Screenshot: CNN

President Donald Trump added his signature to the “Save Our Seas Act” on Thursday, green-lighting an initiative to clean up eight million tons of debris from the planet’s oceans.

“As president I will continue to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our oceans into their landfills. That’s why I’m pleased – very pleased, I must say – to put my signature on this important legislation,” Trump said as he signed the Save Our Seas Act into law at the Oval Office.
​
Sponsored by Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, the bill aims to promote better domestic and international efforts at cleaning up garbage that is littered throughout the oceans. The new law will extend the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program for another five years, and promote cohesion among different federal agencies on how to reduce marine debris.

​President Trump took a step on Wednesday to keep customers from overpaying for prescription drugs.

Insurers will no longer be able to keep pharmacists from telling consumers when paying cash would be cheaper than using insurance for their prescriptions.

The two bills signed by Trump moved to correct “gag rules” that many viewed as an egregious business practice.
​
One bill applies to private health insurance and the other to Medicare.

Senate Democrats accepted an offer Thursday from Senate Republicans to confirm 15 lifetime federal judges in exchange for the ability to go into recess through the midterms, allowing endangered Democrats to campaign.

The calculation by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus was simple: That Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be able to confirm roughly 15 judges if he kept the Senate in session for the next few weeks anyway. So Democrats OK’d an offer to confirm three Circuit Court judges and 12 Circuit Court judges as the price to pay to go home for election season.

Kuwait has all but stopped shipping crude to the U.S. for the first time since the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1990, eroding an economic link between Washington and the Arab petro-monarchy.

The halt is the latest sign that booming demand for oil in Asia, particularly as the U.S. re-imposes sanctions on Iran, and rising supplies from America on the back of the shale revolution are re-drawing petroleum trade routes.

U.S. imports of Kuwaiti crude fell to zero over four weeks through late September, the first time that shipments have completely stopped since weekly data became available in June 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Based on monthly data, Kuwaiti shipments to the U.S. haven’t stopped since May 1992, when the OPEC producer was still recovering from oil-field fires ignited by retreating Iraqi troops in the first Gulf War.

​The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) revealed Monday evening that it had registered 1,500 non-eligible people, including non-U.S. citizens, to vote between April and September, despite assuring the public for years it had safeguards to prevent that from happening.

The error is the latest scandal for the DMV, which had to admit a month ago that it made 23,000 over voter registration errors.

As Breitbart News reported:

In 2015, AB 60 went into effect, granting over one million illegal aliens in the Golden State the ability to apply for driver’s licenses without having their immigration status reported to federal authorities. In 2017, AB 1461, the “motor voter” law, automatically registered Californians to vote when they applied for driver’s licenses unless they were ineligible. State officials reassured the public that non-citizens would not be allowed to register to vote because database safeguards would prevent it.

The DMV says that the 1,500 improper registrations do not include any illegal aliens, according to SFGate.com.

In response to the news, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, called for an independent audit of the DMV. Governor Jerry Brown ordered his own audit of the DMV last month, after the agency was criticized heavily by Republican businessman John Cox, who is running for governor in November against Democrat Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.

David Hogg - Twitter

I am a military veteran and served one 4 year enlistment between 1998 and 2002. During this time, I participated in several military exercises (to train and prepare for wartime scenarios) with one happening nearly every year. This training included bomb-raid drills, chemical decontamination, security patrols, and even repairing simulated holes in concrete as if we were repairing the runway which had been bombed.

While this was fun (in a weird twisted way) it was by no means the only drills the military participates in. While I was active duty, I was assigned to a team that traveled through 3 different states and participated in local disaster preparedness drills. During these drills, I, as an actor, would be dressed up in moulage and placed in a scenario for the local police, fire departments, and ambulances to respond to.

• Full text

Personal information redacted

Florida State law prohibits consumers from purchasing more than nine grams of common cold medication like Sudafed within a 30-day period. It's also illegal to purchase more than three packages at once. This is because the medication contains an ingredient called pseudoephedrine, used to create the illegal drug methamphetamine. In 2016, 327 people died from methamphetamine use in Florida. That same year, 2,559 gun deaths were recorded in the state. You can buy as many guns as you like at one time in Florida. ​

Hoping for a shotgun wedding in Florida? Hold your fire. State residents must either attend a premarital course or wait the mandatory three days before the marriage license takes effect. There's no similar cooling-off period for buying a gun.

To obtain a marriage license in Florida, both parties must be at least 18 years old. Minors must provide consent from both of their parents or a legal guardian. Photo identification is required for all ages. 
​
Out-of-state residents are exempt from the waiting period, so elope there while the going is good.

In 2016, 105,668 crimes of domestic violence were reported to Florida law enforcement agencies resulting in 63,193 arrests.

​Source

• - A study of intimate partner homicides found that 20% of victims were not the intimate partners themselves, but family members, friends, neighbors, persons who intervened, law enforcement responders, or bystanders.3
• - 72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.8

- ​1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.5

• ​Source

Anyone buying more than 25 pounds of fertilizer is required to register and be screened against a known terrorist list. Yes, fertilizer.
​
So far, so in line with gun purchases. However, there are restrictions on the amount of fertilizer you can purchase in Florida because it contains ammonium nitrate, which, when mixed with other substances, can become explosive. Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh infamously used large quantities of fertilizer to make his bomb, prompting the federal government to clamp down on the sale of the gardening compounds (15 years later). 

Buying large quantities of anti-diarrheal meds? Expect to be put under surveillance in a way that owners of large numbers of firearms most likely will not. Anyone who bulk-buys anti-diarrhea medication is likely to come under scrutiny by the FDA because the drugs have been abused. In large doses, drugs like Imodium have a similar impact on the body as opiates like heroin. You'll get high, but your bowels will stop moving.  
​
In an effort to combat this bizarre sideline in the opioid epidemic, the FDA is asking manufacturers of over-the-counter anti-diarrhea treatments to change the way they package their products, and limit the amount of loperamide going into the medication.

Medical marijuana is available for purchase in Florida, however, it is illegal under federal law. Licensed dispensaries are only allowed to sell medical marijuana to qualified customers.

To obtain a medical marijuana card, one must first seek treatment from a physician who will later enter client information into the Medical Marijuana Use Registry.
​
A patient would then need to apply for a Compassionate Use Registry Identification Card. Once approved, the patient would be able to contact a licensed medical marijuana center to fill their order. Then, and only then, can you hope to get your hands on some marijuana. When Florida did its annual tally of deaths caused by drugs in 2016, zero deaths were attributed to marijuana.  

The Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights watchdog, told ABC News they have information they believe to be credible linking Nikolas Cruz, the Florida school shooting suspect, to a white supremacist group called Republic of Florida.
​
The ADL said ROF leader Jordan Jereb told them Cruz was associated with his group. Jereb, who is based in Tallahassee, said Cruz was brought into the group by another member and had participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, the ADL said. Law enforcement officials have not confirmed the link.

Source

“Jordan Jereb, the leader of the Republic of Florida Militia (ROF), a white nationalist hate group that we have been monitoring, earlier today claimed that Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is a member of his group. Hours after claiming a connection to Cruz, Jereb said he had been misunderstood.

“On its website, the ROF describes itself as ‘a white civil rights organization fighting for white Identitarian politics, And the ultimate creation of a white ethnostate so we can be free from anti-white policies and have policies that reflect our values as white westerners. The ROF Militia is the armed forces of the Republic Of Florida.’

“Jereb initially claimed that Cruz was a member, that he had participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, and that he carpooled with other members from South Florida. Though the link was reported by several news organizations, the SPLC has not confirmed it.
​
“It may seem odd that Jereb would bring attention to his group by claiming a connection to Cruz, but Jereb has always been somewhat of a publicity seeker. In 2014, in fact, he wrote us to complain that we had not already listed ROF as a hate group. In April 2017, Michael Tubbs, the leader of the Florida chapter of the League of the South, a well-known hate group, wrote that Jereb ‘never misses a photo op’ and called him ‘a nut job who should be avoided.’”

​Source

Republicans are staring down the barrel of an electoral gun in 2018. The average midterm election loss for the party of the president is 25 House seats. Republicans cannot lose 24 seats, or they lose the majority. Right now, over 30 Republicans have announced they’re leaving their seats, either to retire or run for a different office. That’s a solid number of open seats — and that number is likely to grow.

Source