Critical Primaries Republicans, desperate to hold onto seats of retiring lawmakers, will learn Tuesday who their candidates will be in a handful of critical races across the country that will go a long way toward determining whether the GOP holds on to the House this November. In Ohio, a massive field of Republicans is vying to replace Rep. Pat Tiberi in a contest that pits the more moderate and conservative wings of the party against one another. Races in Indiana and North Carolina will also show which side of the GOP is ascendant — whether the party will ... Read More

NRA Taps ‘Legendary Warrior’ Oliver North Conservative leader Oliver North will serve as the next president of the National Rifle Association, the gun rights group said Monday, tapping its highest-profile leader since actor Charlton Heston had the helm in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mr. North, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who gained national attention as a figure in the Iran-Contra affair, will take the reins in the coming weeks and give up his post as a Fox News host and pundit — though he is likely to be just as visible on the airwaves defending the country’s largest gun rights organization amid the biggest gun control push in years. ... Read More

Trump’s EPA Will Axe Obama’s ‘De Facto Ban On New Coal Plants’ The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans on repealing an Obama-era requirement effectively mandating all new coal-fired power plants be outfitted with unproven emissions technology, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. EPA will modify the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for power plants as part of its effort to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) — the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s climate agenda. EPA will drop the de facto requirement that new coal plants install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology Obama administration critics said would make it nearly impossible to ... Read More