What Happened This Week While Everyone Was Screeching About Kanye

Screenshot: CNN

You might not know this, but there was other news this week besides Kanye meeting with Trump at the White House. Let's have a look!

Apparently, Trump signed legislation to clean up millions of tons of garbage from the world's oceans. You'd think the environmentalists would be all over this. 

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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.
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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.

​Trump also signed a bill to help patients from overpaying for drugs. Where is everyone who is all about healthcare? 

​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.
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One bill applies to private health insurance and the other to Medicare.

Democrats agreed to confirm 15 judges this week, too!

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 oil to the US for the first time since the early 90s. 

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.

California "accidentally" registered 1500 people to vote who were not eligible. 

​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.

Why am I telling you all of this cheery news, especially when we have a Newsroom at the website? 

Consider this your friendly reminder that when there is a huge story - no matter what it is - you need to start paying extra attention to what isn't being talked about. While the Kavanaugh debacle was going on, you should have been doing the same. There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that wasn't getting the attention it should. This week was worse. We were all hyper focused on a story that was, ultimately, a non-issue. Kanye was at the White House. Well, so what? 

Always start looking harder when a story seems to take over the news. While they sit around screaming and yelling about tweets and celebrities, start looking for the real news that isn't getting reported or is being under reported. You'll always find something. And it will always be far more important than what they are trying to hyper focus us on.