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There's no such thing as fatigue for Chris Ross and San Miguel, which has seen its starters play heavy minutes in their Philippine Cup semifinals series with TNT. Richard Esguerra, ABS-CBN Sports

MANILA, Philippines San Miguel guard Chris Ross dismissed concerns regarding the extended minutes he has played, along with the team's other starters, in their Game 7 victory over TNT KaTropa in the PBA Philippine Cup semifinals.

Ross logged 44 1/2 minutes of playing time, and the other starters save for June Mar Fajardo also played more than 40 minutes in the game (Fajardo played 38 1/2 minutes).

San Miguel's starting five was on the floor for virtually the entire second half, including the third quarter wherein they outscored TNT 36-21.

"It's Game 7. It's Game 7," Ross told reporters after San Miguel's 96-83 win that sent them to their third straight All-Filipino Finals.

"You gotta keep your horses out there," he said. "I told coach (Leo Austria), 'I'm good, I can play. I can play 48 (minutes) if you need me.' I'm sure the other starters said the same thing."

San Miguel's starters combined for all but eight points in Game 7, and the Beermen's near-flawless execution on offense in the third simply overwhelmed the KaTropa. Yet the champions showed no sign of exhaustion as the game wore on; Fajardo even found the hops for a two-handed dunk in the fourth quarter.

For Ross, his teammates' minutes in the knockout game was a sign of faith from Austria, who has been criticized repeatedly for his short rotation and penchant for giving his key guys long minutes.

"Coach has a set of guys that he is comfortable with in Game 7s," said Ross. "It's win or go home, so you go with your guys that got you here. Luckily, it worked out for us."

The Beermen now have three days to rest, recover, and prepare before Game 1 of best-of-seven Finals, and Ross expects that they'll be in peak form by then and ready to play extended minutes if need be.

"Everyone will get some good food in them, get some good rest, and get ready to go on Friday," he said.

(For more sports coverage, visit the ABS-CBN Sports website.)

See more here:
PBA: Chris Ross downplays extended minutes, says it's sign of coach's faith - ABS-CBN News

C-SPAN released a survey Friday that asked historians to rank past presidents and former-President Obama was voted the country's 12th best, right behind Woodrow Wilson and in front of James Monroe.

Historians were asked to essentially grade the presidents on items like public persuasion and moral authority. Politico reported that Obama rated high in the category of equal justice for all, but received low marks for his relationship with Congress.

Of course, it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of a presidency so soon after the president left office.

"Although 12th is a respectable overall ranking, one would have thought that former President Obamas favorable rating when he left office would have translated into a higher ranking in this presidential survey," Edna Greene Medford, a Howard University professor and member of C-SPAN's historical advisory board, told Politico.

Abraham Lincoln retained the top position, and George Washington came in a close second.

Read this article:
Historians rank Obama 12th best president in new survey ...

The resolution is astart of rolling back harmful Obama-era regulations, which have cost the American business consumers a staggering $890 billion, making our companies less competitive and even driving some of them out of business. White House press secretarySean Spicer, press briefing, Feb. 14, 2017

The White House spokesman, in speaking about a House resolution signed by President Trump to roll back regulations enacted in the closing months of the Obama administration, cited an interesting statistic that Obama-era regulations have cost the American business consumers a staggering $890 billion.

That seemed like a rather specific number, so we wanted to explore how valid it might be.

A White House spokesman said Spicer gotthe figure from a calculation done by the American Action Forum, a right-leaning issue advocacy group run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Sam Batkins, AAFs director of regulatory policy, wrote that with a last-minute flourish of $24 billion in final regulatory costs in the last three weeks, the Obama Administration passed $890 billion in cumulative burdens. He said that the George W. Bush administration averaged $42 billion in average annual final-rule costs, compared with$111 billion for President Barack Obama. Under Obama, the agencies with the biggest regulatory impact were the Environmental Protection Agency ($344 billion) and the Department of Energy ($194 billion).

These numbers are supposed to represent net present value estimates, Batkins said, based onthe published costs during the Obama administration. Some of those regulations have been delayed by courts or the administration and have not imposed costs, but its just a measure of what regulators publish in the Federal Register, he said.

On its website, the AAFhas a nifty interactive feature called the Regulation Rodeo, which provides links to the costs and benefits of every rule cited. We used this to spot-check how the AAF calculated its numbers. Whenever possible, AAF used the net present value provided by the administration, but otherwise it would do its own calculation based on the range of cost estimates provided.

For instance, a Renewable Fuel Standard Program rule published in 2015 listed its annual costs as $203 to $240 million in 2015 and $480 to $1,182 million in 2016. The AAF listed the total cost as $1.4 billion ($240 million + $1.182 billion) which is the high end of the estimate. Thats the number that was part of the $890 billion. For the annual cost of the rule, AAF used a midpoint ($711 million). We try to capture those ranges in our annual and total figures, Batkins said.

Another nuance in the AAF data is that the estimated benefits of the rules clearly outweigh the costs. From AAFs data:

Total Costs: $890 billion Annual Costs: $139 billion Annual Benefits: $458 billion

We realize that some experts have raised serious questions about how some of the benefits are calculated and whether they are valid but the fact remains that regulators who developed the cost estimates determined that the benefits would outweigh the costs.

Susan Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Bush, said that there arent glaring errors in the AAF calculation, but it suffers from the flaws all such estimates do. Those are ex ante estimates, rather than actual measured costs.

Batkins noted that there is little research done to see whether an agencys estimates actually came close to reality. A comprehensive approach would conduct a retrospective review of everything during the Obama administration to determine actual costs imposed versus benefits generated, likely an impossible task, he said. A 2015 retrospective study of environmental regulations found that most costs and benefits were often overestimated.

Dudley said anyflaws in the estimates are even more likely in the agency calculations of the benefits. I dont think its wrong per se to speak only of the costs, she said. Its equivalent to the fiscal budget, where we talk of the size of the budget while recognizing that those expenditures also have benefits.

The Obama administration certainly imposed many regulations. But Spicer errs in suggesting that these costs have already been paid by consumers and businesses, when in fact some are in the future, and in claiming that this is an absolutely (staggering) solid figure. The number is derived from agency estimates, but in some cases, the high end of an estimate was used. Moreover, the estimates often have significant ranges and it is unlikely that the actual costs of the rules will ever be determined.

Spicer would have been on more solid ground if he had said the regulations were estimated to cost as much $890 billion, since that would have signaled this was both an estimate and possibly a high-end one at that.

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The resolution is a start of rolling back harmful Obama-era regulations, which have cost the American business consumers a staggering $890 billion."

Sean Spicer

White House Press Secretary

at a press briefing, Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

02/14/2017

Original post:
The White House claim that Obama-era regulations have cost $890 billion - Washington Post

President Donald Trump and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (center) play golf in Florida on Feb. 11. | Getty

The new president, who attacked Obama for golfing and personal travel, spends his first month outdoing his predecessor.

By Josh Dawsey

02/21/17 05:11 AM EST

Donald Trump regularly assailed President Obama for playing golf, then spent the first weekends of his own presidency doing just that. He attacked Obama for using Air Force One to campaign, and did it over the weekend just a month into the job. He mocked Obama for heading out of Washington at taxpayer expense, but appears to have no qualms about doing so himself.

One month in, Trump is using the presidency to boost his political and personal goals not breaking laws or ethics rules, experts say, but disputing his past criticisms and vows.

Story Continued Below

"Donald Trump has zero worry about contradicting himself because he does it all day long," said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian who has met with Trump. "He figures he can get away with it because he does it all the time. There is no worry about it. He says one thing and then says another, and his supporters don't hold it against him."

The new president has taken three weekend getaways in the first month of office, spending millions of taxpayer dollars in Secret Service protection and about 25% of his time away from the White House. The Secret Service has also paid for security for expensive business trips for his sons' business ventures to foreign countries.

The actions seem to fly in the face of how he mocked Obama's travel. "President Barack Obama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars -- unbelievable!" he wrote in one of many tweets criticizing Obama for taking a trip.

Trump has also headed to the golf course at least six times since he took office, another favorite criticism against Obama. Trump mocked Obama more than two dozen times for golfing amid problems in the White House.

"Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf. Worse than Carter, Trump said in 2014.

Trump said last August that if he became president, he wouldnt have time for golf. "I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf," he said at an event in Virginia.

Aides have tried to block reporters from seeing Trump play in recent weeks, even covering a basement room with black plastic bags to obscure views.

His spokespeople have frequently refused to confirm he was playing, even as he stayed at the course for almost five hours the usual time it takes to play a round. They have sometimes said he is playing a "few holes" of golf.

After reports that he golfed a full 18 holes with Rory McIlroy on Sunday, his spokeswoman confirmed the much longer round on Monday, but noted he also "had a full day of meetings, calls and interviews" about picking a new national security adviser.

Obama has said vacations were important to him because the presidency requires constant work, and that he was never off duty. The president often golfed with old friends from Chicago, who he said kept him grounded, and would do work before and after just like Trump does.

To be sure, there is nothing illegal or unethical with presidents frequently playing golf. They are allowed to vacation as much as as they want. George W. Bush went frequently to his Texas ranch. The elder Bushes went to Kennebunkport.

They can use Air Force One for whatever they'd like to use it for, said ethics expert Richard Painter, though they do have to reimburse some of the costs.

"Are we going to have a four-year campaign? Are we going to pay for that? Are we going to pay for him to be there every weekend?" asked Richard Painter, an ethics lawyer who worked for President George W. Bush. "We have always accepted that presidents campaign in the year of an election, but he has been in office one month."

When Air Force One nosed its way to an airport hangar in Melbourne, Fla., on Saturday beneath a blazing Florida sky, the crowd whooped, snapped pictures, gasped and raised babies on their shoulders at the most powerful of American symbols approached. The soundtrack from "Air Force One" blared in the background.

"It was absolutely unbelievable," said Rick Lacey, the chair of the Brevard County Republican Party. "Air Force One had never landed here. Everyone was on cloud nine."

Two days earlier, the White House told the Washington Post the plane would not be used as a prop at a political rally. And Trump frequently criticized Obama for campaigning with the plane, particularly when Hillary Clinton was on board during the 2016 race.

"Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary. A total disgrace!" he wrote in summer of 2016.

"Looking at Air Force One @ MIA. Why is he campaigning instead of creating jobs & fixing Obamacare?" he tweeted in November.

The rally, his supporters say, was a necessary move for the president, who left energized after a rough first month. "It is a battery-charger for him," said Barry Bennett, a consultant who worked for his campaign. "He goes out there and has his message unfiltered and talks to the American people for 45 minutes, and it's all over cable TV."

Lacey, the Brevard County Republican, said the rally helped Trump remind his voters he was working for them. Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser, said "with all the political carping in Washington, it shows people he can get 10,000 people to come out and that he has a powerful political base."

"It gets him past some of the Washington bureaucracy and to the American people," said Lacey. He added that he understood the president had to fly on Air Force One because it was safer. "If he started doing that every week, I'd have a problem with it. But I think it's good for him to get out."

White House aides say the trips to Mar-a-Lago are healthy for a president who often spends 12 hours or more in the White House every day, barely breathing fresh air. They have encouraged him to get away from the White House more.

"The golf is refreshing for him," Bennett said. "Anywhere he can go to decompress is good."

Aides say to expect frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago, and that Trump won't give up golfing anytime soon. He expects to play more with foreign leaders and others he is negotiating with.

Whether Democrats begin attacking Trump for golfing and vacationing remains uncertain.

Stone said Trump deserved "time away," just like Obama deserved the time away. His message before he was president was that "the country is going to hell, and Obama is out golfing."

"It was rhetorically very successful," Stone said.

See more here:
Trump forgets his Obama criticisms - Politico

Sundar Pichai

Sundar Pichai, Googles C.E.O., was born in Chennai, India, immigrating to the U.S. to attend Stanford in 1993.

By Simon Dawson/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Alphabet president and Google co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Moscow and lived in the Soviet Union until he was six, immigrating with his family to the United States in 1979.

By FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images.

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, was born and raised in South Africa. He obtained Canadian citizenship in 1989 and briefly attended college at Queen's University in Ontario. He transferred to University of Pennsylvania, in part because such a move would allow him to get an H-1B visa and stay in the U.S. after college.

By Justin Chin/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Safra Catz, who served as co-C.E.O. of Oracle, was born in Israel. She resigned from her executive role in December after joining Donald Trumps presidential transition team.

By David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

The founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar, was born in France to Iranian parents. He immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s.

By Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang moved from Taiwan to San Jose, California, in 1978, at the age of 10.

by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

Brothers John Collison and Patrick Collison, twenty-something college dropouts who emigrated from Ireland, co-founded Stripe, a $9.2 billion payments start-up.

By Jerome Favre/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Adam Neumann, raised on an Israeli kibbutz, moved to the U.S. in 2001, after briefly serving in the Israeli army as a navy doctor. Now hes the chief executive of the $16.9 billion New York-based WeWork, which sublets space to individuals and companies.

by Noam Galai/Getty Images.

The co-founder and C.E.O. of health insurance start-up Oscar, Mario Schlosser, came to the United States from Germany as an international student, receiving his M.B.A. from Harvard.

By Kholood Eid/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Trump supporter Peter Thiel, who has expressed support for the presidents executive action restricting immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries, is an immigrant himself. Before he co-founded PayPal and made one of the earliest large investments in Facebook, Thiel moved with his family from Germany, where he was born. In 2011, he also became a citizen of New Zealand, adding a third passport to his growing collection.

By Roger Askew/Rex/Shutterstock.

Born in Hyderabad, India, Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella came to the U.S. to study computer science, joining Microsoft in 1992.

By Stephen Brashear/Getty Images.

Garrett Camp helped co-found Uber. He was born in Alberta, Canada, and now resides in the Bay Area.

By Justin Lane/EPA/Rex/Shutterstock.

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Uber Hires an Obama Alum to Save It from Another PR Disaster - Vanity Fair