Crosstalk: October 30, 2017

​Jim presented this edition of the 'Round-Up' from VCY's Trail Ridge Camp & Conference Center. Some of the stories included:

--Allegations of Russian collusion against President Trump have taken an interesting turn. It's now being reported that the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded opposition research that led to the infamous Russian dossier on Trump. So the question is: What did Hillary Clinton know and when did she know it?
--The State Department revealed at a federal court hearing that it has yet to process 40,000 of 72,000 pages of Hillary Clinton's records that the FBI recovered last year.
--Some Kennedy assassination documents are being released by the federal government including a memorandum indicating communication between Lee Harvey Oswald and prominent members of the Communist Party of the United States of America.
--President Trump declares opioid addiction as a national emergency.
--Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia says that we have no place to put children that are taken out of a drug infested home.
--A new directive from the Trump administration seeks to prevent American workers from being replaced by foreign labor by making it increasingly difficult for foreign nationals to continually have their guest worker visas renewed.
--Following President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, a number of other nations have been quietly ignoring the Paris energy goals.
--The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have issued a rare public alert warning owners of U.S. critical infrastructure to battle an ongoing campaign of cyber attacks against their information and control networks.
--The House narrowly passed a 4 trillion dollar budget in step toward a Trump tax plan.
--The government has apologized for illegally targeting Tea Party groups for intrusive scrutiny and agreed to settlements with hundreds of organizations
snared in the targeting. This brings to an end one of the more embarrassing episodes of the Obama administration.
--The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee claims he obtained a 'smoking gun' e-mail that proves the Obama Justice Department prevented settlement payments
from going to conservative leaning organizations even as liberal groups were awarded money.
--Limited government advocates and property rights champions are cheering EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for publicly announcing he will scrap the tactic known as 'sue and settle' for as long as he is in office.
--Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued government-wide guidance on federal religious liberty protections.
--The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the second and final challenge to President Trump's earlier executive orders on refugees and migrants.
--Democrat Doug Jones, who is in an election battle against Roy Moore in Alabama, has been quoted in support of transgender rights and felon voting rights
--Marijuana sales surge 24% in Nevada during the second month of legalization.
--The chief executive of the World Olympians Association has said that athletes could be fitted with microchips to help prevent doping.
--3 aircraft carriers are gathering in the Western Pacific.
--North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is said to be mass producing deadly batches of smallpox and the plague.