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You've been Trumped!

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 29 Aug , 2017 1:51 pm
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Trump obviously thinks Americans are really stupid, says he pardoned Arpaio as the hurricane made landfall so that his pardon would get maximum news coverage.

Really, you can't make this stuff up.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... tv-ratings

Pro-Trump House representative tries to sneak limits on Mueller's investigation into must-pass spending bill.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/34834 ... al-counsel
Quote:
A Republican lawmaker [Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.)] has put forth an amendment that would stop funding for the special counsel’s Russia investigation 180 days after it becomes law... [and] would also prevent special counsel Robert Mueller from probing “matters occurring before June 2015,”

...The amendment was submitted as part of the upcoming spending package the lower chamber is expected to weigh after the congressional recess.
Makes you wonder what Trump did before June 2015...

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 30 Aug , 2017 1:30 pm
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The latest warning to the U.S. from the U.N.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... k-by-trump
Quote:
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said at a press conference Wednesday that Trump’s comments responding to the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacist rally could embolden people to attack journalists, according to Reuters.

”It’s really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only sort of a cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution but very much something that the United States defended over the years is now itself under attack from the President,” he said.

An interesting long-term perspective on North Korea from foreignpolicy.com
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/23/tr ... wn-making/
Quote:
For several days earlier this month, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. Or so the Trump administration wanted us to believe. ...So what accounts for the rapid de-escalation between North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump...

The answer rests in the fact that what the world witnessed was an entirely manufactured crisis magnified by an irrational response from an American president eager to display bravado and bluster on the world stage.
Among other things, it notes that Trump should have known about the news that North Korea had miniaturized a nuclear warhead well before the news was reported in the media, rather than acting as if he was surprised and reacting to a sudden new threat:
Quote:
The Washington Post story, moreover, noted that the analysis was completed sometime last month, suggesting that senior U.S. policymakers, including the commander-in-chief, had already been briefed on the findings. I say this with the confidence of someone who has read countless U.S. intelligence analyses — including those in the President’s Daily Brief — of North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Developments far less significant than what the Washington Post reported were routinely included in President Barack Obama’s briefs, leaving little doubt that Trump was not caught off guard.
It also notes that the crisis was solved once Trump had been sidelined:
Quote:
As soon as two leaders became engaged in an apparently intractable standoff, the crisis began to dissipate — when Trump removed himself from the equation. What the world witnessed in the subsequent days was something resembling the diplomacy and public messaging that prior administrations might have offered from the start.
And now Trump's at it again, tweeting dangerous belligerence to match Kim Jong Un.http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... orth-korea
Quote:
"The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!"

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 31 Aug , 2017 1:33 pm
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Trump got away with using Zinke to threaten Alaskan senators. He did this in an attempt to make Murkowski vote for the Obamacare repeal, but the two senators are now refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Reminds me of people refusing to "snitch" on criminals...
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ka-threats
Quote:
The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is closing its investigation into Secretary Ryan Zinke’s alleged threats against an Alaska senator during an ObamaCare fight last month after the lawmaker and her in-state colleague refused to participate in the probe.

In a letter to a pair of House Democrats who requested the investigation, Interior’s Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall said her office “does not believe it could meaningfully investigate the matter further” because Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, declined to be interviewed as part of the inquiry.

White House spokesperson says they can't handle questions about climate change right now, because they only want to talk about rescue and recovery efforts. Someone had better tell these people that the presidency should be able to focus on more than one thing at a time.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ing-harvey
Quote:
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in a prime time interview Wednesday slammed CNN’s Chris Cuomo for asking about climate change as rescue operations continue for the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

“Chris we’re trying to help the people whose lives are literally under water and you want to have a conversation about climate change,” Conway said after Cuomo asked about addressing climate change in the wake of the storm.

“I mean, that is, I’m not going to engage in that right now because I work for a president and a vice president and a country that is very focused on helping the millions of affected Texans, and, god forbid, Louisianans if it ends up.”
It's not as if Conway is actually doing anything meaningful in disaster relief - she's just talking on television.


Arpaio demonstrates just how contrite he is, for defying the judicial system and continuing to profile Latinos (not to mention all the other charming things he did, like keeping prison inmates in tent cities for punishment during extreme heat.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... y-the-laws
Quote:
Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Wednesday after the governor said President Trump should not have pardoned the former law enforcement officer.

...Arpaio was responding to comments made by Christie on MSNBC earlier Wednesday. “My understanding has always been that one of the prerequisites you look for in giving a pardon is contrition for what you were convicted of," the governor said. "I didn’t see that in Sheriff Arpaio.”

Christie went on to say that he would not have pardoned the former sheriff, who has been accused of racial profiling.

Trump continues to make it more difficult for diplomats to negotiate trade agreements with other countries:
http://thehill.com/latino/348637-mexico ... fta-report
Quote:
Mexico's top diplomat said Wednesday that the country will leave negotiations if President Trump unilaterally rescinds the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Trump on Sunday threatened to cancel the deal because Mexico and Canada are "both being very difficult" in negotiations and repeated his claims in a speech on tax policy Wednesday.
I assume Trump's idea of a good deal is where the US gets everything and other countries get nothing. Like his renewed insistence that Mexico will pay for his stupid wall, even after we all saw the transcript of the talk where he admitted to the Mexican president that he knows they won't be the ones to pay...

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 01 Sep , 2017 3:48 pm
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Surprise, surprise - Kris Kobach, head of Trump's "voter fraud" commission is a white nationalist/ alt right member who writes paid columns for Breitbart
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... -breitbart
Quote:
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the head of President Trump's Commission on Election Integrity, is a paid columnist at the the conservative Breitbart News website.

...Kobach has published seven columns on Breitbart, most recently on why the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals should be ended.

Being the son of the president certainly has its rewards, even when you're being investigated for colluding with Russians...
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... eak-at-unt
Quote:
President Trump's eldest son will receive $100,000 later this year to speak at the University of North Texas for its Kuehne Speaker Series, the university's student newspaper reports. The North Texas Daily reported on Thursday that Donald Trump Jr. will receive $100,000 for a 30-minute lecture followed by a Q&A session and a VIP photo opportunity. Trump Jr. will be given the questions to the session ahead of time, according to the paper.

The contract signed by Trump Jr. also provides for up to $5,000 in lodging and transportation costs

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 01 Sep , 2017 11:13 pm
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Daily Pratchett today:

"Instead of laughing they follow you more, hoping at the heart of the lies they’ll find truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable."

I think it's Going Postal?

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sat 02 Sep , 2017 4:17 pm
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Pratchett was a wise observer of human nature.

There are some GOP members of Congress to support/encourage if you support DACA (the program that lets "Dreamers" stay in the U.S.). Trump is supposedly planning to announce a decision on it on Tuesday. The "alt right" is pushing him to end it but, at this point, it's not obvious whether he will or not.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/ ... ty-on-daca
Quote:
House Republicans who represent districts with large Hispanic populations are battling President Trump over an Obama-era immigration program that shields certain immigrants from deportation. The Republicans have sought to convince Trump to keep the program alive, and have also offered legislation that would essentially make into law the protections for young people brought to the United States illegally.

Trump is expected to announce his decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Tuesday. It grants temporary work permits and protection from deportation to nearly 800,000 immigrants.

Remember those flood area rules Trump rescinded a couple of weeks ago? Members of his administration are now considering whether to implement similar ones.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
Quote:
A couple of weeks ago President Trump scrapped Obama-era rules, intended to reduce the risks posed by flooding, that established new construction standards for roads, housing and other infrastructure projects that receive federal dollars.

Trump derided these restrictions,... “This overregulated permitting process is a massive, self­inflicted wound on our country — it’s disgraceful — denying our people much-needed investments in their community,” he said in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York during an event to tout his infrastructure policies.

But now, in the wake of the massive flooding and destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey along the Gulf Coast, the Trump administration is considering whether to issue similar requirements to build higher in flood-prone areas as the government prepares to spend billions of dollars in response to the storm.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sat 02 Sep , 2017 4:33 pm
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I found this article in the Washington Post useful. It's about the latest in Trump's dealings with Russia - his plans to built a Trump tower there, while he was campaigning for president - and puts it into context.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html
Quote:
There comes a point in the unspooling of every complex political-financial-legal scandal when the story becomes so complicated that it’s easy to lose the thread of what matters. The facts dribble out, in ever more confusing increments. The lengthy cast of characters resembles a Russian novel. Competing news demands our attention.

That is where we are now when it comes to the investigation of President Trump and Russia.
Quote:
To recap, what we know now that we did not know a week ago:

While he ran for president, Trump was simultaneously — and secretly — pursuing financial opportunities with a foreign adversary [ Russia] ... And not just pursuing financial opportunities in Russia, but actively seeking the help of at least one senior Russian official to gain government approval for the project.

...It was possible, when The Post first broke the news of the failed deal, to discount the proposal as braggadocio from Felix Sater, the Russian-born real estate developer pushing the deal. “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater emailed Trump Organization executive vice president Michael Cohen, detailed by the New York Times.

...The Post next reported that Cohen emailed Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in January 2016 in a bid to save the languishing deal; that Cohen discussed the project with Trump on three occasions; and that the effort was dropped when Russian government permission was unforthcoming.

...as the question of Trump’s Russian connections became increasingly controversial, he somehow omitted the just-abandoned deal. “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia,” he tweeted in July 2016. This past January, as Trump prepared to take office, he reiterated, “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA — NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 05 Sep , 2017 5:42 pm
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Trump has rescinded DACA:
http://thehill.com/latino/348848-sessio ... six-months
Quote:
The Trump administration said Tuesday it was ending an Obama-era program allowing young people who came to the country illegally as children to live here free from fear of deportation. "The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded," Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in a televised statement. President Trump released a written statement that cast President Obama's creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as going beyond his constitutional responsibilities.

..The president said Congress could take up DACA if it wished, but he made it clear that this should be done in the context of broader immigration reform that could include the building of a wall on the border and new curbs on legal immigration that have been offered by two GOP senators. "Congress now has the opportunity to advance responsible immigration reform that puts American jobs and American security first," Trump said.
800,000 young people have now put targets on their backs by having registered for this program:
Quote:
DACA recipients ...had passed background checks and paid a fee to get deferral from deportation and a work permit. Obama put the program in place through a 2012 executive order. Approximately 800,000 people are recipients under the program.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... nding-daca
Quote:
Trump administration officials worried ahead of the announcement Tuesday of a phaseout of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that President Trump didn't fully understand what the move would mean.

...The New York Times reported Tuesday that administration officials privately raised concerns as late as one hour before the announcement about Trump's understanding of the effects of rescinding DACA.

Other bad news for students:
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/34922 ... udent-loan
Quote:
The Education Department on Friday announced it will stop working with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to police student loan fraud. The department, now led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, cancelled agreements with the CFPB from 2011 and 2013 that established the working relationship, arguing the agency violated their terms by overstepping its boundaries.

...The Education officials said the department “takes exception to the CFPB unilaterally expanding its oversight role to include the Department’s contracted federal loan servicers,” and called it “characteristic of an overreaching and unaccountable agency.”
This is part of a pattern:
Quote:
The department recently revoked Obama-era protections for victims of student loan servicing fraud, and appointed a former DeVry University official to lead Education’s enforcement division. That office previously fined DeVry and other for-profit colleges hundreds of millions of dollars for defrauding and lying to students.
Maybe Trump wants to open another crooked "university"?



The EPA is making sure that anyone hoping for a scientific grant conform to Trump's political views:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... -decisions
Quote:
A former Trump campaign aide has been charged with decisions on grant funding at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Washington Post reported.John Konkus — who works in the EPA's public affairs office — reportedly reviews all of the awards from the EPA. He also reviews grant solicitations. In his role, he has told grant officers that references to climate change should be taken out.

His decisions on the EPA's funding have affected money given to universities and nonprofit organizations, according to the Post
.


It looks like at least 3 of the national monuments to be partially destroyed are in Utah and Oregon:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... hich-ones/
Quote:
In a report Zinke submitted to the White House, the secretary recommended reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as well as Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to multiple individuals briefed on the decision.

..Zinke, who had called for revising Bears Ears’ boundaries in an interim report in June, is recommending a “significant” reduction in its size, an administration official said.

The report also calls for changing the management rules for several sites, such as allowing fishing in marine monuments where it is currently prohibited, and would affect the boundaries of other monuments beyond the three officials identified Thursday.
There is still a lot of secrecy around this report, no doubt because it will be highly unpopular with many (most?) Americans.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 05 Sep , 2017 6:30 pm
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Related to Trump's DACA announcement:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pl ... y-on-daca/
Quote:
The Trump administration is set to announce today that the president will scrap protections for roughly 800,000 people brought here illegally as children — but will do so on a six-month delay. The leaks currently coming out of the White House right now suggest this will be spun as a kind of third-way, middle-ground solution that lies somewhere between killing the protections for the “dreamers” right now and letting them continue.

But let’s be clear on what this six-month delay actually does and does not do. Because of the logistical realities that attend winding down these protections, announcing this on a “six-month delay” is very likely to be identical in practical terms to announcing it today for a large majority of those 800,000 people. And for that large majority, it means they are losing their protections in the very near future, upending the lives of hundreds of thousands

Also from the article:
Quote:
Both Sessions and Miller … have worked in tandem to persuade the president to upend DACA, framing the issue in terms he can relate to: victory versus defeat. They told Trump the administration was likely to lose if it defended DACA in court — and they suggested he’d look foolish if he did so, according to people familiar with the internal debate.


And more on the EPA's politicizing of its grants. Apparently the person in charge of canceling and denying grants has little knowledge about environmental policy. :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... litics_pop
Quote:
The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the unusual step of putting a political operative in charge of vetting the hundreds of millions of dollars in grants the EPA distributes annually, assigning final funding decisions to a former Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience.

...Konkus, who officially works in the EPA’s public affairs office, has canceled close to $2 million competitively awarded to universities and nonprofit organizations.

...several officials from the Obama and George W. Bush administrations said they had never heard of a public affairs officer scrutinizing EPA’s solicitations and its grants, which account for half of the agency’s roughly $8 billion budget.
And some of the decisions appear to be revenge against legislators who oppose Trump:
Quote:
Earlier this summer, on the same day that Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined with two other Republicans in voting down a GOP health-care bill, EPA staffers were instructed without any explanation to halt all grants to the regional office that covers Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. That hold was quickly narrowed just to Alaska and remained in place for nearly two weeks.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 05 Sep , 2017 7:13 pm
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And more Trump awfulness and arrogance revealed:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/30/tr ... ne-harvey/
Quote:
[During hurricane Harvey] Mexico offered to help, as good neighbors do. It did so despite the seemingly endless barrage of insults that Trump has directed toward the country, including this past week’s repetition of the claim that Mexico will pay for his delusional border wall (something it has made clear it will not do).

....Bedeviled by seismic activity and in the path of many a hurricane, Mexico has developed some of the most effective search and rescue capabilities of any country in the world, and its military excels at domestic disaster recovery missions. ...In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Mexican government offered, and the George W. Bush administration wisely accepted, assistance that saw Mexican troops on U.S. soil for the first time since the Mexican-American War. Mexican soldiers distributed more than 170,000 meals, delivered more than 184,000 tons of supplies, and provided more than 500 medical consultations to people across Louisiana and Mississippi.

...But the Trump administration has failed to take Mexico up on its offer to help with recovery efforts.

...By blindly ignoring a neighborly offer of disaster assistance, Trump has put himself in league with some strange company. Ignoring offers of aid — U.S. aid usually — has been the exclusive purview of Fidel and Raul Castro.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 05 Sep , 2017 7:17 pm
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Reminder that Mexican Marines helped out after Katrina.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Tue 05 Sep , 2017 10:23 pm
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A report I missed earlier, but caught on a round-up of recent news:
http://origin-nyi.thehill.com/news-by-s ... ing-safety
Quote:
President Trump has nominated a former coal executive whose company clashed with federal officials over mining safety rules under President Obama to the top mining safety post in his administration. Trump on Friday named David Zatezalo, the former chairman of Rhino Resources, to be an assistant secretary of Labor overseeing the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

...During Zatezalo’s time as an executive at Rhino, the company was issued two "pattern of violations" letters from MSHA over safety issues at their mines, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
So ... Pruitt to head the EPA, a mine safety violator to head the mine safety agency...

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 06 Sep , 2017 12:09 am
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Oh, and a climate change denier to NASA

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 06 Sep , 2017 2:25 pm
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At least he seems unlikely to do too much harm there. I'm more worried about the non-scientists with extreme views that Trump is putting in charge of science elsewhere.



Trump once again displays his ignorance and disinterest in educating himself about current issues.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -the-world
Quote:
President Trump in a Wednesday tweet previewing his upcoming trip to North Dakota to discuss taxes again claimed that the U.S. is the highest taxed nation in the world, despite data to the contrary.
At least countries with much higher taxes get decent social safety nets in exchange for their money, like healthcare and pensions (i.e., ones they can expect to still be there when they retire).



Fact checking Trump and the alt right on DACA
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... al/538911/
Quote:
In a statement, [Trump] said that the Obama initiative led to a “massive surge [of] young people who would become members of violent gangs throughout our country.” Revoking DACA, he went on, was necessary to ensure “safe communities, a robust middle class, and economic fairness for all Americans.”

The president’s statement makes it sound like Dreamers are often violent members of society who, even when they’re not committing crimes, are busy stealing native-born Americans’ jobs and draining scarce government resources. The facts, however, paint a starkly different picture. There is little evidence to suggest that Dreamers are more violent than average Americans, and criminals were never eligible for protection under DACA anyway. Instead, there is considerable evidence that Dreamers are productive members of society.

The typical Dreamer is young and employed at a job that earns about $17 per hour, according to an analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. ... Cato estimates that ending DACA could cost Washington nearly $280 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade.
Quote:
A defense of the White House’s decision might hold that, by carving a hole into immigration law, DACA would encourage more undocumented workers to come into the country—that laws need to be enforced, and exempting people from them is arbitrary and sends a damaging message. But this is at odds with the fact that undocumented immigration has actually been declining for the last few years, even after the DACA initiative was signed.
According to the article, the average "Dreamer" was less than 7 years old when they were brought to the U.S., and 25% have children themselves.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Wed 06 Sep , 2017 10:27 pm
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Quote:
that laws need to be enforced, and exempting people from them is arbitrary and sends a damaging message.
Unless those laws are about racial profiling.


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 07 Sep , 2017 1:40 pm
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Quote:
Unless those laws are about racial profiling.
?? I think they're talking about the actual immigration laws (i.e., that the Dreamers are also in the U.S. illegally), and as far as I know, those laws have nothing to do with racial profiling. Their enforcement does, but that's not the point.

Besides which, I think the Atlantic's point is that, while this might theoretically be a justification, illegal immigration decreased after DACA instead of increasing.
(To be honest, I'm not sure if that's true when you break down the numbers by age. Then again, it all gets complicated when you consider that some people in parts of Latin America are now trying to send their children to safety, away from violence. That could skew the age distribution, with or without DACA.)



Has anyone seen the leaks from Hillary Clinton's upcoming book? It sounds like she's spreading the blame widely for her loss, instead of admitting she was a weak candidate. For instance, Bernie Sanders is supposedly the reason that Trump could criticize her. It sounds like Clinton's going to be a gift to Trump supporters, at this rate, by criticizing and alienating everyone in the Democratic party who doesn't think exactly like her.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 07 Sep , 2017 10:06 pm
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aninkling wrote:
Quote:
Unless those laws are about racial profiling.
?? I think they're talking about the actual immigration laws (i.e., that the Dreamers are also in the U.S. illegally), and as far as I know, those laws have nothing to do with racial profiling. Their enforcement does, but that's not the point.

This was a reference to Trump's recent pardon, which didn't seem to concerned with exempting people from laws or the message that sends.


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Thu 07 Sep , 2017 10:18 pm
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Ah, I understand now. :) It's hard to remember Trump's many rotten actions sometimes.


Here's an interesting little tidbit from Congress:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... -testimony
Quote:
Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) emailed the U.S. statute outlining punishments for lying or withholding information from Congress on Thursday just hours after Donald Trump Jr. testified before the committee.

"Below is a statue to keep in mind in regards to Donald Trump Jr.'s testimony today," Coons wrote in the email before sharing the rules of the statute.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Fri 08 Sep , 2017 7:25 pm
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After-effects of Hurricane Harvey for the EPA:

After post-flood explosions at a chemical plant that sent some emergency responders to the hospital, Pruitt is trying to defend himself from criticism:
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... explosions
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt on Friday defended his decision to delay a major chemical plant safety regulation.The EPA has faced criticism on the decision following multiple explosions last week at Arkema Inc.’s plant in Crosby, Texas, which flooded from Hurricane Harvey.

The Risk Management Plan rule, written under the Obama administration and delayed by Pruitt, would not likely have prevented the incident, but it may have helped first responders to avoid injuring themselves by inhaling noxious fumes.

...The Obama administration rule faced opposition from Texas leaders, Republicans and the chemical industry, including Arkema, which pushed the EPA to delay and revise it.
Companies don't like telling people what noxious chemicals are at their plants, for obvious reasons (like defending themselves from lawsuits, from people living nearby). But Pruitt invokes the bogeyman of terrorists finding out about chemicals, as his justification for "delaying" the safety rule - in other words, delaying it until the Trump administration can get rid of it.

Seriously, do they think we're going to believe that the Obama administration didn't consider all the possible ramifications when they passed the regulation?



And the Trump administration and EPA seem to be the only ones refusing to talk about climate change after the recent hurricanes.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... ate-change
Quote:
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that talk about how climate change has played into hurricanes like Irma and Harvey is “misplaced.”

Scott Pruitt, who has expressed skepticism on the degree to which human activity causes global warming, told CNN that the country’s focus should be squarely on the immediate effects of the hurricanes for the time being.

btw, this is unrelated to Trump, but just a FYI after I saw a story on The Hill:
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/34 ... k-might-be
Quote:
Individuals using Equifax's tool to see if their information was compromised in a massive data breach could be giving up their rights to file or join a lawsuit against the company.

...the company set up the website equifaxsecurity2017.com so users could see if their data was affected. However, fine print deep in the company’s terms of service for the website includes an arbitration clause waiving the users "ability to bring or participate in a class action, class arbitration or other representative action."

...New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) lambasted the arbitration language in Equifax’s terms of service on Friday calling it “unacceptable and unenforceable.” Schneiderman tweeted that his office had contacted Equifax’s office demanding the clause be removed.

...Equifax did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. At the time of this story’s publishing the language had not been removed from the company’s terms of service.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: You've been Trumped!
Posted: Sat 09 Sep , 2017 5:20 pm
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
Quote:
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has alerted the White House that his team will probably seek to interview six top current and former advisers to President Trump who were witnesses to several episodes relevant to the investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the request.

Mueller’s interest in the aides, including trusted adviser Hope Hicks, former press secretary Sean Spicer and former chief of staff Reince Priebus, reflects how the probe that has dogged Trump’s presidency is starting to penetrate a closer circle of aides around the president.

New investigation into Zinke's threats:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... kan-threat
Quote:
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will launch an investigation into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's alleged threat against Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ak.) to withhold Interior support for Alaska if the she did not support the GOP ObamaCare repeal and replace bill.

...The GAO probe, reported by The Washington Examiner, comes after Interior's Office of Inspector General (OIG) closed its own investigation when Murkowski and her Republican Alaskan colleague Sen. Dan Sullivan, who first reported the Trump administration's threat, refused to participate

...Zinke has brushed off the claim, .."I talk to Sen. Murkowski and Sen. Sullivan all the time,” ...
“A lot's been said about a lot of things. But I talk to them all the time. We get along well," he said adding "The moon has been characterized as a threat, too, so I think it's laughable."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... se/539160/
Quote:
Every shrewd politician keeps a watchful eye on his base, but the relationship between President Trump and his core supporters has become an object of near-fetishistic obsession. Even as his poll numbers continue to gradually settle toward the basement, Trump’s more outlandish actions are often interpreted as base maintenance, and it’s said that Trump’s base remains unshakably loyal to him.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Thursday suggests this is half-right and half-wrong. Trump’s base does appear to be shrinking, but the people who are sticking with Trump are true diehards.
Quote:
Before Trump unified the GOP... he had his own fanatical base. And those people aren’t just sticking with him—they adore him, still. Overall, voters in the poll are 52 percent negative on Trump, 36 percent positive, and 12 percent neutral. (Hillary Clinton’s numbers, for what it’s worth, are even worse—53/30/17, respectively.) But among self-identified Trump voters, an astonishing 98 percent approve of his performance.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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