House Democrats Vote to Keep ‘So Help You God’ in Oath

Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources voted to retain the phrase “So help you God” in the oath witnesses say prior to their testimony.

According to Jason Calvi, EWTN’s Capitol Hill correspondent, Arizona Democrat Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who chairs the committee, said the draft that would have eliminated the phrase and reference to God was “a mistake”:

The news that the reference to God would be eliminated from the oath created an uproar.

Republican leaders condemned committee Democrats’ plan to remove the phrase referencing God from the oath and replace it with the words “under penalty of law,” says a report at Fox News.

Reacting to the news of the removal of the phrase, House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming said, “It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority.”

“They really have become the party of Karl Marx,” she added.

The House Natural Resources Committee oversees national parks, wildlife, and energy.

As Fox News reports, in 2012, a controversy exploded at the Democratic National Convention over a move to restore a reference to God and recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Republicans had criticized the omission of the references, but Democrats were at odds over the changes.

According to the report, a senior Obama campaign official said former President Barack Obama intervened himself to change the language back in both cases.

“On the ‘God’ reference, the official said the president’s response was ‘why did it change in the first place?’” Fox News said.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/30/house-democrats-vote-to-keep-so-help-you-god-in-oath/

D.C. Pays ‘Plastic Straw Cop’ $60,000 Salary to Enforce City’s Straw Ban

The city of Washington, DC, is taking drastic measures to ensure that no restaurant in the city uses plastic straws, spending $60,000 per year to pay a “plastic straw cop” to monitor restaurants which stray from the rules.

D.C. Department of Energy and Environment inspector Zach Rybarczyk, the city’s hand-picked straw monitor, has been patrolling area restaurants to ensure their straws are paper and not plastic ever since the city’s plastic straw ban went into effect at the beginning of January, the Washington Post reported Monday.

Rybarczyk’s services do not come cheap. According to a document on salary information from D.C.’s Department of Human Resources, Rybarczyk takes home $60,472 per year as an environmental protection specialist and has been on the D.C. government’s payroll since April 2017

Since the ban went into effect, Rybarczyk wasted no time trying to track down any restaurants still using plastic straws. He told one cashier at the Lotus Express in Union Station that the store would face $800 in fines if they were caught using plastic straws again in July.

Rybarczyk, who told the Post he carries a metal straw around for personal use, said he is merely giving local businesses “a heads up” with his warnings before he starts giving out fines.

“Obviously there will be some holdouts until July, when we start issuing fines. But it’s most fair to give businesses a heads up,” he said.

But District residents are already eyeing the plastic straw ban with disdain. While Rybarczyk was explaining the city ordinance to a Sakura Japan cashier at Union Station, one customer waiting for his lunch decried the ban as “stupid.”

“What, is this California now?” said one customer, who declined to be identified. “All these laws are just spreading from California. Everything is getting taken away from us, man. This is so stupid.”

D.C. is the latest jurisdiction to ban plastic straws, following the lead of Seattle and San Francisco— both of which have instituted similar bans.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/31/d-c-pays-plastic-straw-cop-60000-salary-enforce-citys-straw-ban/