TRUMP6

2/18 capt 919see TRUMP 7 4/19

<div>

=<div>mma 719</div><div>
</div><div>Inspired by a Fox & Friends <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=bfc95dd8a10684362585c4b5b30e06b95a9da5994db02b648e2acecb8be0841bda303bfb9a8a8e8c552eeab3491db45970f36df5ee96ec7d" title="segment attacking">segment attacking</a> Baltimore congressional Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and likening conditions in the city to the southern border, President Trump <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=bfc95dd8a1068436ce69375fc62b6c8dead8d03345d1feb8035cc317c70036ed959c5e655285a69965e8f448f69582c6d46a1c85d2e691a9" title="lashed out">lashed out</a> on Saturday, calling Baltimore a "rodent infested mess." On Sunday, Fox <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=bfc95dd8a10684369e83297270f01bad15b0990a23dcc2c38ce273a0610980ceff752d6983445fe18d5351e048f63aa303a55c3457fb2063" title="rushed to defend Trump">rushed to defend Trump</a>. This racist mess followed Fox News <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=bfc95dd8a1068436782fc2d1291931c2cbf15904f3be4948ef5008c131ca86d09832bcd3c7f9923d0d6cc192e9b9ca86c568ecd2fcac3403" title="inspiring">inspiring</a> (and then <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=bfc95dd8a10684362245fb5df1a23aecad5b5e3b68a95869b1b47f28ee978c0165cd8999f800e58a8c75a159e74ef0eb8132f3dfc10c28d6" title="defending">defending</a>) Trump's racist statements towards Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, and Omar.

Shortly after Trump's twitter rant, CNN host Victor Blackwell <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=a36a1e9d39b5bac06f87c6414e593049c72a9668b3f24c13d5c1ce52bc0c6bf94df0ac7128ce8616758a3e85f3309d467cf9e0009edd5b2c" title="gave an emotional response on air">gave an emotional response on air</a>, pointing out that Trump only used this type of "infestation" language when attacking minorities. The Baltimore Sun<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=a36a1e9d39b5bac0510e5f465d1edfb2f5f114b36a8a1eb65987b92cf18966486e37e615670f3196a02fd66e85c964058a538c74ed029de7" title="published a powerful editorial">published a powerful editorial</a> titled "Better to have a few rats than to be one."There is one thing that the media must cover in relation to Trump's twitter rant. Jared Kushner operates as a slumlord in Baltimore. As ProPublica <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=a36a1e9d39b5bac0463e09d7db7760af154c7ed161e95fe22978a53e30bea2274fc83dc40f0e34d4757bbdafa03a065b891c3198c777f9df" title="has reported">has reported</a>: "Tenants in more than a dozen Baltimore-area rental complexes complain about a property owner who they say leaves their homes in disrepair, humiliates late-paying renters and often sues them when they try to move out. Few of them know that their landlord is the president’s son-in-law"</div><div></div><div></div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-privately-asked-mcconnell-to-prioritize-confirmation-of-irs-counsel-over-attorney-general-and-now-we-know-why/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-privately-asked-mcconnell-to-prioritize-confirmation-of-irs-counsel-over-attorney-general-and-now-we-know-why/</a></div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/us/politics/trump-michael-desmond-irs.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New York Times is out with another bombshell report</a>, this time describing how – and why – <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Trump" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">President Donald Trump</a> privately asked <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Mitch+McConnell%22" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell</a> to make his top priority the confirmation of a new IRS Chief Counsel, even over confirming a new Attorney General.<div class="p1_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It was February, one month after the new Democratic-majority House of Representatives had been sworn in. This is a very aggressive goal-oriented group of progressive lawmakers, and they had promised to get a copy of Trump’s tax returns.<div class="p2_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Times’ Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos report that “the request by Mr. Trump, made to Mr. McConnell on Feb. 5,” to prioritize the confirmation of the IRS Chief Counsel, “raised questions about whether the president had other motivations,” for pushing to get his nominee confirmed.<div class="p3_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“For months, the president has seethed over vows by congressional Democrats that they would move to obtain his tax returns from the I.R.S. And this week, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, formally asked the I.R.S. for six years of the returns, using an obscure provision in the tax code to do so.”<div class="p4_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Times also notes that “Mr. Trump and his team have been warily anticipating the probing demands of House investigators since Democrats won control in November. The message to Mr. McConnell came around the time that Mr. Trump, eyeing a torrent of new House investigations led by Democrats, told reporters that he was unfairly under fire.”<div class="p5_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The IRS Chief Counsel presumably would be able to provide the Secretary of the Treasury with “reasons” to not allow Congress to obtain Trump’s tax returns.<div class="p6_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Also of great concern is that the Senate did, in fact, confirm Michael Desmond, a tax lawyer from Santa Barbara, California, as IRS Chief Counsel, despite, as the Times notes, Desmond “had briefly advised the Trump Organization on tax issues before Mr. Trump took office.”<div class="p7_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There’s more.<div class="p8_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“In private practice, Mr. Desmond worked for a time alongside William Nelson and Sheri Dillon, who currently serve as tax counsels to the Trump Organization.”<div class="p9_10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s almost as if President Trump installed William Barr at the DOJ to protect him from the Mueller investigation and installed Michael Desmond at the IRS to protect him from Democrats trying to obtain his tax returns.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/watch-beto-orourke-slams-trumps-rhetoric-as-something-we-mightve-expected-to-hear-in-nazi-germany/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/watch-beto-orourke-slams-trumps-rhetoric-as-something-we-mightve-expected-to-hear-in-nazi-germany/</a></div><div>
</div><div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“What other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?”</h3>2020 Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Beto+O%27Rourke" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Beto O’Rourke</a> was questioned by a reporter Thursday night after he told an audience that some of <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Trump" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">President Donald Trump</a>‘s comments echo the rhetoric of Nazi Germany’s “Third Reich.”<div class="p1_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-05/in-iowa-o-rourke-says-some-trump-rhetoric-echoes-nazi-germany" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur reports</a> O’Rourke had told participants at the Sioux City, Iowa town hall that Trump’s policy of separating migrant families at the Southern border “follows the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation.”<div class="p2_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">O’Rourke, a former U.S. Congressman from Texas, added, “I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect it in the United States of America.”<div class="p3_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">His comments drew “heavy applause” from the college crowd, Bloomberg notes.<div class="p4_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">O’Rourke stood by his remarks criticizing the President when the reporter challenged him.<div class="p5_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might’ve expected to hear in Nazi Germany,” O’Rourke explained. “Describing immigrants, who have a track record of committing violent crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims — all people of one religion, what other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?”<div class="p6_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The former Texas Congressman who <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/03/beto-orourke-campaign-money-1253117" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">raised $9.4 million in just 18 days</a>, was not quite finished.<div class="p7_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Putting kids in cages. Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people,” he added, evoking Trump’s remarks in 2017 that there were “very fine people” in the pro- and anti-white nationalism marches in Charlottesville, Virginia....In Iowa, @BetoORourke says the president’s rhetoric on migrants and calls to ban Muslims sound more like the Third Reich than the USA.
Asked about the comparison after the rally, he emphatically stood by it.
Watch the exchange here </div><div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-05/in-iowa-o-rourke-says-some-trump-rhetoric-echoes-nazi-germany">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-05/in-iowa-o-rourke-says-some-trump-rhetoric-echoes-nazi-germany</a></div><div>
</div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div><div>In Iowa, O'Rourke Says Some Trump Rhetoric Echoes Nazi Germany</div><div>By Sahil Kapur</div><div>April 4, 2019, 7:51 PM PDT Updated on April 4, 2019, 8:59 PM PDT</div><div> He slams the administration for separating families at border</div><div> The former congressman spoke to crowd at a college in Iowa</div><div>Beto O’Rourke</div><div>
</div><div>Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa, that some of President Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks echo the rhetoric of Nazi Germany’s “Third Reich.”</div><div>
</div><div>He said the administration’s policy of separating families who cross the Mexican border unlawfully “follows the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation.</div><div>
</div><div>“Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect it in the United States of America,” O’Rourke said Thursday, drawing heavy applause from the young crowd at Morningside College.</div><div>
</div><div>At a White House event in May 2018, Trump ripped into undocumented immigrants and said “these aren’t people, these are animals.” He later said he was referring to MS-13 gang members. The same month, he tweeted that Democrats “want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.”</div><div>
</div><div> Embedded video</div><div>
</div><div>Sahil Kapur</div><div>?</div><div>@sahilkapur</div><div> In Iowa, @BetoORourke says the president’s rhetoric on migrants and calls to ban Muslims sound more like the Third Reich than the USA.</div><div>
</div><div>Asked about the comparison after the rally, he emphatically stood by it.</div><div>
</div><div>Watch the exchange here ??</div><div>
</div><div>14.1K</div><div>7:30 PM - Apr 4, 2019</div><div>5,028 people are talking about this</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Asked about the charged comparison by a reporter after the town hall, O’Rourke stood by it and cited Trump’s calls to ban Muslims and his remark at the dawn of his presidential campaign that Mexico was sending rapists to the U.S.</div><div>
</div><div>Read More: O’Rourke Matches Sanders Pace in 2020 Democratic Fundraising</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>“Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might’ve expected to hear in Nazi Germany,” the former Texas congressman said. “Describing immigrants, who have a track record of committing violent crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims -- all people of one religion, what other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?”</div><div>
</div><div>“Putting kids in cages. Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people,” he added, evoking Trump’s remarks in 2017 that there were “very fine people” in the pro- and anti-white nationalism marches in Charlottesville, Virginia.</div><div>
</div><div>O’Rourke’s comparison on Thursday night came in response to a question about how he would take on Trump if he’s the 2020 Democratic nominee.</div><div>
</div><div>He said he would seek to “pull this country together around the work that’s ahead.” He vowed to jettison the “pettiness and meanness and personal attacks,” arguing that Democrats may lose if they try to match Trump’s approach because Trump is too “gifted” at that style of campaigning.</div><div>
</div><div>The Texan’s blistering critique of the president came as the large and diverse field of Democratic contenders — which grew to 16 on Thursday with the entry of Ohio Representative Tim Ryan — look for ways to distinguish themselves. And the front-runner in most surveys, former Vice President Joe Biden, has yet to announce his plans.</div><div>
</div><div>O’Rourke, who’s polling near the top of the pack, recently announced that he had raised $9.4 million over the first 18 days of his campaign.</div></div><div>=</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>=AN<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Donald Trump appeared in the Oval Office with the Secretary General of NATO Tuesday afternoon, and re-issued his threat to close the southern U.S. border to Mexico.<div class="p1_37" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But it was his description of the situation – and what he sees as wholly acceptable goals – that was stunning.<div class="p2_37" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="in_content_ad_3" class="in_content_ad" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The President of the United States repeatedly insisted that civil rights should be ignored and rescinded. Regardless out immigration or citizenship status, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-constitutional-rights-do-undocumented-immigrants-have" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">every person in the U.S. has constitutional rights</a> that cannot be summarily dismissed.</div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“What we have to do is Congress has to meet quickly, and make a deal,” Trump said to reporters. “I could do it in 45 minutes,” he claimed, which is false, given his track record.<div class="p3_37" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We need to get rid of chain migration, we need to get rid of catch and release, and visa lottery, and we have to do something with asylum, and to be honest with you – have to get rid of judges,” Trump said casually, not realizing – or not caring – that he is literally talking about taking away civil rights, the civil rights of people who are fleeing violence, gangs, drugs, and oppression.<div class="p4_37" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Every time you catch somebody that’s come illegally into your country, and they bring them to a court,” Trump railed, again attacking civil rights.<div class="p5_37" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many on social media expressed concern....<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-accused-of-manufacturing-crisis-by-slashing-aid-to-el-salvador-honduras-and-guatemala/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-accused-of-manufacturing-crisis-by-slashing-aid-to-el-salvador-honduras-and-guatemala/</a>
In a move that was immediately denounced as “cruel” and counterproductive, the Trump State Department on Saturday <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/30/politics/state-department-aid-el-slavador-guatemala-honduras/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">confirmed</a> that it is cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.<div class="p1_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Cutting foreign aid to Central America is the absolute last thing the Trump administration should do right now,” Vicki Gass, senior policy advisor for Central America and Mexico with Oxfam America, said in a <a href="https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/oxfam-reaction-proposed-aid-cuts-central-america/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">statement</a>. “Not only is it morally wrong, it also counters efforts to address the root causes behind migration.”<div class="p2_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Aid cuts would be devastating to the region and would only foster the same instability that is making people flee in the first place,” Gass added.<div class="p3_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The decision to slash around $500 million in aid to the three Central American nations comes as President Donald Trump is threatening to “close” the U.S.-Mexico border.<div class="p4_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Critics argued that Trump’s aid cuts to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala will worsen economic hardship in those nations and force more people to flee out of desperation.<div class="p5_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This will create more refugees. This is the exact opposite of what we should be doing,” <a href="https://twitter.com/thor_benson/status/1112102111066513408" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> journalist Thor Benson.<div class="p6_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some observers accused the president of manufacturing a crisis at the border for political gain.<div class="p7_17" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Making desperate people even more desperate and less able to stay in their own countries… It’s almost as if Trump wants more asylum seekers at the U.S. border,” Andrew Stroehlein, European media director with Human Rights Watch, <a href="https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1112362458801496064" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> on Sunday. “As if he wants more media images that he will then twist for his fear-mongering.”...=100k this mo so border, 40% kids? deport 7 yo solo?!
<h2 class="posttitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.35em; margin: 0.3em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-administration-cut-aid-honduras-nicaragua-el-salvador-immigration-border-5799c55aae3a/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word;">Trump cuts aid for Central American countries, threatens border shutdown</a></h2><div class="postexcerpt" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">House Democrats called the move "entirely counterproductive."</div>=mich gov block?<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-keystone-xl-environment-climate-change-lobbyists-presidential-permit-477d7da51882/">https://thinkprogress.org/trump-keystone-xl-environment-climate-change-lobbyists-presidential-permit-477d7da51882/</a>
Trump handed a victory to a major North American energy company on Friday afternoon with a new presidential permit allowing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to go forward. Many say the move is an effort to sidestep judiciary and environmental review and is likely to face legal challenges.Pipeline company TransCanada Corp. is authorized to “construct, connect, operate and maintain” pipeline facilities running between the United States and Canada, per the permit issued on March 29. It additionally allows the maintenance of a pipeline facility in Phillips County, Montana.The presidential permit revokes and replaces <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/03/269074.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">a previous presidential permit</a> granted by Trump in March 2017. In November 2018, a Montana judge invalidated that permit and it is currently being appealed, while a December lawsuit and subsequent injunction largely halted pre-construction activities on the pipeline. The Trumpadministration was, as a result of the November legal action, ordered to conduct a new environmental review of the pipeline — something the new presidential permit apparently seeks to sidestep.“This permit supersedes the Presidential permit issued to the permittee, dated March 23, 2017,” the new permit notes. Some think that logic stems from the Justice Department’s previous argument that the permit isn’t subject to environmental review by the State Department if it is signed by the president himself.The new permit notably removes a section from its older version that referenced <a href="https://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221135.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">a 2014 environmental impact statement</a> assessing Keystone XL’s environmental consequences. That document includes references to climate change and environmental justice, along with threatened and endangered species. The word “environment” appears only once in the new presidential permit issued Friday, referencing environmental contamination. The word “climate” does not appear at all.<div class="related-contentwrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><div class="related-contentimage" style="box-sizing: inherit; align-self: flex-start; margin: 0px 1rem 0px 0px; width: 171px;"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"></a><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;" /><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/judge-blocks-keystone-xl-trump-1a741f47a9d6/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border: none; display: flex;"><figure class="postfigure postfigure--format-thumbnail" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><div class="postthumbnail" style="box-sizing: inherit; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><picture id="picture-1100805" class="wp-image-1100805 size-full " data-id="1100805" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=1920&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C1490px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 1920px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=1920&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C1490px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1920px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=1024&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C795px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=1024&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C795px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 512px) and (max-width: 1024px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=768&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C596px&ssl=1" media="(min-width: 512px) and (max-width: 768px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=512&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C397px&ssl=1" media="(max-width: 512px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=768&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C596px&ssl=1" media="(max-width: 768px)" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><source srcset="https://i2.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GettyImages-633938612.jpg?w=4288&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C3328px&ssl=1" media="all" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
</source></source></source></source></source></source></source></source></picture></div></figure></a></div><div class="related-contentbody" style="box-sizing: inherit; width: 513px;"><h3 class="related-content__title" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 2rem; margin: 0px;">Judge deals blow to Trump administration over Keystone XL pipeline, citing climate change</h3></div></div>“What’s especially appalling about Trump’s move is that many parts of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route in Nebraska are literally underwater right now with devastating floods impacting the Midwest, and instead of offering support to the communities who will face more of these kinds of disasters as the climate crisis worsens, Trump is offering a Canadian fossil fuel company another chance to build a gigantic fossil fuel project that would only unlock more climate pollution while putting already suffering communities further at risk,” said Greenpeace USA campaigner Rachel Butler to ThinkProgress in an email.Keystone XL has been a raging source of controversy for years, due largely to the public health and environmental implications posed by the pipeline. President Barack Obama handed pipeline opponents a victory when he backed away from the project in 2015 amid heated pushback. But Trump has prioritized the project — it was among the first actions Trump made after taking office and he has worked repeatedly to ensure that the pipeline comes to fruition, despite legal setbacks.Meanwhile, lobbyists have also been hard at work pushing for the pipeline’s construction. TransCanada spent around $200,000 each quarter of 2018 lobbying on issues including Keystone XL, according to disclosures. <a href="https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=processSearchCriteria" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">Documents also show</a> the all-Republican D.C.-based lobbying firm CGCN Group spent $90,000 each quarter representing TransCanada last year and specifically targeting environmental reviews.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also lobbied on the Keystone XL environmental assessment specifically. On Friday, the organization <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/statement-presidential-permit-keystone-xl-pipeline" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(144, 141, 255);">celebrated</a> the presidential permit almost immediately. “Keystone XL is in our economic and energy security interests, and review after review have found that it can be built and operated in an environmentally responsible way,” the statement read.The permit announcement appears to have caught stakeholders and environmental advocates largely off-guard. The State Department, which is conducting the new environmental review of the pipeline, appeared surprised by the news. Environmental groups similarly expressed shock to ThinkProgress, but underscored that the move is likely to face immediate legal challenges.“The courts have repeatedly rejected Trump’s attempts to get this pipeline built, so now he’s shamefully attempting to bypass our bedrock environmental laws for the benefit of a foreign pipeline company,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michal Brune told ThinkProgress. “We will continue to pursue every available avenue to ensure that this pipeline is never built.”=trump trying to kill aca in ct w/ team red, also<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/a-federal-judge-just-struck-a-blow-to-the-trump-administrations-cruel-plot-to-gut-medicaid/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/a-federal-judge-just-struck-a-blow-to-the-trump-administrations-cruel-plot-to-gut-medicaid/</a>On Wednesday, a federal judge dealt a massive blow to one of the Trump administration’s pet projects.<div class="p1_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Washington, D.C. District Court judge James Boasberg struck down work requirements in <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2018cv1900-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Kentucky</a> and <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2018cv1900-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Arkansas</a>, ruling that the waivers granted by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were not valid because work requirements do not further the Medicaid Act’s mission of improving public health....</div> =<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/paul-krugman-explains-the-creepy-and-racist-assumptions-in-trumps-new-economic-report/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/paul-krugman-explains-the-creepy-and-racist-assumptions-in-trumps-new-economic-report/</a>Each year, the White House releases an Economic Report of the President, detailing the administration’s view of the country and the administration’s goals to address ongoing economic trends. As the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell noted, this year’s report stands out for it’s distinctly partisan — and honestly somewhat delusional — focus on “socialism” as a scare tactic about Democratic policy ideas.For a document that’s supposed to focus on the current and future economic potential of the United States, it spends a bizarre amount of time talking about agricultural policy under Mao Zedong and the Soviet Union.But this isn’t the only bizarre and disturbing aspect of the report.On Sunday, Paul Krugman pointed to another portion of the document that seems to rely on racist assumptions:==
March 16, Fox News pulled Jeanine Pirro's Justice with Judge Jeanine

from its weekly Saturday night slot after a week of outrage over her

anti-Muslim rant against a sitting congresswoman. The next morning,

President Donald Trump lashed out in a series of tweets, demanding Fox

“Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro” and “fight for our Country.”

During her March 9 show, Pirro <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6832018cefed4a4c8feb813f9f12e21f7f51d2f1e57cee58d1e51a09c3cf717993fd740482f083e08409fb3d02aff384b824e3070ac7418" style="" title="suggested">suggested</a>

that Rep. Ihlan Omar's (D-MN) hijab was "indicative of her adherence to

sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States

Constitution."

This outright bigotry prompted widespread outrage. A day later, Fox finally <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6832018cefed4a4f220b62a494eb52a899ba84445cbd7c103ca7b3a18814f3bbc844538f9ac35b070d2121ef1e947290f62ae772bdface8" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="addressed it">addressed it</a>,

saying that "we strongly condemn" Pirro's remarks and that it

"addressed the matter with her directly." Fox's statement was

accompanied by a separate statement from Pirro in which she neither

apologized nor showed any remorse from what she said.

There are four

fundamental truths at play here. First, Fox News is under a lot of

pressure following advertiser losses as a result of the network's

malfeasance and bigotry. Second, Fox News is a propaganda machine for

Trump, with the two entities essentially merged. Third, Pirro's show is

fundamentally bigoted to its core; she can never meaningfully distance

herself from anti-Muslim statements since she's been <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6832018cefed4a49393040af885c7db39646287510b865cb7df8f05434b8e9bf2ecf5eab0b33c29c23d79628a52f0bec4e327e2a6aaeebe" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="doing it for years">doing it for years</a>. Third, the Fox News audience

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6832018cefed4a43b3bdef5dcc65a79b221eabf2f4a7e276935d7d58d2b22d47067a032710dafd51c1c70eacd3cc4a4e0234857ac13e9ed" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="wants">wants</a>

the bigoted and anti-Muslim statements. They've been fed this for

years, and now expect no less. That's why you've seen people like

Sebastian Gorka <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6832018cefed4a4dfdb97d9047cb3ad97bb437ab1734f63c7bd0ff960581899ef75efa49d234d6bab7c981c7f4d66c4dfd65a085cf0f791" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="loudly defend">loudly defend</a> Pirro this week.

In

terms of any discipline for Pirro, Fox News kept mum for several days

on the matter; CNN's Brian Stelter is now reporting, per one source,

that Pirro has been suspended for two weeks. But Fox executives'

instinctive secrecy just shows how afraid they are of their network’s

audience: If Fox News were a real news organization, then at a minimum

it would say on air that Pirro's remarks were unacceptable and

communicate what it is doing to its audience.

Instead

of doing any of that, Fox News wants to send one message to its

hard-right audience and an entirely different message to its

advertisers. They are welcome to try, but the Fox audience will never

abet any meaningful move away from bigotry, and the rest of the public

(and advertisers) don't have to play along. These are the tactics of a

propaganda outlet, not a news organization.

But

it is clear Fox's ploy is not working. Advertisers are still staying

away. And even the Fox audience will never abet any meaningful move away

from bigotry. Just this morning, Trump <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6832018cefed4a424bfc35d620fb982bf38aae4af61833dad84e15c5ff1243da15fa1d7e88944b6efeab83e0a022a7da266e6831be0c7cc" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="tweeted">tweeted</a> that Pirro should be brought back
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)--sm Mt(0.8em)--sm" type="text" content="(Bloomberg) -- Gary Cohn, the former head of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council who left after losing a battle over steel tariffs, said he tried to sell Trump on solar jobs -- and seemingly failed as the administration eventually imposed tariffs on the industry." data-reactid="22" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> Gary Cohn, the former head of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council who left after losing a battle over steel tariffs, said he tried to sell Trump on solar jobs -- and seemingly failed as the administration eventually imposed tariffs on the industry.<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)--sm Mt(0.8em)--sm" type="text" content="Cohn said in an interview with the Freakonomics podcast that he “vividly” remembers having a conversation with the president comparing the less than 50,000 coal-mining jobs with more than 350,000 solar-panel installers, according to a transcript released late Wednesday." data-reactid="23" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Cohn said in an interview with the Freakonomics podcast that he “vividly” remembers having a conversation with the president comparing the less than 50,000 coal-mining jobs with more than 350,000 solar-panel installers, according to a transcript released late Wednesday.<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)--sm Mt(0.8em)--sm" type="text" content="“And by the way, 10 years ago, we had no solar-panels installers,” Cohn said on the podcast. “It’s an industry that’s going to continue to grow. And we have to recognize where this country is going, not where this country has been.”" data-reactid="24" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">“And by the way, 10 years ago, we had no solar-panels installers,” Cohn said on the podcast. “It’s an industry that’s going to continue to grow. And we have to recognize where this country is going, not where this country has been.”<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)--sm Mt(0.8em)--sm" type="text" content="Trump ended up slapping tariffs on solar equipment imported into the U.S. The president understood, Cohn said, that “in West Virginia, and southern Ohio and Pennsylvania, you better go talk about coal.”" data-reactid="25" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Trump ended up slapping tariffs on solar equipment imported into the U.S. The president understood, Cohn said, that “in West Virginia, and southern Ohio and Pennsylvania, you better go talk about coal.”<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)--sm Mt(0.8em)--sm" type="text" content="To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Eckhouse in New York at beckhouse@bloomberg.net" data-reactid="26" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Eckhouse in New York at beckhouse@bloomberg.net<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032019/trump-budget-cuts-renewable-energy-efficiency-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-deficit">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032019/trump-budget-cuts-renewable-energy-efficiency-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-deficit</a><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Trump administration's latest budget proposal would radically reduce new spending on federal programs for advancing clean energy.One of the deepest cuts would slash funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) by 87 percent—from $2.3 billion last year to $343 million in new spending next year.The EERE cuts appear less extensive at first glance because the administration's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">fiscal year 2020 plan</a>, released Monday, counts some past funding that has been delayed. But even with the rolled over funds, the total of $696 million for the office would cripple support for novel and promising technologies for advanced wind turbines, high-tech materials, green buildings and more.The White House also proposes eliminating tax credits for electric vehicles and an array of other incentives for reducing carbon emissions. And it makes a third attempt to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, an incubator for cutting-edge energy research and development.These programs proposed for the chopping block have long enjoyed broad support in Congress and the cuts seem unlikely to be adopted, especially now that the House is led by a Democratic majority. Even under the Republicans, lawmakers rebuffed Trump's two previous proposals to slash this part of the energy budget.But the new budget proposal shows that the Trump administration is doubling down on its resolve to retreat from a federal role in advancing a clean energy economy and maintaining global leadership in the technology. <h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;">EPA Would Be Cut 31%, Deficit Would Rise</h3>Energy and the environment would take a far larger hit than other non-military spending. Across-the-board, non-military discretionary spending would be cut 5 percent. The Environmental Protection Agency would get a 31 percent cut, to $6.1 billion, and the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-fy-2020-budget-request-fact-sheet" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Department of Energy's budget</a> would be cut 11 percent, to $31.7 billion.The White House, meanwhile, is proposing a 12 percent increase for the Office of Fossil Energy Research and Development, to $562 million. The office administers the Energy Department's research into carbon capture and other technologies to advance use of fossil fuel. There is also more money for nuclear power.In the context of a $4.75 trillion federal budget, the EERE office is a small line item. But studies have shown that it has been effective in its mission. The Energy Department website boasts that $12 billion in investments by EERE has translated into $230 billion in net economic benefit to the United States—an annual return on investment of more than 20 percent.A senior administration official who gave a background briefing to reporters said the budget includes "more reduction in spending than any president in history has ever proposed."It also would result in a projected budget deficit of about $1.1 trillion, thanks largely to the 2017 enacted tax cuts. The Trump administration maintains that over the long term the tax cuts will stimulate growth and increased revenue. The deficit is "a real problem that is not a result of our economic policies," the administration official said. "We don't think the tax cuts are going to lead to anything but economic growth over 10 years."The full details of the budget, justifying the White House's proposals program by program, have not yet been published. But some elements were released in a series of fact sheets, summaries and briefings.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;">Budget Proposal 'Ignores the Climate Crisis'</h3>Democrats reacted dismissively to the budget draft.Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Florida who chairs a newly created <a href="https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/2719/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">climate committee</a> in the House, said it "ignores the climate crisis."In a statement, she said that "the climate crisis must be addressed through virtually all areas of American life, and as a result, virtually all areas of the President's budget should address this."Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, <a href="https://twitter.com/repadamschiff/status/1105184024841125888?s=11" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">wrote on Twitter</a>: "You know what, Mr. President, keep your budget. We'll take it from here."</div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;">PUBLISHED UNDER:</label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/clean-energy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLEAN ENERGY</a></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">POLITICS</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">DONALD TRUMP</a></div></div></div></div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/teaching-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic-during-the-trump-presidency/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/teaching-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic-during-the-trump-presidency/</a>summer of 2016 changed the way I teach Roman history.  That summer saw Mitch McConnell block the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and Donald Trump throw protesters out of political rallies. As these violations of American political norms accumulated, I began to get questions from students and relatives who were alarmed by the striking similarity of Trump and McConnell’s behavior to actions taken by Roman politicians during the last years of the Roman Republic.<div class="p1_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is not the first time that students have turned to Roman history for tools that might help them understand the present.  During the Iraq war, students and journalists alike looked to the later Roman Empire to diagnose the condition of American global hegemony. It was the Empire that mattered then as students worked to understand the contemporary relevance of moments of Roman imperial overreach like the emperor Trajan’s disastrous invasion of Mesopotamia or Maximinus Thrax’ failed attempt to conquer Germany. I had become used to talking about modern analogies to Roman imperial history. But it was the Roman Republic that students and relatives evoked in the summer of 2016.  At first, it seemed easy to dismiss their concerns. I assured my friends and relatives that American voters had learned from the past. Our fellow citizens could not possibly reward such cynical and menacing behavior. Of course, I was wrong. We had not learned enough to know better.<div class="p2_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As I stood in front of a room filled with almost 100 college undergraduates to give my first lecture after Donald Trump’s travel ban was issued in early 2017, I realized how lessons from the Roman past could be newly meaningful to my students. I scanned that room and I saw students struggling to understand the abrupt transition from the administration of Barack Obama to the regime of Donald Trump. They did not want me to give them answers and they certainly did not want me to preach ideology to them. They wanted me to offer tools that could help them understand what this new world meant and how they might navigate it on their own terms. I decided to discard my planned lecture that day and instead spoke about Roman efforts to limit immigration in the 120s BCE...<div style="">=</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/sociologists-destroy-the-myth-that-uneducated-white-voters-support-trump-because-of-economic-anxiety/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/sociologists-destroy-the-myth-that-uneducated-white-voters-support-trump-because-of-economic-anxiety/</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""></div>=<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/how-trumps-nuclear-doctrine-increases-the-chances-of-human-extinction/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/how-trumps-nuclear-doctrine-increases-the-chances-of-human-extinction/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...Trump has made some very significant policy decisions since entering office that have undermined nuclear non-proliferation on a global level. The two most notable examples include Trump’s withdrawal from a key bilateral nuclear weapons treaty with Russia and his decision to leave the Iranian nuclear deal.<div class="p1_23" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Trump announced this January that he would initiate a six-month withdrawal process that would see the United States quitting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, claiming a number of violations by that country.<div class="p2_23" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The United States has alleged that Russia has been violating the terms of the INF agreement for several years with the expansion and deployment of 2,000 km-range nuclear-capable ground-launched missiles, also referred to as SSC-8 by NATO.<div class="p3_23" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">These claims have been repeatedly rejected by Moscow.<div class="p4_23" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In response to Trump’s announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin fired back by saying that the Kremlin <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-formally-withdraws-from-inf-nuclear-treaty/a-47766621" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">would exit the Cold War-era treaty</a>, which restricts both countries from deploying missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.<div class="p5_23" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The situation is compounded by the fact that the New START agreement, a separate bilateral treaty, which limits the stockpiles and launch platforms that both countries can deploy, is due to expire in 2021, with neither country is likely to renegotiate.<div class="p6_23" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In light of these trends, during the 2019 UN Conference on Disarmament, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/sgsm19474.doc.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">encouraged the United States and Russia</a> to extend the New START treaty, describing it as “one of the hallmarks of international security for 50 years.”....</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/heres-why-trumps-giveaways-to-dirty-industries-are-literally-deadly/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/heres-why-trumps-giveaways-to-dirty-industries-are-literally-deadly/</a>A new study out Tuesday backs up a series of legal challenges launched by Democratic state attorneys general alarmed by President Donald Trump’s deregulatory rollbacks designed to benefit polluting industries at the expense of public health, the environment, and the economy.<div class="p1_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://nyu.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c3272f6ebbb6024dc1359725&id=972c4ce020&e=e9ee20296a" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nyu.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3D8c3272f6ebbb6024dc1359725%26id%3D972c4ce020%26e%3De9ee20296a&source=gmail&ust=1551904061191000&usg=AFQjCNEepebKB1tb3h4U0ibw378-g45SeQ" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Climate & Health Showdown in the Courts: State Attorneys General Prepare to Fight</a> (pdf) was published by the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law, which provides support to state attorneys general working to defend and promote clean energy, climate, and environmental policies.<div class="p2_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This special report unmasks the Trump administration’s plan to give a climate pollution pass to industries that represent almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States,” David J. Hayes, the center’s executive director, said in a statement.<div class="p3_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“State attorneys general will not let the administration get away with its brazen attempt to turn major industries’ legal obligations to reduce damaging pollution into an invitation to continue to pollute—climate effects and adverse health impacts be damned,” he added.[im g]"In California, where we’re number one in clean energy and sell more zero-emission vehicles than any other state, we can’t afford to backslide,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “We’ve seen the effects of climate change, from record wildfires to massive mudslides.”<div class="p9_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal summarized, “This report confirms what we already feared—that the federal government’s environmental rollbacks will have a devastating impact on our climate and our health.”<div class="p10_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“As the Trump administration continues to advance policies that will cause even greater harm to our resources and our health, it is up to state attorneys general to lead the fight to stop these policies and protect Americans,” concluded New York Attorney General Letitia James.<div class="p11_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><twitter-widget class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" data-tweet-id="1103027400793702402" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; visibility: visible; display: block; transform: rotate(0deg); max-width: 100%; width: 500px; min-width: 220px;" />James and Hayes, along with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, discussed the report and the ongoing legal battles against Trump’s pro-polluter agenda at a Tuesday afternoon press conference in Washington, D.C.:
<div style="">=</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/here-are-5-of-the-craziest-revelations-from-the-new-yorkers-expose-of-fox-news-influence-on-trump/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/here-are-5-of-the-craziest-revelations-from-the-new-yorkers-expose-of-fox-news-influence-on-trump/</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Monday, The New Yorker published Jane Mayer’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house/amp?twitter_impression=true" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">stunning exposé</a> into how Fox News, always a right-wing network, has morphed into an overt propaganda instrument of President Donald Trump’s White House, and how the symbiotic relationship between the president and Fox’s billionaire international news mogul owner Rupert Murdoch has effectively created something that has never before existed in American politics.<div class="p1_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To some degree, the article covers ground that has long been known or suspected — the way that Trump’s policy decisions on everything from the <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/why-fox-news-made-trump-shut-down-the-government.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">federal government shutdown</a> to the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/26/is-trumps-transgender-ban-linked-to-tucker-carlsons-spurious-claims-on-child-abuse/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">transgender military ban</a> are informed by his daily binge-watching of Fox talk shows; how former Fox executive Bill Shine has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/07/foxification-trump-white-house-visualized/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">blurred the Fox and White House payrolls</a> since being hired as Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff; and how Fox itself has discarded the few journalistic guardrails it had during President Barack Obama’s years, with hosts like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs now free to openly join political rallies and offer advice to the president.<div class="p2_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But there are some new, mind-blowing revelations in Mayer’s article. Here are five of the most significant:<div class="p3_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Trump ranks reporters on a scale of 1 to 10 for their “loyalty” to him — and Steve Doocy is a 12.</li></ol>Trump is well known for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/09/25/from-angelina-jolie-to-kim-k-how-donald-trump-rates-women-in-new-howard-stern-tapes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">assigning numbers to women</a> based on how attractive he thinks they are. But according to Mayer’s reporting, he does the same thing for reporters based on how loyal he thinks they are to him. “Bret Baier, Fox News’ chief political anchor, is a 6; Hannity a solid 10. Steve Doocy, the co-host of ‘Fox & Friends,’ is so adoring that Trump gives him a 12.”<div class="p4_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Needless to say, this is a dangerous development. Trump has a track record of rewarding and punishing reporters based on his whims. During the presidential transition, he <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/313898-ap-breitbart-had-front-row-seat-at-trump-presser" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reserved a seat at a press conference</a> for a Breitbart reporter. And last year, Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/07/media/trump-cnn-press-conference/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">suspended</a> the press pass of CNN’s Jim Acosta after he challenged the president’s claims on special counsel Robert Mueller and the Honduran migrant caravan. He later relented after one of his own judicial appointees <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2018/11/judge-rules-white-house-must-reinstate-jim-acostas-press-pass-now/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ordered</a> him to restore Acosta’s credentials.<div class="p5_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol start="2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Jared Kushner is effectively Rupert Murdoch’s direct pipeline to the White House.</li></ol>Despite having <a href="https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/how-these-seemingly-unqualified-people-scored-powerful-jobs.html/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">essentially no qualifications</a> for any of it, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has worn numerous hats in the administration, from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/americas/kushner-mexico-president-diplomacy.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">meeting with foreign heads of state</a> to <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-kushner-tries-to-win-support-for-peace-plan-in-arab-world-inflames-israeli-right-1.6980369" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">working on the Middle East peace plan</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/28/15075416/kushner-solve-opioid-crisis" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">fixing the opioid epidemic</a> — and Trump trusts him enough to have <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/trump-reportedly-overruled-white-house-officials-to-grant-his-son-in-law-a-top-secret-clearance-and-tried-to-cover-it-up/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">overridden intelligence officials</a> to give him a top-secret security clearance.<div class="p6_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One other person who trusts him, according to Mayer’s article, is Murdoch. In fact, Kushner may be Murdoch’s most direct liaison with the Trump administration.<div class="p7_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sources told The New Yorker that Kushner routinely asks Murdoch for advice, has “assured Murdoch that the White House is a smooth-running operation, despite many reports suggesting that it is chaotic,” and that the two of them communicate “Like, every day.” Given that the White House has given Kushner such a massive portfolio of responsibility and trust, Murdoch’s relationship with Kushner is likely one of the biggest influences he has on the executive branch.<div class="p8_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol start="3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Roger Ailes allegedly fed Trump questions before the GOP debates.</li></ol>During the presidential election, it was reported that former Fox News host Megyn Kelly — who famously tried to question Trump on his treatment of women at the GOP debates only to have Trump <a href="https://nypost.com/2015/08/08/trump-megyn-kelly-had-blood-coming-out-of-her-wherever/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">dismiss her as on her period</a> — <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/305534-megyn-kelly-trump-got-debate-question-in-advance" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">asserted</a> that Trump had help with the debate questions ahead of time. She later denied saying or believing this — but Mayer’s reporting now backs up this idea:<div class="p9_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">A pair of Fox insiders and a source close to Trump believe that Ailes informed the Trump campaign about Kelly’s question. Two of those sources say that they know of the tipoff from a purported eyewitness. In addition, a former Trump campaign aide says that a Fox contact gave him advance notice of a different debate question, which asked the candidates whether they would support the Republican nominee, regardless of who won.</blockquote>It is hard to know whether this claim is accurate, as Ailes is deceased and contemporary reporting suggested that Fox was not yet in Trump’s orbit at that point of the Republican cycle. But if true, this would be highly damning — especially considering Trump asserted that the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/donna-brazile-finally-admits-she-shared-debate-questions-with-clinton-campaign" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">incident</a> where former Democratic National Committee Chief Donna Brazile gave Hillary Clinton CNN questions ahead of time proved the network was “a total fake.”<div class="p11_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol start="4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Fox News uncovered the Stormy Daniels scandal during the election — but buried the story and retaliated against the reporter who found it.</li></ol>The revelation that Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen made an illegal hush payment to silence an affair between Trump and porn star Stormy Daniels, first reported in January 2018 by the Wall Street Journal, was a huge story that led to a massive federal investigation, jail time, and congressional investigations.<div class="p12_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But all of it could have come out much sooner — because as Mayer reports, Fox News had the story during the 2016 presidential election, killed it, and may have retaliated against Diana Falzone, the reporter who uncovered it:<div class="p13_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">Falzone had worked on the story since March, and by October she had confirmed it with Daniels through her manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, and with Daniels’s former husband, Mike Moz, who described multiple calls from Trump. Falzone had also amassed e-mails between Daniels’s attorney and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, detailing a proposed cash settlement, accompanied by a nondisclosure agreement. Falzone had even seen the contract.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">But Falzone’s story didn’t run—it kept being passed off from one editor to the next. After getting one noncommittal answer after another from her editors, Falzone at last heard from LaCorte, who was then the head of FoxNews.com. Falzone told colleagues that LaCorte said to her, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” LaCorte denies telling Falzone this, but one of Falzone’s colleagues confirms having heard her account at the time.</blockquote>According to The New Yorker, Fox then proceeded to demote Falzone, without explaining why. She later sued Fox, which settled the case and made her sign a nondisclosure agreement that prohibits her from discussing the details of her employment.<div class="p16_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol start="5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Trump personally ordered an economic adviser to use antitrust lawsuits to attack Fox News’ competitors.</li></ol>The Justice Department’s opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner merger, which is cleared to go through after federal courts <a href="https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/u-s-appeals-court-rejects-justice-department-antitrust-challenge-to-at-t-time-warner-deal-11551194524" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">demolished</a> the antitrust lawsuit, has always seemed legally suspicious — indeed, one of the reasons judges rejected it is that AT&T put forward <a href="https://twitter.com/hadas_gold/status/1102547204991057920?s=21" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">compelling evidence</a> that Trump personally wanted to kill the deal to harm CNN.<div class="p17_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to Mayer’s reporting, that’s exactly what was going on. Trump ordered his then-economic adviser Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department to block the merger — something Cohn refused to do, but which the department eventually followed through with. Trump showed <a href="https://twitter.com/hadas_gold/status/1102525899407347713?s=21" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">no such anti-corporate sentiment</a> with Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, a deal of similar scope but which would benefit Murdoch financially.<div class="p18_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This development also puts the Federal Communications Commission’s unexpected decision last year to kill the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s merger with Tribune Media, which was arguably <a href="https://www.alternet.org/sinclair-broadcast-group-tribune-merger-officially-dead" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">good for the local news market</a>, in a more sinister light: that merger could have strengthened Fox’s biggest competitor in conservative television broadcasting.<div class="p19_20" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Antitrust law is a powerful pro-consumer tool when applied fairly and equitably, but in the hands of someone like Trump, it can also be used to chill freedom of the press by rewarding and punishing news organizations.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">=</div><span class="title" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">L<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?457502-1/mar-lago" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">aurence Leamer, Mar-A-Lago</a>booktv 2/19
<span class="abstract" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Journalist Laurence Leamer explored the significance of President Trump's…=new fbi bk djt called to take venez oil on our doorstep<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/19/venezuela_in_crisis_as_us_pushes" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/19/venezuela_in_crisis_as_us_pushes</a><div class="story_summary" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 27px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Trump called for regime change in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua on Monday, in a major speech urging the Venezuelan military to abandon its support for President Nicolás Maduro and to support self-proclaimed Venezuelan president Juan Guaidó. During the speech, Trump said the U.S. seeks a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela, but that all options remain on the table. This comes as a new book out by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reveals Trump privately discussed going to war with Venezuela in 2017. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro responded to Trump’s speech in Miami by accusing him of engaging in Nazi-like discourse. We speak with Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez, who headed the Venezuelan National Assembly’s Economic and Financial Advisory Office under Hugo Chávez. We also speak with Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and chief editor of LeftWord Books. He is the author of several books, including “The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.”</div></div><div style="">=</div><div style="">F<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/fox-news-sean-hannity-dictated-trumps-national-emergency-plan-and-his-next-demands-are-even-more-frightening/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">ox News’ Sean Hannity dictated Trump’s national emergency plan — and his next demands are even more frightening</a></div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/cody-fenwick/" title="Posts by Cody Fenwick" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Cody Fenwick</a></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fox News host Sean Hannity published an op-ed on Wednesday laying out exactly how he thought President Donald Trump, to whom he serves as an informal adviser, should move forward…</div><div style=""></div>semi-neglected? hard to know what makes the cut in the torrentswamp thing 2/19Trump has announced he will nominate David Bernhardt as secretary of the Interior Department. Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist, has been the agency’s acting secretary since Ryan Zinke stepped down in December amid multiple scandals and ethics investigations. Bernhardt was confirmed as deputy secretary of the interior in 2017, where he helped roll back regulations overseen by the department. He worked to make the approval for land and offshore drilling projects easier, and proposed limiting protections for endangered species. Bernhardt also ordered some furloughed workers back to work during the government shutdown to push through on oil and natural gas drilling permits, offshore drilling and drilling in the Alaska refuge.swamp things koch chem water, NB SOU ~ child cancer, but dereg will up carciniogens; bernhardt and this loserReports have emerged that Trump will nominate David Malpass, a Treasury Department official, to be the new head of the World Bank. Malpass is an outspoken critic of the World Bank, saying it is overly intrusive. Malpass previously worked on Wall Street as the chief economist of Bear Stearns. In 2007, he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Don’t Panic About the Credit Market”—less than a year before the collapse and subsequent sale of Bear Stearns amid the 2008 financial crisis. the midst of a manufactured outrage cycle over <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aecb56303f8f5ac35ff4ca39a58352000b69e74ccdf6b8de5feeae38c4c272e006d6da306e051f62b204929b55284577682" title="recent state measures protecting or expanding abortion access" style="">recent state measures protecting or expanding abortion access</a>, President Trump used an interview with The Daily Caller to further stoke right-wing panic with anti-choice rhetoric.Trump's January 30 interview with The Daily Caller recycled many Fox News talking points on so-called "partial-birth" abortion, saying, "Do you remember when I said Hillary Clinton was willing to rip the baby out of the womb? That's what it is, that's what they're doing, it's terrible" Trump was echoing <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec354d824ea32a3d20ac0b9124540dfc4dced02be5b77f013cee4a8da7634e4b00717ecd35426a16dafb51cd0a237e5d20" title="language" style="">language</a>from Fox News' coverage of a Virginia bill that would expand abortion access.Unsurprisingly, this Fox News/Trump hybrid talking point is based on a lie. So-called "partial-birth" abortion is <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec6e909435136127e15130bf182948fb9d9616d3db910a5037df59593f3418997fd8ab0c5f767f0e85cb79a92f030c38ee" title="not a medical term" style="">not a medical term</a>, and the procedure it references was <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aecaa26b08a146efe429667c13cf502ce0016b0a722538b913feefe9dd615d34fab7c24898cbe51afa4182bb60e5c5c3573" title=" outlawed" style="">outlawed </a>in 2003. Later abortions happen in the case of serious risks to the health of the pregnant person, a nonviable fetus, or medical necessity. Trump's latest comments are no more than another opportunity to sow misinformation and <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec06d6c9c74b3f8e46eeef4c253f8b71886b1b68f352ed8bf95864ccba812c6a298e63c40f906184ee7708af0a0472f1de" title="fearmongering " style="">fearmonger</a> about abortion.Read this: There have been a lot of lies in right-wing media this week about abortion, including accusing people on the left of supporting "infanticide." Our team has put together <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec80a88d209fb984367263688d519265fad943bb6e4e4e7697ae031336d00f85900d389638b3ffd5b3484475055d90895d" title="Myths and facts around this week’s manufactured abortion rights scandals" style="">a full debunk</a>. The common thread through the lies is right-wing media dehumanizing people who are making these decisions, rather than even trying to understand the circumstances. Instead of ill-informed punditry, read <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec30ef0334207c8aa7a7ce5f0b3879aea355f83b813efc317e64de3493d196e118bd8d7188742ca2dc0648a247ccafcbd1" title="Interview With a Woman Who Recently Had an Abortion at 32 Weeks" style="">this interview</a> with someone that actually had a later abortion.predictable BS on arctic vortx
=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/how-trumps-mastery-of-propaganda-makes-him-the-quintessential-republican/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/how-trumps-mastery-of-propaganda-makes-him-the-quintessential-republican/</a>kosTrump is a master of propaganda, and in that respect he is the quintessential Republican — he truly is their leader because Republicans exist only by virtue of the force of their propaganda.<div class="p1_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We keep reading that Trump is attacking the press but he really is defending himself from their attacks in two ways.  First, he is projecting his greatest strength and greatest weakness onto them, his incessant lying, to inoculate himself from charge that he is lying.  Second, he is putting them on the defensive by framing their legitimate charges against him as equivalent to partisan politics, politicizing the act of reporting of news.<div class="p2_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The first aspect has worn a bit thin.  There is now widespread agreement that Trump lies when he opens his mouth.  But the second remains quite toxic and we need to do something about it.<div class="p3_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is doubly true because today’s press is made vulnerable to pressure due to their need to generate revenue, placing entertainment value above news content.<div class="p4_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We just witnessed Howard Schultz, former head of Starbucks, ride an enthusiastic roller coaster of attention from the media.  And we are freaking out because this is a replay of how they provided Trump nonstop coverage from the day he threw his hat in the ring.<div class="p5_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Just as alarming, he is mouthing the same platitudes about “both sides are equally broken and only I can fix things.”  Just like Trump he has no recognizable agenda beyond enriching himself.  And just like with Trump, the press can’t get enough of him.<div class="p6_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> So there is this inherent weakness in the institution of the fourth estate, this need to entertain both sides, that Trump is shining a spotlight on when he charges them with partisanship.  Just by making the attack they are immediately put on the defensive and react by looking for relief.<div class="p7_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is what Schultz and Trump offer, a story line that both sides are broken and only the entertainer in the “center” can fix things for them — not for society, but for the press.  The fact that Trump and Schultz have no agenda but enriching themselves is not a flaw but a feature because it eliminates the element of risk for the press going forward.  It is always easier to work with a corrupt tyrant than to be stuck between two warring camps and all the uncertainty that that entails.<div class="p8_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On top of all of this, our knee jerk reaction to these attacks is to jump to the defense of the press, immediately inoculating the press from legitimate criticism from our side, thereby freeing them to react by shifting further to the right to embrace bothsiderism.<div class="p9_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Of course the victim of this “fix” is the news itself, the Democratic Party, the American people and our democracy.  So what is the solution to this perverse dynamic?  Doing nothing is not the answer because we have just been through this and we know it doesn’t end well for us.<div class="p10_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The answer is that we have to recognize the 800 pound gorilla in the room and begin a coordinated campaign at the highest levels of the Party to push back against faulty reasoning and faulty reporting in the press, as well as pushing back against blatant favoritism in how news time is being apportioned.  We have to shame them into behaving and doing their job.<div class="p11_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We have to acknowledge that the Republicans are constantly applying pressure on the media to place propaganda above the news, to politicize the news and to report from a mythical “center” where only entertainment value holds sway.  And we have to push back, creating a new source of risk for the press — anger from the other side at their lack of objectivity.<div class="p12_13" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We don’t hesitate to drop a billion dollars to elect our people, so why would we stand idly by as the press showers the likes of a Trump or a Schultz with billions of dollars in free advertising?  That makes no sense at all.  We need to up our game.In November, the U.S. government <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-report-takeaways-2621535494.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">released a daunting report</a> that warned climate change could kill thousands of Americans each year and slash the GDP by more than 10 percent by 2100.President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Donald Trump</a> infamously dismissed his own government's study, saying "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-rejects-us-climate-report-2621629346.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">I don't believe it</a>."  =119 ANIf the idea that the nation is currently shut down over “a wall” or “steel slats” or “a barrier” didn’t already seem idiotic enough, the truth is far, far worse than it seems. As the <a title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/us/politics/donald-trump-border-wall.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">New York Times reports,</a> there was never any actual factual basis for the wall. Instead, the whole idea was created by advisers looking to package immigration in a way that made it simple for even Donald Trump to remember.<div class="p0_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">As Mr. Trump began exploring a presidential run in 2014, his political advisers landed on the idea of a border wall as a mnemonic device of sorts, a way to make sure their candidate — who hated reading from a script but loved boasting about himself and his talents as a builder — would remember to talk about getting tough on immigration, which was to be a signature issue in his nascent campaign.</blockquote>No one looked at statistics. No one considered alternatives. No one had a study, or a plan, or even a theory about how this would solve America’s immigration problems.<div class="p2_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What they had was a need to create a term short enough, and an idea simple enough, that it could be repeated night after night, without Trump wandering off into discussions of how much he’d like to date his daughter, or how he’d like some chocolate cake. The entire idea of the wall—the entire idea—isn’t Trump’s. It’s not even a real strategy. It was just something his advisers fed him to keep him on topic.<div class="p3_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">“How do we get him to continue to talk about immigration?” Sam Nunberg, one of Mr. Trump’s early political advisers, recalled telling Roger J. Stone Jr., another adviser. “We’re going to get him to talk about he’s going to build a wall.”</blockquote>The world’s greatest nation is being sidelined over a mnemonic aid.=<div style="">12/18 Fox&F, coulter (rush?) call trump a squish (basically) so he shuts gov't proudly for 5 billion vs 1.6$</div><div style="">but did he have a choice? he's constantly increasingly desperately ctr-punching, and he MUST hold his base at all costs (stone and jones have predicted armed rebellion if trump is threatened?
<div> =</div></div><div style=""></div><div style="">12/18 AN long list of wacko desperate moves...</div><div style=""><ul style=""><li style="">In a lesser-publicized note, the administration just imposed new tougher work requirements on food-stamp recipients, just a day or two after Congress voted on a farm-support bill that left out these requirements as unnecessary and a masked attempt to punish poor people. It is not leadership to stomp on those in need. This policy arrived along with the long series of attempts to take away healthcare from millions, a tax cut policy that has helped corporate interests over households, and education loan policies that have been tilted toward banks over students.</li></ul></div><div style=""></div><div style="">=</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/steve-mnuchin-donald-trump-middle-class-tax-cut-real-thing">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/steve-mnuchin-donald-trump-middle-class-tax-cut-real-thing</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">During the midterms, President Donald Trump stunned some political commentators with off-the-cuff <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/22/trump-middle-class-tax-cut-924446" style="text-decoration-line: none;">promises</a> that a middle class tax cut "of about 10 percent" was on its way. But this talk died down pretty quickly after the election was over.</div>Now, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-18/mnuchin-backs-off-trump-s-promise-of-10-middle-class-tax-cut" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according</a> to Bloomberg News, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin completely refused to discuss the matter while talking about his priority of fixing the 2017 GOP tax cut bill going into the next year:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mnuchin said he’s hoping to work with Congress on “some minor technical corrections” to the law, such as a drafting error that denies retailers and restaurants a tax break when they make renovations. He downplayed the prospect of the middle-class tax cut that Trump campaigned on in the days leading up to the midterm elections.“I’m not going to comment on whether it is a real thing or not a real thing,” Mnuchin said in a roundtable interview Tuesday at Bloomberg’s Washington office. “I’m saying for the moment we have other things we’re focused on.”<interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" /></blockquote>Mnuchin's answer essentially confirmed what many people had <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/3/18059108/trump-middle-class-tax-cut-kevin-brady" style="text-decoration-line: none;">expected</a>: the middle class tax cut was not, in fact, a real thing, but just a bunch of empty words Trump threw around in the hope it would help his party keep the House.Nonetheless, Mnuchin's actual hope of fixing the real tax cut bill is a fool's errand. The law, in addition to being <a href="https://www.inc.com/zoe-henry/gop-tax-bill-errors-could-impact-your-bottom-line.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">riddled with mistakes</a>, is <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/poll-gop-tax-scam-benefits-wealthy" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wildly unpopular</a>, and its main accomplishment is an explosion of stock buybacks that is now <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-17/buyback-binge-that-s-besting-capex-pays-off-big-in-u-s-stocks" style="text-decoration-line: none;">outpacing normal business spending</a>, while the middle class who were promised they would get the meat and potatoes were left to dry as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" style="text-decoration-line: none;">83 percent of the cuts</a> went to the top 1 percent of earners.The public is by now depressingly used to Trump making up outlandish lies and abandoning them the next day. But the truly craven nature of this last-ditch attempt to manipulate the electorate should not pass unremarked on.
<div style=""></div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/climate-change-experts-trump-idiotic-global-warming">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/climate-change-experts-trump-idiotic-global-warming</a>Tuesday, The Washington Post published a new <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-slams-fed-chair-questions-climate-change-and-threatens-to-cancel-putin-meeting-in-wide-ranging-interview-with-the-post/2018/11/27/4362fae8-f26c-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">interview</a> with President Donald Trump. He was <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/here-are-7-most-ridiculous-and-embarrassing-moments-trumps-latest-interview" style="text-decoration-line: none;">even more incoherent than usual</a> in this interview, but perhaps his most off-the-rails comments were on climate change.Among the claims Trump made in the interview were that our air and water are "at a record clean," that we "take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches" from Asia, that scientists used to say "the planet is going to freeze to death," and that "people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we're not necessarily such believers" in climate change.As the Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-on-climate-change-people-like-myself-we-have-very-high-levels-of-intelligence-but-were-not-necessarily-such-believers/2018/11/27/722f0184-f27e-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted</a>, some scientists reached for comment on the interview were so flabbergasted they struggled to find words to reply:<blockquote style="">Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, said in an email Tuesday that the president’s comments risk leaving the nation vulnerable to the ever-growing impacts of a warming planet. "Facts aren’t something we need to believe to make them true — we treat them as optional at our peril," Hayhoe said. "And if we're the president of the United States, we do so at the peril of not just ourselves but the hundreds of millions of people we're responsible for."<interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" />Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, struggled to find a response to the president's comments. "How can one possibly respond to this?" Dessler said when reached by email, calling the president's comments "idiotic" and saying Trump's main motivation seemed to be attacking the environmental policies of the Obama administration and criticizing political adversaries.</blockquote>Trump has repeatedly denied the <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">overwhelming scientific consensus</a> that human activity, and emissions, are transforming the earth's climate, at one point claiming that it was a <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hoax by the Chinese</a> to limit America's economic competitiveness.This stands in spite of the fact that his own administration just released a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/climate-change-report-bn/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">damning report</a> that climate change could cost U.S. GDP hundreds of billions of dollars and kill thousands of people. Trump has said he <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/trump-climate-change-report-1016494" style="text-decoration-line: none;">does not believe</a> that report and gave no coherent reason why he believes his own government officials are wrong.
Environmental groups, journalists, and climate scientists are reacting to the Trump administration's decision to <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/media-advisory/experts-to-discuss-new-federal-climate-change-assessment-report-for-us" style="text-decoration-line: none;">release</a> a major climate report the day after Thanksgiving—a move some are describing as an effort to bury an assessment packed with an "<a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachel-licker/what-is-the-national-climate-assessment-the-most-comprehensive-report-on-climate-change-in-the-u-s" style="text-decoration-line: none;">astonishing amount of science</a>," and they are hoping to see that effort backfire "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/03/cruz-folds-trumps-vows-show-us-how-win-bigly-once-again" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bigly</a>.""It's an absolute disgrace to bury the truth about climate impacts in a year that saw hundreds of Americans die during devastating climate-fueled megafires, hurricanes, floods, and algal blooms," <a href="https://www.nwf.org/Home/Latest-News/Press-Releases/2018/11-21-18-National-Climate-Assessment" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> National Wildlife Federation president and CEO Collin O'Mara."Releasing the National Climate Assessment on Black Friday," he continued, "won't obscure the fact that authorities are still identifying bodies in California's unprecedented megafires, Florida is still dealing with toxic algae outbreaks fueled by warmer water, and Americans are still picking up the pieces from Hurricanes Florence and Michael and Typhoon Yutu that were worsened by climate change." The report is the second volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment or NCA4, which NOAA says is designed to be "an authoritative assessment of the impacts of climate change on the U.S. and its territories, and was written to help decision-makers, utility and resource managers, public health officials, emergency planners, and other stakeholders better understand the effects of climate change on the United States." Volume one of the assessment was <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/03/us-climate-assessment-exposes-simply-terrifying-recklessness-trump" style="text-decoration-line: none;">released</a> last year.As CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/21/politics/climate-change-noaa-report/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>, the assessment was expected to be released in December:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It's unclear why the date was moved up. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the Friday afternoon release on Wednesday—the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday.</blockquote><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Among journalists and public relations experts, releasing information on Friday afternoon—not to mention Black Friday—or around a holiday is widely seen as a way to cushion the impact of critical news. The idea is that fewer people pay attention to news releases on the weekend, and by Monday, the news is old.</blockquote>Given that situation, observers pounced on the timing:<blockquote data-lang="en" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The US government's big new National Climate Assessment will be released on...

the day after Thanksgiving?

Hmmm....<a href="https://t.co/JUsSYjQl2Y" style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://t.co/JUsSYjQl2Y</a>— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1065346300059754496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">November 21, 2018</a></blockquote><blockquote data-lang="en" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The National Climate Assessment is going to be released the Friday after Thanksgiving. Is there any way it could be buried more? How about New Years Eve at 9pm, guys?— Angela Fritz (@angelafritz) <a href="https://twitter.com/angelafritz/status/1065271346345721856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">November 21, 2018</a></blockquote>Some noted that the report wil come on the heels of Trump's <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1065400254151954432" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tweet</a> confusing weather and climate to ignore science:<blockquote data-lang="en" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump is serving up climate science denialism less than 48 hours before the National Climate Assessment is released. The in-depth look at how climate change affects Americans, required by law, will be released 2pm ET on Black Friday to minimize coverage. <a href="https://t.co/PkX8PFmBjG" style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://t.co/PkX8PFmBjG</a> <a href="https://t.co/KQZ5dFyNIZ" style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://t.co/KQZ5dFyNIZ</a>— John Upton (@johnupton) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnupton/status/1065615223296614401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">November 22, 2018</a></blockquote><interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><blockquote data-lang="en" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In two days, the fifth U. S. National <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Climate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">#Climate</a> Assessment will be released and Trump has just tweeted a statement so stupid that it was known to be garbage before the first Assessment was released decades ago. <a href="https://t.co/VXvV0h3ZHS" style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://t.co/VXvV0h3ZHS</a>— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1065491701983105024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">November 22, 2018</a>...</blockquote>older
<a href="https://medium.com/lobby99/trump-sets-up-alec-administration-e6d00be457d2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://medium.com/lobby99/trump-sets-up-alec-administration-e6d00be457d2</a><section name="848e" class="section section--body section--first" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; clear: both; padding-top: 0px; margin-top: 20px;"><div class="section-content"><div class="section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn" style="position: relative; max-width: 740px; width: 740px; margin: 0px auto; box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;"><p name="ac27" id="ac27" class="graf graf--p graf-after--figure" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 38px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Nearly half of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, as well as Vice President-elect Mike Pence, have ties to an ultra-conservative group that writes laws to benefit its corporate paymasters.<p name="68ac" id="68ac" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">The <a href="https://www.alec.org/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) writes “model legislation” used as the basis for often-controversial state laws, including voter ID and “school choice” bills. It also has written a host of measures favorable to corporations, including deregulation, anti-minimum-wage and right-to-work legislation. Its <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations" data-href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">corporate funders</a> include billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, ExxonMobil, PhRMA, UPS, AT&T and Pfizer.<p name="c189" id="c189" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">While the group focuses on state (<a href="http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-alec-goes-local.html" data-href="http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-alec-goes-local.html" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">and, recently, local</a>) government, it has made inroads at the federal level as well. Some of its <a href="https://www.alec.org/about/alumni/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/about/alumni/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">alumni</a> in Congress have pushed a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget, and one of them <a href="http://lobby99.org/@Lobby99/t_Issue.php?p1=11&p2=SUMM#Anchor4" data-href="http://lobby99.org/@Lobby99/t_Issue.php?p1=11&p2=SUMM#Anchor4" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">led efforts</a> to “reform” the U.S. Postal Service.<p name="4504" id="4504" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Now, ALEC finds itself in the heart of the White House.<p name="43f5" id="43f5" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Seven of the 15 cabinet nominees and two of the five cabinet-level nominees so far have been members of ALEC or spoken at the group’s events. The cabinet-level post of chair of the Council of Economic Advisers remain to be filled.<p name="df77" id="df77" class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" text-indent="text-indent" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">“In view of the incoming presidential administration’s focus on rolling power back to the states and the sheer number of ALEC alumni in the new administration, ALEC is the organization best positioned to bring policy experts and business leaders together for open and substantive discussions,” ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson said in a <a href="https://www.alec.org/press-release/alec-to-play-critical-role-in-new-presidential-administration/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/press-release/alec-to-play-critical-role-in-new-presidential-administration/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">statement</a>.<p name="a5b6" id="a5b6" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">The nominations could as easily have come from some of Trump’s Republican primary opponents, such as former ALEC members Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Trump, though, was not at the top of ALEC’s wish list.<p name="b03e" id="b03e" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">When Republican pollster Frank Luntz asked attendees at ALEC’s annual meeting in 2015 how many were supporting Trump, the <a href="http://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2015/07/24/trump-haunts-alec-meeting-as-huckabee-swims-in-own-lane/" data-href="http://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2015/07/24/trump-haunts-alec-meeting-as-huckabee-swims-in-own-lane/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">crowd responded with — silence</a>. One booth at the conference even included a <a href="https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Mike-Huckabee-ALEC-2015-12.jpg" data-href="https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Mike-Huckabee-ALEC-2015-12.jpg" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">Trump piñata</a>.<p name="d179" id="d179" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">This was, after all, the candidate who had vowed to “drain the swamp” of Washington lobbyists, many of whom are fixtures at ALEC events.<p name="f4b8" id="f4b8" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/596338364187602944" data-href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/596338364187602944" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">proclaimed himself</a> the only Republican candidate to refuse to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. ALEC has proposed privatizing <a href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/7/76/5K3-Resolution_Urging_Congress_to_Create_Private_Individual_Medical_Account_Exposed.pdf" data-href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/7/76/5K3-Resolution_Urging_Congress_to_Create_Private_Individual_Medical_Account_Exposed.pdf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">Medicare</a>, <a href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/3/38/5V0-Access_to_Medicaid_Act_Exposed.pdf" data-href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/3/38/5V0-Access_to_Medicaid_Act_Exposed.pdf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">Medicaid</a> and <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/d/d4/1J2-Resolution_Urging_Congress_To_Modernize_the_Social_Security_System_With_Personal_Retirement_Accounts-PRAs_Exposed.pdf" data-href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/d/d4/1J2-Resolution_Urging_Congress_To_Modernize_the_Social_Security_System_With_Personal_Retirement_Accounts-PRAs_Exposed.pdf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">Social Security</a>. He labeled the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which <a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/resolution-urging-congress-pass-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/resolution-urging-congress-pass-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">ALEC supports</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/28/trump-tpp-trade-deal-pushed-by-special-interests-who-want-to-rape-our-country/?utm_term=.c563a6de5282" data-href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/28/trump-tpp-trade-deal-pushed-by-special-interests-who-want-to-rape-our-country/?utm_term=.c563a6de5282" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">a disaster</a>. He lashed out at banks (notably Goldman Sachs) and multinational corporations on the campaign trail.<p name="5154" id="5154" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">In reality, Trump’s administration will be packed with <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-cabinet-richest-in-us-history-historians-say/" data-href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-cabinet-richest-in-us-history-historians-say/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">billionaires</a>, former <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/goldman-is-back-on-top-in-the-trump-administration" data-href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/goldman-is-back-on-top-in-the-trump-administration" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">Goldman Sachs bankers</a> and those tied to ALEC’s corporate and legislative wings.</div></div></section><section name="7738" class="section section--body" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" oxygen="Oxygen" ubuntu="Ubuntu" cantarell="Cantarell" open="Open" sans="Sans" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; clear: both;"><div class="section-divider"><hr class="section-divider" style="box-sizing: content-box; border: 0px none; text-align: center; overflow: visible; margin-top: 52px; margin-bottom: 42px;" /></div><div class="section-content"><div class="section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn" style="position: relative; max-width: 740px; width: 740px; margin: 0px auto; box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;"><p name="dd11" id="dd11" class="graf graf--p graf--leading" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 38px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has worked his entire career at ExxonMobil, becoming CEO in 2006. The company gave <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/299581-liberal-groups-accuse-alec-exxon-of-tax-violations" data-href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/299581-liberal-groups-accuse-alec-exxon-of-tax-violations" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">more than $1.7 million</a> to ALEC from 1998 to 2014, and has a representative on the organization’s corporate board.<p name="21f3" id="21f3" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">ALEC <a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/alec-energy-principles/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/alec-energy-principles/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">argues</a> that “global climate change is inevitable,” opposes government mandates that “limit or dictate energy choices,” and encourages the expansion of access to North American fossil fuel reserves. The organization also <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/alec-weighs-proposed-clean-power-plan/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/article/alec-weighs-proposed-clean-power-plan/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">opposes</a> the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan.<p name="01ed" id="01ed" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Political advocacy group Common Cause released <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/issues/more-democracy-reforms/alec/whistleblower-complaint/supplemental-complaint-2016/?referrer=https://www.google.com/" data-href="http://www.commoncause.org/issues/more-democracy-reforms/alec/whistleblower-complaint/supplemental-complaint-2016/?referrer=https://www.google.com/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">hundreds of documents</a> this year illustrating how Exxon used ALEC to push the company’s legislative goals on issues including cap-and-trade, fracking, the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the Clean Power Plan.<p name="d5e7" id="d5e7" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Exxon continued to fund ALEC for eight years after it pledged to stop funding climate denial, according to <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">the Guardian.<p name="4085" id="4085" class="graf graf--p graf-after--figure" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 38px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Oklahoma Attorney General <a href="http://lobby99.org/@Lobby99/t_News.php?p1=45#Anchor324" data-href="http://lobby99.org/@Lobby99/t_News.php?p1=45#Anchor324" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">Scott Pruitt</a>, Trump’s pick for administrator of the EPA, is a former state senator and ALEC member. Pruitt has <a href="http://lobby99.org/@Lobby99/t_News.php?p1=45#Anchor324" data-href="http://lobby99.org/@Lobby99/t_News.php?p1=45#Anchor324" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">sued the EPA</a> over the Clean Power Plan. In his <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/e-scott-pruitt-3b771653" data-href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/e-scott-pruitt-3b771653" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">LinkedIn profile</a>, Pruitt claims to be “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”<p name="fedb" id="fedb" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">Labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder is a board member of the International Franchise Association, which advocates for laws and policies favorable to the industry. It also is an ALEC member.<p name="64fb" id="64fb" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">The IFA has pushed to <a href="http://emarket.franchise.org/AnnualReport2014.pdf" data-href="http://emarket.franchise.org/AnnualReport2014.pdf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">delay the employer mandate</a> of the Affordable Care Act and repeal the provision requiring businesses to provide health insurance for employees working an average of 30 hours a week. The organization <a href="http://www.franchise.org/ifa-vows-to-keep-fighting-to-halt-seattles-discrimination-against-local-franchise-businesses" data-href="http://www.franchise.org/ifa-vows-to-keep-fighting-to-halt-seattles-discrimination-against-local-franchise-businesses" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">unsuccessfully sued Seattle</a> in 2014 to try to block the city from treating franchises as large businesses under its new $15-an-hour minimum-wage law.<p name="667c" id="667c" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; --baseline-multiplier:0.17;">ALEC has <a href="https://www.alec.org/publication/the-state-legislators-guide-to-repealing-obamacare/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/publication/the-state-legislators-guide-to-repealing-obamacare/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">called for the repeal</a> of the Affordable Care Act and <a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/resolution-in-opposition-to-any-increase-in-the-starting-minimum-wage/" data-href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/resolution-in-opposition-to-any-increase-in-the-starting-minimum-wage/" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: linear-gradient(to right, currentcolor 100%, currentcolor 0px); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">is opposed to minimum-wage increases</a>.....</div></div></section>throws vets under bus<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-use-and-abuse-military-reveals-even-his-core-promises-are-worthless">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-use-and-abuse-military-reveals-even-his-core-promises-are-worthless</a>Among Donald Trump's favorite stump-speech cliches is insisting on his fervent veneration of our military veterans. He often posts flowery tweets about them too, referring to them as "amazing people" and promising to "take care of the vets" because "we love the vets." It is a sentiment that almost every politician -- or citizen -- should be able to utter with perfect sincerity.Given the insults he has heaped on veterans lately, those words now sound as hollow as any other Trump lie.Twice in three days, the president decided not to show up at ceremonies honoring American veterans, evidently fearing rain. (Were his old bone spurs acting up? Or was he afraid of disturbing that vulnerable comb-over on his head?)Visiting France to commemorate the centennial of the World War I armistice last weekend, Trump canceled his scheduled appearance to honor more than 2,000 of our dead at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial. He made matters worse by lying about the reason, claiming that his helicopter couldn't fly due to weather. But he could easily have traveled by car instead.<interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />This pathetic display inspired the French Army to troll Trump on Twitter with a photo of a young recruit braving an obstacle course amid drenching precipitation. The caption, translated roughly, said: "It's raining but no big deal. We're motivated."Back in Washington on Veterans Day, the president simply skipped the annual ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Imagine the indignant rebukes that would have poured forth from Trump -- and dozens of other Republicans -- if former President Barack Obama had simply blown off that hallowed hour, as he never did and never would.On that same national holiday, Trump had time to type an early morning tweet. He urged Florida election officials to end recounts of the state's races for senator and governor. He whined that the recount process is "infected," for which there is no evidence. To throw out absentee ballots would also mean discarding the votes of thousands of service members -- just another casual insult to those who sacrifice for American freedom.And of course, Trump has done greater damage still to American service members and their families merely for his partisan advantage.At the moment, more than 7,000 soldiers are coping with muddy roads, cold weather and other challenges as they construct temporary bases near the Mexican border. According to Trump, their mission is to deter that terrifying "caravan" of destitute women and children heading northward from Central America. In reality, their deployment was nothing but a wasteful stunt.  Now the midterm elections are over, but Trump's political misuse of those unfortunate troops will continue at least until Dec. 15 -- depriving them of a chance to spend Thanksgiving with their families and perhaps ruining Christmas for many of them as well.The disturbing truth is that Trump sees the military and veterans not through the eyes of a democratically elected commander but a self-glorifying despot. That is why he so brazenly insulted the service of the late John McCain and Captain Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq defending fellow soldiers in his unit. That is why he has only gone to Dover Air Force Base on a single occasion to meet the coffins of the fallen -- and why he has yet to visit troops on combat duty abroad. But he wants them to hold a big parade that makes a chicken hawk look powerful.In this, as in so many things, he is a disgrace to his office. And his conduct mocks every Republican who still pretends that he is a patriot.To find out more about Joe Conasonalso screws farmers/ base core<a href="https://www.alternet.org/trumps-12-billion-bailout-farmers-hurt-his-trade-wars-has-been-massive-bust-nyt">https://www.alternet.org/trumps-12-billion-bailout-farmers-hurt-his-trade-wars-has-been-massive-bust-nyt</a>...But as multiple outlets reported Friday, other countries were listening. The <a href="https://twitter.com/HQNigerianArmy/status/1058264565190774786" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Nigerian Army</a>, in response, tweeted out the clip of Trump encouraging violence with the comment: "Please Watch and Make your Deductions."In light of a recent massacre — in which human rights activists say the <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/matthewchampion/trump-mexico-migrant-caravan-rocks-firearms-nigeria" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Nigerian Army</a> killed 45 peaceful protesters from the group Islamic Movement in Nigeria — this tweet was taken as a justification for state-based suppression of free speech. The Nigerian officials have denied the higher numbers of fatalities, placing the death count at six, but a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/world/africa/nigeria-trump-rocks.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Reuters</a> reporter counted at least 20 bodies on the scene.The use of Trump's words to justify this kind of atrocity is the continuation of a troubling trend during his time in office. His embrace of authoritarian tactics and political violence appears to have emboldened strongmen leaders around the world. Previous reporting has shown how foreign <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/12/trump-fake-news-dictators/548414/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">authoritarians</a> have cited Trump's own language and behavior, including most prominently his attacks on the press, to quash dissent from their own brutal regimes.NBC News is reporting the Trump administration is ending a program that provides grants to groups fighting domestic terrorism. The Countering Violent Extremism grant program is run by the Department of Homeland Security and was established during the Obama administration. It supports organizations fighting hate groups, including white supremacist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist groups.While discussing the racial politics of the Florida gubernatorial election, ex-Republican strategist Steve Schmidt argued Thursday that the whole party has been dragged down into a dangerous association with racists because of President Donald Trump's rhetoric and policies.Schmidt asserted during an appearance on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" that Trump's recent declaration of himself as a "nationalist" was a direct message to some of the most pernicious parts of the far right.  "When Donald Trump declares himself a 'nationalist,' the nationalists understand exactly what he means," said Schmidt. "By the way, let's stop calling them 'white nationalists' and call them by their names, which are 'neo-Nazis' and 'Klansmen.'"He continued: "What Trump has done with regard to 'nationalists' is send a signal that, 'Well, we may not bring you home to Thanksgiving dinner and put you in the front row at the rallies, but you're an important and vital part of our coalition. And after Trump said he was a nationalist, if you go to the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, you see celebration that they have achieved a goal. That they have been given a seat at the table. That their views are held as somewhere in the mainstream, and they are part of a coalition that is led by Donald Trump."...AN<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/02/climate-science-deniers-trump-admin-happer-wehrum-rollins-wynn-simmons">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/02/climate-science-deniers-trump-admin-happer-wehrum-rollins-wynn-simmons</a><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/17/60-minutes-trump-says-not-denying-climate-change">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/17/60-minutes-trump-says-not-denying-climate-change</a>Davies, Climate Investigations Center. Originally posted on <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/60-minutes-trump-climate-change/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Climate Investigations Center</a>.Climate change is coming at Trump even as he tries like hell to avoid the subject. Record-setting hurricanes, Florence and Michael, have caused devastation across the southeast United States. Meanwhile, the grim <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">UN IPCC “1.5 degree” report</a> pushed climate scientists into the headlines last week while Trump was out and about, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/engaging-the-enemy-why-trump-is-on-a-nonstop-media-campaign" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">apparently unleashed</a>, talking to media.  LStahl of 60 Minutes, got the first big sit down interview and went at climate change right off the bat. Pivoting off Hurricane Michael and the IPCC report, Stahl pressed Trump to answer straight questions about climate change.This is the most Trump has been forced to say on the subject of global warming since his Rose Garden celebration announcing that the U.S. would exit the Paris climate agreement, where he managed to barely mention climate change.Overall, Trump responds to Stahl’s questions with the typical denier tropes, which he likely learned from Rush Limbaugh, <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/?s=myron+ebell" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Myron Ebell</a>, <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/?s=Marc+Morano" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Marc Morano</a>, and the <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/heartland-institute/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“Somethings changing and it’ll change back again.”“And you don’t know whether or not that would have happened with or without man. You don’t know.”“We have scientists that disagree with that [anthropogenic climate change].”“But it [climate change] could very well go back.”“But I don’t know that it’s [climate change] manmade.”“They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael.”“You’d have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda, Lesley.”</blockquote>Trump also deployed a empty economic argument against taking action, one commonly used by deniers:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“I will say this. I don’t wanna give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t wanna lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t wanna be put at a disadvantage.”</blockquote>Read the full 60 Minutes <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-full-interview-60-minutes-transcript-lesley-stahl-2018-10-14/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">interview transcript.</a><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em; clear: both;">Deniers Would Rather Trump Said Nothing</h3>Trump said a couple of things the deniers don’t really want him to say, including:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“I don’t think it’s a hoax” and “I’m not denying climate change.”</blockquote><a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/?s=joe+bast" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Joe Bast</a>, former CEO of the <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/heartland-institute/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a>, and his climate denier kin are happiest when the President doesn’t talk about it at all. A year ago, Bast provided his reason for applauding the President’s silence, quoted and memorialized in the video below:<blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;">“The President has done a great job by not talking about global warming. The less the President talks about it, the less often it appears in news stories and on TV, the less often its going to be an issue. So, this is how big issues disappear.'  Trump Questioned on Climate by Reporters in Georgia While Touring Hurricane Damage</blockquote>Predictions for Hurricane Michael went from <a href="https://www.navarrenewspaper.com/tropical-storm-michael-cat-1-landfall/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a predicted Category 1</a> on October 7 to making <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article219790475.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">landfall at just below Category 5 three days later,</a> surprising meteorologists and foiling predictive computer models.While touring areas damaged by the massive storm in Georgia on Monday, reporters continued to press Trump on climate change and he continued trying to change the subject and inform us that he has “the cleanest air on the planet.”...
=<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/doubling-down-on-the-biofuel-boondoggle/2018/10/14/3092cd7e-ccbc-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/doubling-down-on-the-biofuel-boondoggle/2018/10/14/3092cd7e-ccbc-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html</a>?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2303e6fcccfd<div class="author-sig-line-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 22px; display: inline-block; flex-direction: column;"><div class="author-sig-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><div class="author-byline " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; display: flex; flex-direction: column;"><div class="author-wrapper" data-authorname="Editorial Board" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; position: relative;"><div class="author-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; float: left;">Editorial Board</div></div></div></div><span class="author-timestamp" itemprop="datePublished" content="2018-10-14T07:37-500" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">October 14 at 7:37 PM</div><p data-elm-loc="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 4px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">FOR MORE THAN a decade, the United States has pursued the foolhardy energy policy known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS. Thanks to legislation passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, George W. Bush, in 2007, the RFS illustrates the sad-but-true principle of Washington life that bipartisanship is no guarantee of wisdom. In a nutshell, the RFS required the nation’s petroleum refiners to blend ever-increasing quantities of biofuels, chiefly ethanol, into gasoline, purportedly to promote energy independence and fight climate change.<p data-elm-loc="2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 4px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Never mind that the United States has meanwhile become a major oil exporter, due to a production boom. Never mind that the environmental harms of ethanol arguably outweigh its benefits, because it takes massive amounts of energy to distill ethanol from corn — and massive amounts of fragile farmland to grow that crop. Never mind that diverting resources into corn production for ethanol raises the price of food. Never mind all that, because 39 percent of Iowa’s corn crop goes to create <a href="https://www.iowacorn.org/media-page/corn-facts" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213);">nearly 30 percent of all U.S. ethanol</a>. And Iowa is a swing state with six crucial electoral votes and a first-in-the-nation presidential caucus; whatever Iowa wants, Iowa gets, from politicians of both parties.<p data-elm-loc="3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 4px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Hence President Trump’s announcement, on the midterm-election campaign trail in Iowa, that he would, in effect, double down on this decreasingly justifiable policy. Mr. Trump declared that the Environmental Protection Agency will draft regulations allowing the year-round sale of motor fuel containing 15 percent ethanol, as opposed to the 10 percent limitation in effect for several months a year because of air-pollution concerns related to summertime atmospheric conditions. This would incentivize gas station owners to install pumps capable of delivering the fuel, thus boosting ethanol sales.he point is to rescue Iowa corn farmers from adverse market conditions, which include <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-07-31/tariffs-send-soy-and-corn-prices-plummeting-trump-says-farmers-will-act-patriots" title="www.pri.org" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213);">lower prices</a> because of retaliation from trading partners against Mr. Trump’s tariffs. The more fundamental problem is that, at its inception, the RFS assumed that ever-rising U.S. gas consumption would permit refiners to absorb huge amounts of ethanol. In fact, the year after Congress adopted the bipartisan RFS legislation, the U.S. economy went into a recession, causing a collapse in the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lls" title="fred.stlouisfed.org" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213);">number of miles Americans drove</a> and the amount of <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20150325/OEM06/150329911/average-u.s.-gasoline-usage-lowest-in-3-decades-study-says" title="www.autonews.com" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213);">fuel consumed per capita</a>. Only last year did consumption <a href="https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2018-oil.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213);">return to pre-recession levels.</a><p data-elm-loc="5" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 4px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Refiners face high and rising costs when they are forced either to mix more ethanol into their motor fuels or to buy offsetting credits known, obscurely, as Renewable identification numbers (RIN). Plagued by volatility and manipulation, the market for RIN has turned into a major headache for smaller refiners, which often seek <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biofuels-epa/biofuel-groups-ask-u-s-government-to-slow-small-refinery-waiver-program-idUSKBN1K82UL" title="www.reuters.com" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213);">waivers</a> of the ethanol blending requirement. The entire system adds enormous bureaucracy and complexity to the fuel market, with little or no benefit to consumers. E15, as the 15 percent ethanol blend is known, might cost less per gallon, but because of its lower energy content, motorists would probably get poorer mileage and have to fill up more often.<p data-elm-loc="6" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 4px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The petroleum industry has promised a lawsuit to stop Mr. Trump’s plan. While we hesitate to take sides between agribusiness and Big Oil, in this instance public policy clearly favors the latter.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/09/26/alec-flaunts-trump-ties-while-celebrateing-its-45th-anniversary-potuss-dc-hotel" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/09/26/alec-flaunts-trump-ties-while-celebrateing-its-45th-anniversary-potuss-dc-hotel</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">dave a</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will celebrate its 45th anniversary at Trump International Hotel tonight, fitting as the Trump administration maintains close ties to the corporate bill mill.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Tickets for the event are a whopping $500 a piece, about the same rate for one night at the hotel. Alternatively, state delegations can get a lobbyist to <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/08/07/alec-drafts-model-resolution-pat-itself-back/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">sponsor a table for $10,000</a>.The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel will serve as the “<a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4781202/ALEC-45th-Gala-Invite.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Mistress of Ceremonies</a>,” but the rest of the program has not been announced. With the Trump International Hotel being just over a mile away from the White House, it is likely one of the many with ALEC ties in the administration will be there.Lisa Nelson, CEO of ALEC, was giddy after Trump was elected, <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/02/14/alec-embraces-trumpism/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">telling members and funders</a> that the Trump administration, “does have the potential to be an ALEC administration. It is full of the people and ideas we’ve advanced since 1973… Now is our time. And ALEC is ready.”And ALEC has been helpful to Trump. ALEC member legislators <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/alec-members-urge-congress-to-eliminate-state-and-local-tax-deduction-in-exchange-for-pro-growth-lower-rates/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">led the fight</a> on eliminating the state and local tax deduction (SALT), a key component of Trump’s massive tax break for the wealthy and corporations. More recently, 308 state legislators, in partnership with ALEC, <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/403545-308-state-legislators-urge-senate-to-confirm-kavanaugh" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">sent a letter of support</a> for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to Senators, calling him “the single most qualified person in the country to serve on the Supreme Court.”While some ALEC alumni — most prominently former EPA Administrator <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Scott_Pruitt" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Scott Pruitt</a> — have been dropped from Team Trump, many others have hung on.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The ALEC Vice President</h2>“I can say I was for ALEC before it was cool,” Vice President Mike Pence once <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmucHIoUZKY" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">said</a> at an ALEC meeting. And just after Trump nominated him to be his VP, Pence made another speech at an ALEC meeting.As Governor of Indiana, Pence <a href="https://progressnownm.org/?p=2509" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">lobbied</a> for ALEC to state legislators:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px;">As a governor, I cannot say enough how important ALEC is in my state and across the nation. Indiana is fortunate to have many of our legislators as members of ALEC.I am writing today to ask you to consider membership in one of the nation’s leading policy organizations, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).</blockquote><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The ALEC Administration</h2>Many who have remained with Trump since he was elected have ties to ALEC.Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is an ALEC alumna. She pushed <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nikki_Haley#Cookie-Cutter_ALEC_Policies" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">many ALEC model bills</a> as Governor of South Carolina and state representative, including voter ID laws and school vouchers.Secretary of Energy Rick Perry made <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/perrys-legislative-agenda-bears-strong-resemblance-to-alec-s-corporate-backed-model-bills-bd1cff9aff25/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">passing ALEC model bills a priority</a> when Governor of Texas, marking some as “emergency” legislation, and has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T_ZQtxlWxs" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">spoken</a> at ALEC meetings. ALEC has a <a href="https://www.alec.org/person/former-governor-rick-perry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">profile</a> of Perry up on its website. This morning, Perry welcomed ALEC to the White House and <a href="https://twitter.com/ALEC_states/status/1044950065171836929" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">spoke</a> to the ALEC delegation about “American energy dominance.”Secretary of Education <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Betsy_DeVos" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Betsy DeVos</a> is a long time funder of ALEC and shares its goal of privatizing education. DeVos headlined the 2017 ALEC Annual Meeting and stated in a <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/remarks-secretary-devos-american-legislative-exchange-council" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">speech</a> that, “The President has said that this administration will reduce the federal footprint in education, and he signed an executive order this past April instructing our Department to review every regulation that might obstruct parents, teachers, communities and states from best-serving their students.”Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has long been a friend of ALEC. As Governor of Georgia, he passed the nation’s second voter ID law <a href="https://washingtonspectator.org/party-lincoln-takes-aim-black-voters/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">based on</a> an ALEC model bill. Perdue also rolled out one of the most expansive <a href="https://www.aim.org/guest-column/the-state-of-georgias-lead-in-school-choice/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">school privatization programs at the time in 2008</a>. ALEC also <a href="https://www.alec.org/press-release/oklahoma-georgia-send-health-care-freedom-act-to-governors-desk-momentum-against-obamacare-continues-to-grow-in-the-states/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">praised Perdue</a> for challenging the Affordable Care Act.Others in the Trump administration have spoken at ALEC meetings as well, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EIG85GqDGw" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Ben Carson in 2015</a>, Counselor to the President <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMe_tpp0DV4" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Kellyanne Conway in 2016</a>, Secretary of Labor <a href="https://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/07/21/labor-secretary-alex-acosta-denver/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Alex Acosta in 2017</a>, Health and Human Services Secretary <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2018/08/09/readout-secretary-azars-alec-speech-and-louisiana-healthcare-leaders-roundtable.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Alex Azar in 2018</a>, and Department of Transportation Secretary <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2018/08/13381/alec-disarray" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Elaine Chao in 2018</a>.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>The day after Donald Trump was elected, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/04/10/tracing-trumps-takeover-a-chat-with-frontline-producer-michael-kirk/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“Frontline” filmmaker Michael Kirk </a> informed series executive producer Raney Aronson that he foresaw producing at least 12 films about this presidency before the end of Trump's term.“Trump’s Showdown,” debuting Tuesday at 9 p.m. on PBS member stations, represents the sixth in this anthology series. Six films parsing everything from Trump’s strategy for wresting power from the Republican establishment ("<a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/01/18/frontlines-divided-states-of-america-take-a-hard-look-at-the-countrys-fractures/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Divided States of America</a>") and muscling his way into the Oval Office (“Trump’s Takeover”), to what his surrogate represents (“<a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/05/23/frontlines-bannons-war-an-efficient-examination-of-the-philosophy-steering-the-white-house/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bannon’s War</a>”) to our susceptibility to Russian influence (“<a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/10/24/putins-revenge-its-the-little-things-that-cause-our-undoing/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Putin’s Revenge</a>”), and more.Remember, Trump’s administration hasn’t even hit its official two-year marker — and it’s a safe bet, given the maelstrom of uncertainty and passion surrounding <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/10/01/the-circus-goes-to-kavanaugh-womens-pain-collides-with-the-sport-of-politics/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination</a>, that Kirk already is working on the seventh.This installment, however, may provide the clearest context of understanding the likely moves to come with this presidency, legally and behaviorally, as we draw closer to what many fear may become a Constitutional crisis.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;">“Trump’s Showdown,” the culmination of 60 interviews with former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, members and former members of Trump’s inner circle, reporters, authors and lawyers — don’t forget the lawyers — is a multiple-pronged study of the president’s concerted effort to discredit national intelligence agencies and the Fourth Estate.But in large, Kirk trains his focus on the steps Trump has taken to defenestrate a number of key officials investigating his campaign’s connections to Russia and other evidence of corruption, opening with the moment former FBI director James Comey chose to inform Trump, then the president-elect, of the now famous “dossier” alleging that Russian intelligence had compromising material on him.According to people who worked with Comey and accounts from Trump’s inner circle, this would be the first taste Washington D.C. officials would get of Trump’s aggressive and seemingly off-the-rails behavior: His reaction is to go on the attack.This is standard “Frontline” structure, opening with a familiar story. But Kirk’s plot arc actually takes us back many more decades, to the 1950s and the Red Scare — and more specifically, to the McCarthy Era’s key architect Roy Cohn.Trump’s early connection with Cohn, one of modern history’s more despicable creatures, is widely-known. Trump flaunted their relationship with pride in the early 1980s as he expanded his real estate holdings in New York City, using Cohn to force his way into the local political scene.Vanity Fair reporter Marie Brenner, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-roy-cohn-relationship" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">who profiled Trump</a> and wrote a lengthy story detailing the nascency of the Trump-Cohn relationship, which began in 1973, appears in “Trump’s Showdown” to list Cohn’s lengthy crimes, the building blocks of “the most sinister period in American history.”Cohn never felt guilty about the fact that he ruined the lives of tens of people by dragging them before the House Un-American Activities Committee, even driving some to commit suicide. “It was sheer political and career expediency,” Brenner explains.In many quarters Cohn's and Sen. Joseph McCarthy's actions were called “a witch hunt.”In 1973, when the Justice Department sued Trump Management for refusing to rent apartments to black tenants, Cohn advised Trump and his father Fred to fight the suit. Though the Trumps were forced to settle, in the press Donald Trump and Cohn crowed that they had beaten the Feds.This pattern of reacting with attacking metastasizes over the years and, of course, in the world of Wall Street, this disregard of reality becomes a symbol of dogged determination. Defeat in the court can be restyled as victory in a media landscape seduced by a playboy.This was Cohn’s formula, adopted wholeheartedly by Trump. And, the film explains, through more than 4,000 lawsuits, Trump successfully employed that strategy. Always be on the offensive. Never admit defeat.“In the old days, the sport of kings and queens was horseracing,” New York attorney Adam Leitman Bailey observes in the film. “Now, it’s litigation. And Donald Trump definitely played the sport. And he played it very well.”“Trump’s Showdown” avoids mention of Kavanaugh; obviously there’s enough potential material on that subject to merit its own installment. But anyone desiring a deeper understanding of why a Supreme Court nominee would <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/09/27/brett-kavanaughs-best-defense-loud-shouting-and-conspiracy-theories/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">adopt a loud, angry, aggressive demeanor </a>while defending himself against sexual assault allegations only needs to watch this study.Kavanaugh was obviously channeling Trump when he came out the gate attacking, attacking, attacking and never giving ground. Knowing this strategy was passed down by the vile Cohn, and employed by a potential Supreme Court Justice, should scare the hell out of everyone.Kirk’s film doesn’t say this this specifically but, you know, context. “Frontline” always adopts a methodical approach to reporting on government issues and developments that the public needs to know about. It does not break news, but rather, gathers it, adds new details and places it all in context.But these tumultuous days have given all stories the shelf life of bananas left in a hot car on a sunny day. All the headlines and soundbites compiled to create “Trump’s Showdown” chronicle events that feel like they happened decades ago, not months.For example, the film leaves viewers with a list of developments that occurred in mid-August, for the most part, although it does include snippets from <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/09/20/right-to-remain-anonymous-who-is-the-senior-official-who-wrote-the-times-op-ed/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the anonymous op-ed allegedly written by a senior White House staffer</a>, and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/09/25/decoding-the-rod-rosenstein-melodrama-distraction-from-kavanaugh-or-part-of-a-larger-plot/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s imperiled employment status</a>.And perhaps you may be thinking, “oh yeah, I remember that,” as if these are details from a distant life.Set aside the Supreme Court furor for a moment, and naturally you may remember that within the last few months, a number of Trump surrogates have given testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller, who appears to be closing the net on Trump.Famously Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen publicly declared his loyalty to Trump — a guarantee Comey would not give — and swore he’d never give him up via incriminating evidence or testimony. But Cohen is made of a different kind of twisted substance than Cohn, Trump’s earliest legal consigliere. Cohn would never “flip.” Cohen changed his mind and has been talking to Mueller.This too relates to the Kavanaugh issue: A number of experts posit that the reason Trump hasn’t cut ties with the embattled nominee is due to the judge’s views on executive prerogative, and specifically his opinion that sitting presidents are too busy to be subjected to criminal investigations or charges, or civil lawsuits, while they hold office.The contextualizing of recent history must be more challenging for Kirk and “Frontline” now than in the past, and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/04/10/tracing-trumps-takeover-a-chat-with-frontline-producer-michael-kirk/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">he admitted as much to Salon in an April interview</a>.  Every day brings an avalanche of news, but only a small part of the landslides furthers the bigger story.This may be why “Trump’s Showdown” feels jam-packed in comparison to previous chapters, although it’s not rushed. One gets the sense Kirk had enough to fill five hours or more instead of merely two; even so, the viewer never feels shortchanged. In this age where everything feels like too much, and there’s always some new detail around the corner, this installment is precisely enough to ready us for the next incoming.<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-shocks-white-house-reporters-he-lobs-misogynistic-insult-female-journalist">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-shocks-white-house-reporters-he-lobs-misogynistic-insult-female-journalist</a>you never think --> thank on official transcript<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/msnbcs-rachel-maddow-reveals-how-media-was-complicit-selling-blatant-con-trumps">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/msnbcs-rachel-maddow-reveals-how-media-was-complicit-selling-blatant-con-trumps</a>Trump sold himself to the country on the premise that he was a wildly successful business guru who could solve America's problems. The only problem is that none of it was true: He can't solve the country's problems, and his business success is far less impressive than he'd have you believe.In fact, a bombshell story from the New York Times <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/behind-trump-empire-bombshell-nyt-report-details-sham-corporations-dubious-tax" style="text-decoration-line: none;">published</a> Tuesday alleged that Trump attained much of his wealth through inheriting money from his parents — and used tax avoidance schemes and "outright fraud" to avoid giving much of that money to the government.MSNBC's Rachel Maddow pointed out Tuesday night one crucial part of the story that reveals the media's role in selling the con of Trump as a master businessman — a con that was later used to prop up his longshot presidential bid.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;">"The other reason this story about Trump's financial history hasn't really been told before — at least not in this level of detail — is because of what the Timesquite candidly describes as the history of Trump getting uncritical press coverage," she said.  "Particularly around his finances."She added: "He has not been a financial genius. He has not been a great dealmaker. He has not been a great business mind. But he has been great at convincing the credulous press to describe him as such over a period of decades. And that big blustery PR effort was effective at disguising this blatant con that he played on the public for years, pretending to be some kind of self-made millionaire, or even self-made billionaire, when apparently he really isn't anything of the sort."Watch the clip below:random data pt<p class="yiv4929327736headline3" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=1bedb82ac0&e=4da1f92934" style="text-decoration-line: none;">One-Man Wrecking Ball': Trump Hopes One of His 'Crowning Achievements' Will Be Exposing 'Cancer' of FBI</a><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-style="font-style" italic="italic" color="color" rgb="rgb">By Matthew Chapman, AlterNetIn a new interview, the president went completely off the rails in his attacks on federal investigatorpolls down bigly---writing for the Washington Post, Matt O'Brien <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/12/white-house-says-it-has-sped-up-recovery-facts-say-it-hasnt/?utm_term=.5d0272303024" style="text-decoration-line: none;">explained</a>:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">During President Barack Obama’s last 19 months in office, the economy added an average of 208,000 jobs a month; during President Trump’s first 19 months in office, it’s added an average of 189,000 jobs a month.During Obama’s last 19 months, the share of 25- to-54-year olds who have a job rose 1.1 percentage points; during Trump’s first 19 months, it rose 0.9 percentage points.During Obama’s last 19 months, wage growth went up 0.3 percentage points; during Trump’s first 19 months, wage growth went up 0.2 percentage points.These are the facts that the Trump administration seems to think it can transform into evidence that it’s made the recovery better than it was before.</blockquote>He explained that, despite Hassett's efforts to squint at the data and see a major impact after the 2016 elections, the trends tell basically one story: the economy under Trump has essentially been a continuation of the economy under Obama.Some of the changes the White House attributes to Trump, he continued, are more plausibly attributable to other factors."The Trump administration likes to think that investment has gone up because of the magic of the Republicans' big corporate tax cuts. But the reality is a lot more mundane: It’s oil," he wrote. "Drilling, you see, makes up a big part of business investment, so it should be no surprise that it flatlined after oil prices collapsed in 2014 and then rebounded after prices went up in 2016. It’s possible that the tax cuts will eventually increase investment, but they haven’t so far."Jordan Weissman, writing for Slate, similarly found Hassett unconvincing."One of the most baffling parts of Hassett’s presentation was his attempt to show that the job market had vastly improved, using the employment rate among 25- to 54-year-olds," explained <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/09/does-trump-deserve-credit-for-the-economy-kevin-hassett-graphs.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Weissman</a>. "If you take a longer view, and use the actual employment rate rather than a rolling average, it’s hard to see any noticeable change in the trend after November 2016."...<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/top-trump-aide-was-astounded-presidents-lack-basic-understanding-economy-woodward">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/top-trump-aide-was-astounded-presidents-lack-basic-understanding-economy-woodward</a><div style=""></div><div style="">918 florence coming, djt praises maria job, new kia 2975 = 911</div><div style="">"unsung success"  grid down before; texas and fla A+</div><div style="">---</div><div style=""><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=fb8f40c503&e=4da1f92934" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Maddow Reveals Stunning Records Showing the Trump Admn. Shifted Money from FEMA to ICE Ahead of Hurricane Season</a>By Cody Fenwick, AlterNetThe document shows that $10 million was taken from the department dedicated to responding to natural disasters. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=ae0cc5fdfd&e=4da1f92934" class="yiv2397705154readmore" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em;">READ MORE»</a></div><div style=""></div>cohen pleads guilty, sez trump knowingly paid hush $ to affect election thus crime=charlottesville 180<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/biggest-fcking-mistake-ive-made-trump-reportedly-raged-against-his-decision">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/biggest-fcking-mistake-ive-made-trump-reportedly-raged-against-his-decision</a>---ANDonald Trump's persistent attacks on the media and independent sources of information often seem like desperate efforts to fend off criticism or haphazardly cover up yet another of his administration's countless scandals. But some observers see his attacks on the truth in a much more sinister light.In his latest attacks on internet and social media companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat of New York University observed to the<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pushes-a-reality-where-opponents-are-peddling-false-facts-and-only-he-can-be-trusted/2018/08/30/d7ac7c38-ac62-11e8-b1da-ff7faa680710_story.html?utm_term=.8eface844e83" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post</a> that this new salvo builds upon his now routine insults of the press.“When Donald Trump is starting to raise the specter of trying to fiddle with search engines and saying that they are rigged — this raises alarm bells in me as a scholar of authoritarianism,” she said.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;">Trump's assault on the truth was evident in a series of disjointed morning tweets on Thursday. In one of the posts, he wrote: "I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda. This includes fake books, which come out about me all the time, always anonymous sources, and are pure fiction. Enemy of the People!"In this twisted propaganda, Ben-Ghiat said she sees the growth of Trump authoritarian tendencies.“The widening circle of the parties that he’s accusing is predictable because I see Donald Trump as an authoritarian in the making or an authoritarian wannabe, and there’s always a transition process of this sort of leader asserting himself above all the authorities," she told the Post. "Every authoritarian leader eventually asserts himself as the only arbiter of truth.”<div style="">=</div><div style="">E&E</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><h1 class="headline" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2;"><a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060095133" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">Trump reshaped U.S. climate policy in one month: August 2018</a></h1><section class="excerpt" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 15px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: none;">August was supposed to be a quiet month for climate politics, a time when Congress went on recess; President Trump played golf in Bedminster, N.J.; and Americans took a break from politics before this November's midterm elections. Instead, it may go down as a historic turning point in U.S. climate efforts.</section></div><div style=""></div>[he got this from tucker carlson]Trump tweeted on Wednesday night that the South African government was "seizing land" from white farmers, who he claimed to be the subject of large-scale killings.This claim is false — there is <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/23/17772056/south-africa-trump-tweet-afriforum-white-farmers-violence" style="text-decoration-line: none;">no evidence</a> of large-scale targeted killings of white farmers anywhere in South Africa.The Anti-Defamation League released a blistering <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-extremely-troubled-by-presidents-tweet-on-south-africa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a> about Trump's comments, which he appears to have tweeted after watching a conspiratorial Fox News segment.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;">"It is extremely disturbing that the President of the United States echoed a longstanding and false white supremacist claim that South Africa’s white farmers are targets of large-scale, racially-motivated killings by South Africa’s black majority," the group said.The ADL explained how Trump's claims are actually part of a long-standing effort by white supremacists to falsely paint white people as victims of genocide.<blockquote style="">White supremacists in the United States have made such claims for years.  <a href="https://www.adl.org/blog/american-white-supremacists-embrace-south-africasort-of" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">In early 2012, ADL’s Center on Extremism</a> documented how white supremacists in the United States were gearing up for protests as part of something they termed the “South Africa Project (SAP).” The goal of the organizers, which included representatives from major neo-Nazi, racist skinhead, "traditional white supremacist," Christian Identity groups, as well as racist prison gangs, was to stop the alleged ‘genocide of Whites’ in South Africa. The protests originated in 2011 at the hands of Monica Stone, a long-time member of the Louisiana-based white supremacist Christian Defense League and immigrant from South Africa.</blockquote>Prominent American white supremacist Richard Spencer has used the South Africa talking point as recently as this March.The ADL ended with a damning indictment of Trump's racist remarks."We would hope that the President would try to understand the facts and realities of the situation in South Africa, rather than repeat disturbing, racially divisive talking points used most frequently by white supremacists," the ADL concluded.AN,,.obody who has followed Donald Trump's career, dating back many years before he entered politics, should be surprised by these events. Nor should anyone be surprised that Trump would express "regret" over the fall of Manafort for his many crimes against the United States. As Craig Unger explains in his new book, House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, the developer/casino magnate/reality TV star has cultivated connections with the underworld for decades. He built Trump Tower with illegal immigrant labor and concrete supplied by the Mafia — and gave an apartment there to the girlfriend of a mobbed-up Teamster boss. Millions of dollars have been poured into Trump properties from gangsters around the world in massive money-laundering operations.He has always felt most comfortable with unsavory figures like Manafort, who should have been indicted and sent to prison for blatant influence peddling during the Housing and Urban Development scandal back in the Ronald Reagan era, and Cohen, who has long done business with crooks in the taxi and real estate sectors in New York City. His infamous attorney Roy Cohn was a mob lawyer indicted three times, who was lucky to escape imprisonment for tax evasion and many other alleged crimes.The Trump outfit is going down in the time-honored style that marked the decline of La Cosa Nostra. A tough guy like Michael Cohen folds up and squeals exactly the same as Sammy the Bull. And a smart guy like Manafort, who has gotten away with everything and thought he always would, is put away exactly the same as Al Capone, convicted of tax evasion on the testimony of an accountant.No doubt Trump and his choir will remind us that none of these charges touch on campaign collusion with the Russians, but that is a feeble rejoinder. Special counsel Robert Mueller has already filed preliminary indictments on that aspect of his investigation, of which there will be more to come. Meanwhile, the special counsel will present evidence concerning Trump's Nixonian attempts to obstruct his investigation.But regardless of what Mueller eventually reveals about the president, the Cohen deal has placed Trump in grave jeopardy. In pleading guilty to felony violations of federal campaign finance statutes, Cohen has said that he paid off Stormy Daniels and another woman in a criminal conspiracy with Trump.Remember, that plea deal was reached not with Mueller but with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, headed by Trump appointee Geoffrey Berman, and the Department of Justice, headed by Trump appointee Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. While his aides whisper to Fox News that "the president cannot be indicted," Americans will soon realize that the man in the Oval Office is an unindicted co-conspirator — just like Nixon.The question that faces every member of Congress, and for that matter, every voter, is what to do about it.To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at <a href="https://www.creators.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">www.creators.com</a>.<div style="">=</div><div style="">8/22 rally</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/parallel-universe-trump-fans-chant-lock-her-west-virginia-rally-two-former-aides-become-felons">https://www.alternet.org/parallel-universe-trump-fans-chant-lock-her-west-virginia-rally-two-former-aides-become-felons</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><div>Like a Parallel Universe': Trump Fans Chant 'Lock Her Up' at West Virginia Rally As Two Former Aides Become Felons</div><div>
</div><div>"Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer both became felons today. And Trump supporters still thought it made sense to chant 'Lock Her Up.'"</div><div>By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams August 22, 2018, 5:25 AM GMT</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>President Donald Trump on Tuesday was directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy by his former personal attorney Michael Cohen and—almost simultaneously—a federal jury found his former campaign manager guilty on eight counts of financial crimes, but you wouldn't know it by watching Trump's inane campaign-style rally in West Virginia Tuesday night, where his frenzied supporters belted out chants of "lock her up" and "drain the swamp" while the president bragged about his luxury apartments and deadly new coal rules.</div><div>
</div><div>"It's like a parallel universe," historian Kevin Kruse noted on Twitter as the Charleston rally kicked off late Tuesday.</div><div>
</div><div>While Tuesday's event featured plenty of ranting and raving about the "Russia witch hunt," the president didn't once mention the fact that his former fixer admitted under oath that he was directed by then-candidate Trump to violate campaign finance laws by paying hush money to a former model and an adult film actress.</div><div>
</div><div>The fact that Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort was just found guilty of a slew of crimes—including tax and bank fraud—also didn't come up during the hour-long rally.</div><div>
</div><div>Trump supporters in attendance Tuesday night—wielding signs that ranged from "Trump Digs Coal" to "Keep America Great"—didn't seem to mind these glaring omissions, nor did they seem to appreciate the irony of chanting "lock her up" after the first mention of Hillary Clinton while two men previously very close to the president are likely headed to jail....</div></div>AN 818 catalogue of BS pushed thru under radar in smash and grab:<a href="https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-trumps-most-rabid-fans-need-madness-qanon-conspiracy-theory">https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-trumps-most-rabid-fans-need-madness-qanon-conspiracy-theory</a>see dirty power plan<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-dirty-power-plan-2597804270.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Trump's 'Dirty Power Plan' Could Cost More Than 1,000 Lives a Year</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2597804270" data-authors="Lorraine Chow" data-headline="Trump's 'Dirty Power Plan' Could Cost More Than 1,000 Lives a Year" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widgetbrief">The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-power-plant-plan-co2-2597454144.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">EPA</a>) unveiled on Tuesday its long-anticipated <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-power-plant-plan-co2-2597454144.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">replacement</a> of the Obama-era <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/clean-power-plan" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Clean Power Plan</a>. The new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">coal</a> pollution rules will increase planet-warming carbon <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">pollution</a> and could cost more than a thousand American lives each year, according to the EPA's own estimates.EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler released the "Affordable Clean Energy Rule" today under <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">President Trump</a>'s directive. The new plan encourages efficiency improvements at existing coal plants to ensure they operate longer and allows states to weaken, or even eliminate, coal emissions standards. That's a clear difference from former President Obama's plan, which was aimed at phasing out coal and transitioning to cleaner power sources to avoid dangerous <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate change</a>....</div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">---</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-power-plant-plan-co2-2597454144.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-power-plant-plan-co2-2597454144.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Trump Power Plant Plan Will Significantly Increase CO2 Pollution</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2597454144" data-authors="Lorraine Chow" data-headline="Trump Power Plant Plan Will Significantly Increase CO2 Pollution" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">The Trump administration is expected on Tuesday to propose a major rollback of the Clean Power Plan, President Obama's signature climate policy.The replacement will relax rules for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">coal</a>-fired plants and will very likely increase <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">air pollution</a> and planet-warming <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenhouse-gases" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">carbon dioxide</a> emissions.The new plan, as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-trump-power-plant-plan-would-release-hundreds-of-millions-of-tons-of-co2-into-the-air/2018/08/18/be823078-a28e-11e8-83d2-70203b8d7b44_story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Washington Post</a> reported, would allow states to set their own coal emission standards or even opt-out altogether, and provides companies incentives to ensure coal plants operate longer. It's a clear contrast to the Obama plan, which was aimed at phasing out coal and transitioning to cleaner power sources to avoid dangerous climate change.The Trump rule "is projected to release at least 12 times the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere compared with the Obama rule over the next decade," the Post reported. To illustrate how different the plans are, by 2030, the Trump proposal would cut carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by 0.7 to 1.5 percent, or the equivalent of taking 2.7 million to 5.3 million cars off the road. In contrast, Obama's initiative had a goal of slashing CO2 emissions around 19 percent in the same time frame, or the equivalent of taking 75 million cars off the road....</div></div></div></div>---utica ny ...My administration's are providing more affordable health care options. So we're opening up many different options for health care, and we have association health plans, we have short-term-duration plans. We have all sorts of plans coming out many of them are already out. Some just literally got out over the last week. So I think it's going to be something great. affordable health care  association health plans  different options PositiveDonald Trump
00:18:51 - 00:19:26 (35 sec)
We have clean coal -- exports have increased, 60% last year -- clean coal, which is one of our big assets that we weren't allowed to use for our miners. You remember Hillary with the coal, right, sitting with the miners at the table? Remember? That wasn't so good for her. So the people of West Virginia and all over, you look at Wyoming, you look at so many different places where they just, Pennsylvania, where they loved what we did, and it's clean coal and we have the most modern procedures. But it's a tremendous form of energy in the sense that in a military way -- think of it -- coal is indestructible.
You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills. You know, the wind wheels, [mimics windmill noise, mimes shooting gun] Bing! That's the end of that one. If the birds don't kill it first. The birds could kill it first. They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it's like a killing field, the birds. But uh, you know, that's what they were going to, they were going to windmills. And you know, don't worry about wind, when the wind doesn't blow, I said, "What happens when the wind doesn't blow?" Well, then we have a problem. OK good. They were putting him in areas where they didn't have much wind, too. And it's a subsidary -- you need subsidy for windmills. You need subsidy. Who wants to have energy where you need subsidy? So, uh, the coal is doing great. windmills  wind doesn  birds NegativeDonald Trump
00:20:08 - 00:20:30 (22 sec)
American oil production recently reached an all-time high in our history and it's going higher. We're now the No. 1 in the world in that category. We're No. 1 and there are, nobody ever thought they'd see that, but we opened it up in a very environmentally friendly way. United States is a net-neutral gas exporter. United States  American oil production  environmentally friendly way  net-neutral gas exporter PositiveDonald Trump
00:20:30 - 00:20:55 (25 sec)
Think of that and we have a -- we're neutral, now we're going positive. We were even, now we're going to be very positive on natural gas. We're exploring, uh, natural gas at a level that we've never done before and we're using it at a very high level. Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris climate accord. That was another beauty. That was a beauty. natural gas  Paris climate accord  United States<div style="">
</div><div style="">...</div><div style="">=</div><div style="">AN cody f</div><div style="">When President Donald Trump broke with precedent and unilaterally revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan, many observers criticized the move as petty and an assault on the freedom of speech of Trump's critics. But MSNBC's Rachel Maddow argued Thursday night that something much more sinister may be going on.</div>She noted that Brennan himself has said that he hasn't used his security clearance since leaving government except to review his old notes when needing to testify before Congress or in other circumstances.And Brennan, she noted, is one of the key figures involved in briefing then-President-elect Trump on the Russia investigation during the 2016-2017 transition. Since any potential obstruction of justice charges Trump may eventually face could relate to the information he received then, Brennan may eventually be called to testify about these events. This also applies to many of the other people the White House has said it is reviewing for the potential revocation of security clearances.  And that puts Trump's new targeting of Brennan and the others in a much darker light."He said explicitly that he did it because these people had a role back in the day leading the Russia investigation — what he called the 'rigged witch hunt,'" Maddow said. "He's not after his critics — he's after the witnesses!"She also played a clip of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggesting that the precedent Trump has now established could be destructive in other ways: "The other question I have is: Where does this end? What is to stop President Trump from say, suspending the eligibility for access to classified information of Bob Mueller and his entire team? And they can't operate without access to classified information."Watch the clip below:<div style=""></div>bigthink<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Ian Bremmer: The problem is not Trump. Trump is a symptom.If the problem were Trump it wouldn’t be happening in other places around the world. We actually see all sorts of countries advanced industrial democracies where people are getting angrier and they’re voting more and more against the establishment.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">We saw that with the Brexit referendum, which was before the U.S. presidential election; We saw it in Germany with the rise of the Alternatives for Deutschland, an actively Euro-skeptic party for the first time since World War II; We have nationalists in the German parliament; We saw it with the recent Italian elections where they threw out all of the establishment parties and instead it’s the Five Star Movement and the League, again Euro-skeptic, anti-immigration, populist political forces.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">This is very unusual and it’s not coincidence. So why is it happening? One reason is because you have lots of members of working and middle classes that feel like they are not doing well economically and no one in the establishment is going to help them. “So let’s vote for some change. Let’s vote against free trade. Let’s vote against the support of the establishment. Let’s bring in something new.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Second point. A lot of this is anti-immigration. Demographics have changed an awful lot in the United States, in Canada and in Europe over the past decades and a lot of people feel – people that have come before say “Wait a second! You’re not taking care of me, but you’re going to bring in these new people and these new people who I don’t necessarily like or understand or trust? These new people who are getting benefits—but what about my benefits?! It’s going to cost a lot of money to bring them in. Are they going to steal my jobs? Are they going to cause crime?!” —Even though in the United States we know that first generation immigrants don’t actually cause more crime than those that have lived here.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Nonetheless the willingness to believe that those “other people are bad and a problem” goes up a lot when you feel like your government’s not taking care of you. So that’s been a big piece of it.A third piece has been the military. You know the foreign policy establishment in the United States has been very willing to support the U.S. getting into wars around the world. But most of the sons and daughters of the foreign policy establishment don’t actually fight in those wars themselves—That’s also true of the political leaders that are responsible. As we know it’s the poor people, it’s the enlisted men and women. They get sent off, their families are left broken, their communities are hindered. They come back – Iraq, Afghanistan – billions upon billions of dollars wasted on these wars, enormous numbers of people that are killed or wounded or have post traumatic stress disorder. They come back they’re not seen as heroes. The Americans and the allies didn’t win these wars. The Veterans Administration doesn’t take care of them.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So as a consequence you see those people getting really angry and not voting for Hillary or Jeb. They’re voting for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump.And then you have technology which is that technology today is increasingly driving people apart. We get most of our information in the United States from advertising companies that view us as commodities, products. They sell our eyeballs and our time on their sites to companies that pay money to ensure that we spend as much time as possible on Facebook and on Twitter and on the rest. That’s how we get our information.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">We’ll spend more time on their sites if we are divided and we are narrower, and only follow the things we like, which means Democrats are watching pro-Democrat sites and conservatives and Republicans are watching pro-Republican sites. And there’s virtually no overlap. And so it’s fake news for everybody. It’s us versus them.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">That’s happening across Europe. It’s happening in Canada. Those four factors are driving us apart.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">They’re ripping at the fabric of civic nationalism across all of the advanced industrial economies. And by the way, it’s happening when the economy is doing really well. The United States today and the UK and Canada and Germany feel more divided than at any time in my lifetime. And yet that’s when we can spend a lot of money.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So if that’s true, what do you think it’s going to feel like when interest rates go up and growth goes down and we start laying people off and we don’t have the budgetary space to give everybody a tax break? It’s going to get worse.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So it’s very clear that this is a structural condition that we have been living with and ignoring for decades and it’s getting worse.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">One interesting point. There’s one country among the advanced industrial democracies that’s not experiencing this problem at all, and that’s Japan. If you go to Japan you’ll actually find that the people are pretty much just as happy and trusting of their political institutions, their leaders, their media as they were 30, 40 years ago.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Now let’s look at all of the factors that I just described that are causing problems in our countries: Economic erosion of the working class. In Japan the population is shrinking fast. From now to 2050 it’s going to shrink by another 15 percent, which means that even though the Japanese economy’s not growing per capita they’re doing a lot better, so they don’t feel so bad.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Immigration. Japanese actually let in almost nobody, so as a consequence there’s no one that they really have a backlash against. It’s all Japanese, right?<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Number three. The military. United States fights in lots of wars, so do our allies. Japan does not. Their military is constitutionally forbidden from going abroad and fighting in wars. When they did support us in Iraq, they sent a few hundred Japanese. They kept them far away from any fighting. Every soldier had like a million dollars of insurance. They made sure that they were calling their families every week. They really didn’t have backlash against the military.And finally social media/technology, where the Japanese as a government has worked hard to keep social media out of the political space and the average Japanese adult isn’t on social media. Only about 39 percent of them are, compared to well over a majority in the West.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.9; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-wrap: break-word;">So the one country in the world among the wealthy democracies that isn’t experiencing a crisis of democracy is the one that kind of rejected globalism and its precepts over the last 40 years.fire tweet ca water to ocean, courts ca farm bureau
admin did not defend 1st x tip pt? Monday, as California continued to struggle with the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/06/us/california-fires/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">largest wildfires in the state's recorded history</a>, which have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/california-wildfires-death-toll-7-rapid-spread-continues-180805071322650.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">killed seven people</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/california-wildfires-death-toll-7-rapid-spread-continues-180805071322650.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">burned over 750 structures</a>, Trump took to Twitter to scold the state government and Gov. Jerry Brown, insinuating that their own mismanagement of the environment was responsible for the disaster:<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1026587142989008897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">August 6, 2018</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.   Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1026524292396273664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">August 6, 2018</a></blockquote>Apparently, even Trump administration officials are unwilling to stand by this claim. As CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/trump-california-wildfire/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reports</a>, "administration officials declined to offer any clarity on Trump's series of tweets claiming environmental laws and water regulations in California are hampering the state's ability to fight the wildfires."One simple reason Trump's White House might not be defending his Twitter outburst? It's absolute gibberish.In a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-fires-20180806-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lengthy column</a> taking down Trump's fabrications, Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times explained that water is not an issue for California firefighters:<blockquote style="">The likeliest explanation for [Trump's] take on water is that he’s confused by the demands for more irrigation water he’s hearing from Republican officeholders in the Central Valley. They’re the people who grouse about water being “wasted” by being diverted to the ocean, rather than into their fields.<div class="card collection-item" data-type="text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="card-content ">Their demands have nothing to do with the availability of water for firefighting. Fire agencies haven’t been complaining about a lack of water, especially water “diverted” to the Pacific. Major reservoirs are near the worst fire zones; the Carr fire is near Lake Shasta and Whiskeytown Lake and the Mendocino Complex fire is near Clear Lake. All are at or near their historical levels.</div></div><div class="card collection-item" data-type="text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="card-content ">“There have been no issues getting water from them,” Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, told me.</div></div></blockquote>In fact, some of Trump's officials are actively contradicting him, including one FEMA official who <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/trump-california-wildfire/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> CNN that there is no issue in California with access to water for the purpose of firefighting.Moreover, if Trump was really concerned about water shortages in California, he might pay more attention to climate change. A new climate model <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-climate-california-20171205-htmlstory.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">estimates</a>that melting Arctic sea ice could reduce precipitation over the Golden State by up to 20 percent within three decades. Furthermore, rising temperatures threaten to <a href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/project/climate-change-sierra-nevada/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reduce the snowpack</a> in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which provides <a href="https://water.ca.gov/Programs/All-Programs/Climate-Change-Program/Climate-Change-and-Water" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a third of California's water</a>.Trump has called climate change a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15726472/trump-tweets-global-warming-paris-climate-agreement" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hoax invented by the Chinese</a>, is pulling the United States out of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/climate/trump-paris-climate-agreement.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Paris Climate Agreement</a>, and has placed a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/06/626525274/get-to-know-andrew-wheeler-ex-coal-lobbyist-with-inside-track-to-lead-epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">former coal lobbyist</a> in charge of the EPA. So it seems unlikely he will consider this side of the story.Between all of this, it is no wonder that even the administration itself can no longer go out on a limb to defend Trump's bizarre lies.see steve s on cult same day...<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> President’s Sunday-morning tweet should be seen as a turning point. It doesn’t teach us anything new — most students of the case already understand what Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner knew about that Trump Tower meeting. But it ends any possibility of an alternative explanation.We can all move forward understanding that there is a clear fact pattern about which there is no dispute:<ul><li>The President’s son and top advisers knowingly met with individuals connected to the Russian government, hoping to obtain dirt on their political opponent.</li><li>Documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee and members of the Clinton campaign were later used in an overt effort to sway the election.</li><li>When the Trump Tower meeting was uncovered, the President instructed his son and staff to lie about the meeting, and told them precisely which lies to use.</li><li>The President is attempting to end the investigation into this meeting and other instances of attempted collusion between his campaign staff and representatives of the Russian government.</li></ul>It was possible, just days ago, to believe — with an abundance of generosity toward the President and his team — that the meeting was about adoption, went nowhere, and was overblown by the Administration’s enemies. No longer.</blockquote>What happens next?Trump and his spokespeople and other allies have been shifting the narrative from whether Donald Trump and his inner circle colluded with Russians during the 2016 election to "So what! Collusion is not illegal!" Trump's confession on Sunday is but the next step in an overall strategy of normalizing the heretofore unthinkable in American politics and society. In many ways, this is the Trump's administration's guiding principle.Donald Trump will also continue his assault on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and their voters' loyalty, patriotism and humanity. This too is but an extension of a decades-long strategy by Republicans and the right-wing media, in which violent and eliminationist rhetoric -- and <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stochastic-terrorism" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">stochastic terrorism</a> -- directed at liberals, progressives, and Democrats is the norm.Trump's final moveTrump may finally admit that he worked with the Russians to stop Hillary Clinton because she was a "threat" to the American people and the "American way of life." Donald Trump will hide his behavior, and that of his allies, behind a mask that their goal was pure and patriotic.On Monday, Donald Trump again signaled in that direction. He tweeted this:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Collusion with Russia was very real. Hillary Clinton and her team 100% colluded with the Russians, and so did Adam Schiff who is on tape trying to collude with what he thought was Russians to obtain compromising material on DJT. We also know that Hillary Clinton paid through a law firm, eventually Kremlin connected sources, to gather info on Donald Trump. Collusion is very real with Russia, but only with Hillary and the Democrats, and we should demand a full investigation.</blockquote>Will it work?Yes.<a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/12/23/donald_trump_leads_an_insane_white_cult_and_pat_buchanan_just_explained_how_it_works/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump's political movement meets the definition of a cult</a>. As explained by Steven Hassan, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, "Donald Trump fits the stereotypical profile of a cult leader. His followers fit the model as well. Many of them, especially the ones that say, 'He could do anything and we would still believe him, we would still follow him,' sound like people who have been indoctrinated into a totalistic mindset."<a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/08/02/are-white-people-ready-to-bail-on-democracy-these-researchers-say-the-danger-is-real/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Republicans and other conservatives are increasingly authoritarian</a> and possess a deep disdain for democracy. Research by political scientists and others has revealed that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/03/26/authors-of-how-democracies-die-america-will-never-get-back-to-the-norms-we-had-before-trump/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">"winning at any costs" -- even if that  means subverting democracy</a> -- is increasingly all that matters for many on the American right.<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/20/how-closely-will-republicans-follow-trump-on-russia-and-putin/?utm_term=.386ef39a8d6d" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Other polling data</a> and research shows that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/01/10/donald-trump-and-the-pod-people-how-national-security-republicans-became-russian-tools/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Republican voters also hold increasingly positive views</a> of Russia and Vladimir Putin.Extreme political polarization and negative partisanship dictates that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/06/28/heres-how-political-science-explains-the-gops-obsession-with-civility/?utm_term=.149dbbbab0d1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">any criticism of Donald Trump is taken to be a personal affront and an attack on one's own personal identity</a> by his voters and other supporters.Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber function as a type of state-sponsored media who help to legitimate most if not all of Trump's policies and behavior.Donald Trump is one of the most popular Republican presidents among his own party's members and supporters in the history of modern public opinion polling. Republican elected officials largely agree with his policies and do his bidding. Republicans, both elites and rank-and-file voters, will not abandon Donald Trump.Responsible voices in the mainstream American news media will be aghast at Donald Trump's admission of guilt and his claims that collusion is just another word for "patriotism." But given the malignant reality that Trump and his enablers have created, all efforts by the fourth estate to be the watchdog of democracy will once again fail to stop Trump and the Republican Party's war on democracy and the truth. For Trump and his public, journalists and are "enemies of the people," to be vilified and, if need be, targeted for violence.What can be done?Of course the Republican Party and their voters and news media will never stand up against Donald Trump. This will be true even if Robert Mueller uncovers incontrovertible evidence that Trump and his allies intentionally and in violation of law colluded with Russia to undermine American democracy and that Trump personally obstructed justice in an effort to conceal the crimes.Optimally, Donald Trump should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. That should also be the fate of any Republican elected officials who aided and abetted Trump's betrayal of American democracy and his treasonous behavior. Unfortunately, this is exceedingly unlikely. Democrats may well win a majority in the House of Representatives this fall, but most polling models and forecasts suggest they will be unable to do so in the Senate. (In any case, a two-thirds majority is required to convict a president in the Senate, and no party is ever likely to hold such a margin.)The American people are the country's remaining hope. They will need to engage in nationwide strikes and protests that disrupt day-to-day life. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons that range ranging from cowardice to learned helplessness and exhaustion, most Americans have become used to the moral, ethical,and political abomination that is Age of Donald Trump. Their outrage is spent.As <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/08/06/historian-on-comparing-donald-trump-to-adolf-hitler-my-resistance-is-being-overcome/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">historian Richard Frankel warned in a previous interview</a> about the rise of the Nazis and its lessons for America, "The unfortunate aspect is that if you set the bar so high in terms of outrage and horror then people all too often let things continue when they could have been stopped earlier. Once it gets to that point it's way too late." He is correct. History's epitaph for American democracy -- that less-than-perfect time before the irreparable harm inflicted on our country's democracy and culture by Trump's presidency -- may well include the observation that Americans surrendered their country with surprisingly little struggle.c de v=<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/2/headlines/at_deutsche_bank_anthony_kennedys_son_loaned_trump_1_billion">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/2/headlines/at_deutsche_bank_anthony_kennedys_son_loaned_trump_1_billion</a>new revelations show the close financial ties between President Trump and Justice Anthony Kennedy’s son, Justin Kennedy, who served as the global head of real estate capital markets for Deutsche Bank. The New York Times reports that under Justin Kennedy’s leadership, Deutsche Bank loaned Donald Trump $1 billion for renovation and construction of buildings in New York and Chicago, at a time when many other banks refused to lend to Trump because of his troubled financial history.
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>==mma
Politico is reporting that White House chief of staff John

Kelly’s relationship with President Donald Trump is withering and that

as they “have proven increasingly incompatible,” Fox News shows and

personalities seem to be filling the void in the White House.

Media Matters has <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/01/26/video-why-you-should-worry-about-trump-fox-news-feedback-loop/219168">documented</a> the Trump-Fox News <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/stories-and-interests/executive-time">feedback</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/23/executive-time-are-we-about-have-fox-news-shutdown/219715">loop</a> since the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/03/17/sean-spicer-caused-international-incident-citing-fox-news-defend-trump/215734">early</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/25/trump-reportedly-outraged-cnn-doesnt-cover-him-fox-news/215134">days</a> of the Trump administration, but as Trump <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fox-news-employees-hired-by-trump/">continues to bring on</a>

former Fox News employees for White House positions, Fox’s influence

over the administration is becoming more stark. Less than one month ago,

Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-fox-news-executive-bill-shine-joins-trump-white-house-as-deputy-chief-of-staff-for-communications/2018/07/05/3003112c-8075-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html?utm_term=.fbb2aeabcde8">hired</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/04/28/how-bill-shine-has-been-implicated-fox-news-ongoing-legal-disasters/216212">disgraced</a> former Fox News executive Bill Shine as White House communications director (a move Trump sycophant and “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hannitys-rising-role-in-trumps-world-he-basically-has-a-desk-in-the-place/2018/04/17/e2483018-4260-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?utm_term=.ad711fb05130">unofficial chief of staff</a>” Sean Hannity <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/06/27/sean-hannity-endorses-disgraced-former-fox-news-exec-bill-shine-white-house-communications-director/220560">staunchly endorsed</a>). And now Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/29/john-kelly-chief-staff-trump-expectations-747646">reports</a> that Kelly, who was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/us/politics/kelly-trump.html">ostensibly hired</a>

to “impose order on a chaotic” White House, has been unable to prevent

the president from soliciting advice from a “coterie of outside

advisers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity.” Trump is even

reportedly setting his daily agenda by simply tuning into his <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/06/22/donald-trump-loves-safe-space-fox-friends/216997">favorite</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/19/sean-hannity-brought-his-propaganda-fox-friends-and-donald-trump-was-thrilled/219672">show</a>, Fox & Friends, as a former White House official told Politico that Trump “comes down for the day, and whatever he saw on 'Fox and Friends,' he schedules meetings based on that.”

From Politico’s July 30 <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/29/john-kelly-chief-staff-trump-expectations-747646?tab=most-read">article</a>, by Eliana Johnson:

<blockquote style="">Kelly has done away with “meeting crashers,” the West

Wing aides who showed up for meetings uninvited, according to a White

House aide, but he has not been able to curb Trump’s practice of adding

and subtracting advisers to meetings throughout the day or of turning

scheduled gatherings into freewheeling discussions of subjects that suit

his interests — including those suggested to him by his coterie of

outside advisers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“He comes down for the day, and whatever he saw on 'Fox and Friends,'

he schedules meetings based on that,” said one former White House

official. “If it’s Iran, it’s ‘Get John Bolton down here!’ … If he’s

seen something on TV or [was] talking to Hannity the night before, he’s

got lots of flexibility to do whatever he wants to do.”

…

With closer contact, Trump and Kelly have proven increasingly

incompatible. The president makes decisions in part based on the blurts

emitted from a media world of his own creation, his television tuned to

Fox News and his cellphone at the ready to dial up any number of its

on-air talent. Kelly, by contrast, rarely watches television and doesn’t

follow Twitter, the forum on which the president announces many of his

decisions.

</blockquote>=thom h: three theories, in ascending order oflikelihood, are:1.  The Manchurian Candidate: He’s beingblackmailed or has been a Russian asset foryears.2.  The Wannabe Dictator: He believes thatcountries should be run like companies—essentially autocracies.3.  The Deadbeat: He’s not only not rich, buthe’s badly in debt, and Russian billionairesare among his main creditors.The Manchurian Candidate theory waslargely the one Democrats implied during theelection, and most have implicitly embracedsince then, along with many commentators onMSNBC and CNN. It’s the least likely, althoughif it’s true Robert Mueller will probably beletting us all know soon. But there’s little inTrump’s past that would suggest this is the caseother than his embrace of Russia over theObama administration’s reactions to theannexation of Crimea and activity in Ukraine.But it’s far more likely that his support of Russiaduring the Obama administration hadeverything to do with hating on anything ournation’s first Black president had done (imposesanctions on Russia and expel diplomats, etc.)as well as wanting to trash the presumed 2016Democratic presidential candidate, Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton.Even his dislike of NATO is the sort of standard-variety right-wing stuff that’s been promotedwithin the Republican Party from the days ofthe John Birch Society to Steve Bannon’s recentreign, and reflects an isolationist fear ofalliances rather than an affection for non-NATOactors like Russia...<div style="">=</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/msnbcs-rachel-maddow-reveals-white-houses-bizarre-machinations-concealing-putins">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/msnbcs-rachel-maddow-reveals-white-houses-bizarre-machinations-concealing-putins</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">a key point in President Donald Trump's press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last week, a reporter asked the Russian president if he had wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. For the first time, Putin admitted that he did.But according to the White House's official records, that didn't happen, as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported Tuesday night.Other outlets have noted that in the White House's transcript of the press conference, the reporter's question about whether Putin had wanted Trump to win was suspiciously left out. And even after news outlets picked up the story, the transcript wasn't corrected....</div><div style=""></div>=NB trump and putin: tit for tat, [cohn, roy, roger: deny all, attack]throw out emabassy ppl, demand to interroget mcfaul, kusner security clear leads (belatedly to :<a href="https://www.alternet.org/sarah-sanders-trump-exploring-mechanisms-remove-security-clearances-brennan-clapper-comey-mccabe-and" style="">https://www.alternet.org/sarah-sanders-trump-exploring-mechanisms-remove-security-clearances-brennan-clapper-comey-mccabe-and</a>...White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday said Donald Trump's administration is considering revoking the security clearances for former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, Former DNI James Clapper and former national security adviser Susan Rice.
Sanders accused the former officials of "monetizing" thier security clearances and using them to play poltiics.
Watch the video belowAaron Rupar
REPORTER: Why won't Trump just denounce Russian interference?
SANDERS: The president has been incredibly tough on Russia. pic.twitter.com/TKVvJ39mAi

Aaron RuparSanders says Trump is considering taking away security clearances from Brennen, Comey, McCabe, Clapper, and Rice "because in some cases they have monetized their security clearances." pic.twitter.com/Y12JYq9Z1R<div style="">
</div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/historian-explains-how-trump-embodies-worst-things-us-history-and-why-his-supporters-will-soon-feel">https://www.alternet.org/historian-explains-how-trump-embodies-worst-things-us-history-and-why-his-supporters-will-soon-feel</a>... recently spoke with <a href="https://www.rickshenkman.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Rick Shenkman</a>, a historian and former investigative reporter. Shenkman is the founder of the History News Network and is a regular guest commentator on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. He is the bestselling author of six previous books, but his latest was the impetus for our conversation. It is called “Political Animals: How Our Stone Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics.”This conversation has edited  for clarity and length.How was Donald Trump able to become president?There are ultimate causes and proximate causes. As for the first, once the Democratic Party became committed to civil rights that inevitably meant there was going to be a revolution in our politics. The Democratic Party for a century had been composed of people in the South and urban parts of the North and elsewhere. There was tension between those two elements but party elites kept things unified more or less.But when Lyndon Johnson pushed through civil rights laws, Southerners bailed wholesale from the Democratic Party. The Republican Party saw all these Southern voters now up for grabs and they gravitated toward them. So now you've got the two political parties, one striking out in favor strongly of civil rights and the other party increasingly uncomfortable with its own past as a civil rights pioneer under Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party decided to use racial grievances and in some instances outright racism to win over the voters who abandoned the Democrats over civil rights.I am more impressed with the similarities in Donald Trump's politics than I am with the differences when we look back over the long arc of American history. But of course I do see very real differences between Donald Trump and all previous presidents.Considering that the United States has only been a full democracy (under the law) for approximately 50 years since the civil rights movement, is the white backlash that Trump represents in many ways just a return to the norm in America?He's like having elected Joe McCarthy as president. Trump is not only using racist tropes in his rhetoric but he's just a pure demagogue and we've just never had that kind of a combination in the presidency before. Trump is wrong for this country in so many different ways such as his egotism, his self-aggrandizement, his gross ignorance, his unwillingness to learn basic facts about the issues that he's talking about.Donald Trump is a contemporary version of George Wallace in many ways.George Wallace is constantly in my mind when I think about Donald Trump. After the ’68 campaign, George Wallace said that Nixon had stolen all of his themes such as “law and order” and other appeals to white racism and racial resentment. The Republican Party learned many unfortunate lessons from George Wallace.I have reservations about using the term “fascist” because there are parallels with Trump but fascism was a particular moment in history. For example, Mussolini was a fascist and that word alludes to very specific cultural arrangements. As a professional historian, everything has to do with context.Definitions are very important: do you consider Donald Trump to be a fascist?Fascism was a word that best fits the period of the 1930s. They didn't have Facebook, they didn't have social media, they didn't have television. So I am not sure if suggesting that Trump is a ”fascist” is helpful or not. What I'm most comfortable with is how historians of the Holocaust have said what they see going on daily -- particularly after the separation of parents and children on the Mexican border and elsewhere -- has stunning parallels that make this a frightening moment. I don't need the “fascist” label to see that parallel and to draw inferences from it.  Donald Trump has little to no respect for or understanding of America’s democratic norms and traditions. He appears to lack basic human decency and seems to relish embarrassing the United States globally. His personal and moral failings also include his racism, sexism, misogyny, bigotry, cruelty and willful ignorance. Yet, Trump has an almost unbreakable hold over his followers. How do you explain this?My explanation is informed by social psychology. That framework provides the best explanation, which is that politics is about group cohesion and group identification. Trump’s supporters have a shared sense of resentment which for many of them is not economic: It is social and cultural. Donald Trump is addressing that. Moreover, politics is all about making voters feel smart and Donald Trump did that for his public. Politicians on both the left and the right haven't been able to accomplish that goal for decades. Trump’s voters also feel smart because he's rich and powerful.He also validated the instinctive feelings of his voters and made them feel that their resentments are permissible and legitimate.Now consider what Barack Obama did in a much more positive way. Obama succeeded in winning a lot of white votes because he made people feel good about voting for a black man. He did not try to make white voters feel guilty or discuss topics which were negative in terms of race relations.Then Donald Trump comes along and he has figured out another way to make those white voters feel smart and that's by playing on racial resentments.When Trump makes these racist appeals he's deploying insights from social psychology. He's appealing to people such that they feel they are members of a group and feel strongly united as a result.So the more he gets attacked by others, the more united his followers feel. In a way this makes him more powerful. There is a way out of this cycle. We feel anxious if there is a widening gap between our view of the way the world works and the way the world is actually working. When that gap becomes so large that we can't deny it anymore, our brains are triggered to re-evaluate our commitments. We then change our commitments when the burden of hanging onto existing beliefs becomes greater than of changing them.Even with all the horrible things that have come out about Donald Trump, his voters are not getting anxious. Several things have to happen for this to change. Really important voices in the Republican Party have to come out against Trump. An indictment by Robert Mueller would also be something concrete that would change some of his supporters’ minds too.Let’s entertain a scenario where Mueller presents irrefutable, obvious, watertight evidence that Trump and his allies colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election. Furthermore, let’s also assume that subsequently more and more prominent Republicans begin to publicly condemn Donald Trump. Trump will say he is the victim of a “witch hunt” and that it's all “fake news.” Given that he leads a political cult won’t his followers just become even more devoted?  The key turning point will be when people feel that supporting Donald Trump is a bad reflection of who they are. Suppose Trump is indicted and his tax returns show that he is worth much less than he claims. Well, that's the kind of thing that's going to make people feel like chumps and will drive a huge wedge between the supporters and the cult leader.  There will be dead-enders of course. Even Nixon at the time he resigned was at 23 percent in the polls. You're never going to be able to change those people's minds.But for the great bulk of the population, particularly the people who don't follow politics all that closely, they'll be more willing to shift their commitments … but hard evidence is going to have to come out. It can't just be a headline in the New York Times. It's going to have to be something really explosive that moves the needle. We're not there yet....
=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/say-again-trumps-intel-chief-bursts-shocked-laughter-after-white-house-announces">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/say-again-trumps-intel-chief-bursts-shocked-laughter-after-white-house-announces</a>the White House were actively trying to undermine its own communications operations, it's hard to imagine that it could do much better than its abysmal performance this week.After dealing with the fallout of President Donald Trump’s botched and disastrous summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, and several transparent attempts to clean up the president’s mess, press secretary Sarah Sanders announced Thursday that the authoritarian leader had been invited to visit the White House in the fall.At almost the exact same time of Sanders’ announcement, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats — a Trump appointee — said at the Aspen Security Forum that Russia is continuing to launch cyberattacks and propaganda warfare against the United States.  When Coats was informed of the upcoming meeting live on stage, he looked shocked: "Say that again?" Then he burst into stunned laughter. "Okay... that's going to be special."putin real estate<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/heres-why-trump-tries-so-hard-be-putins-good-side">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/heres-why-trump-tries-so-hard-be-putins-good-side</a>dingdong pruitt bails 7/18<div style="">=</div><div style="">ch d v</div><div style=""> Trump is engaged in a systematic effort to make the United States less powerful and less respected around the world. America is too great a country to be defeated and brought down by an outside power. Such damage can likely only be inflicted from within at the hands of a dangerous president, a feckless political party and their tens of millions of authoritarian followers.President Barack Obama warned about this threat in his farewell address:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But protecting our way of life, that's not just the job of our military. Democracy can buckle when it gives in to fear. So, just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are. ... So let's be vigilant, but not afraid. ISIL will try to kill innocent people. But they cannot defeat America unless we betray our Constitution and our principles in the fight. Rivals like Russia or China cannot match our influence around the world -- unless we give up what we stand for and turn ourselves into just another big country that bullies smaller neighbors. Which brings me to my final point: Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted....</blockquote></div><div style=""><div style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-coal-air-pollution-2584326441.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-coal-air-pollution-2584326441.html</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">Trump's Coal Bailout Could Cause Spike in Deaths From Pollution</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2584326441" data-authors="Climate Nexus" data-headline="Trump's Coal Bailout Could Cause Spike in Deaths From Pollution" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description">The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> administration's plan to bail out <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" style="text-decoration-line: none;">coal</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/nuclear" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nuclear</a> industries could cause one American death from pollution for every two to four additional coal jobs generated over the next two years, according to new research.A <a href="http://www.rff.org/research/publications/retirements-and-funerals-emission-mortality-and-coal-mine-employment-effects?utm_source=Resources+for+the+Future&utm_campaign=528a7815f6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_05_05_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e896179bd7-528a7815f6-100114685" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">study</a> released Thursday from Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan think tank, finds that the plan could cause between 353 to 815 premature deaths between 2019 and 2020 while generating fewer than 800 coal jobs. The study also finds that the plan would increase CO2 emissions by 22 million tons, or roughly the same amount as 4.3 million additional cars on the road.</div></div></div></div><div style=""><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-spewed-mind-blowing-100-false-claims-one-week-report">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-spewed-mind-blowing-100-false-claims-one-week-report</a></div><div>
</div><div>One of the most punctilious trackers of President Donald Trump's dishonesty revealed Firday that his mendacity has reached new heights in recent weeks. In the last seven days, the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/analysis/2018/07/06/donald-trump-makes-100-false-claims-for-second-consecutive-week.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Toronto Star</a> reported, Trump made 100 false claims in public, coming just under his total of 103 false claims the previous week.</div>"As usual, part of the explanation for the barrage of lies and other dishonesty was simply that Trump talked a lot," explained the Star's Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Dale.But this rate represents a huge upsurge nevertheless. Dale reports that in prior months, Trump has never exceeded more than 60 falsehoods per week — an impressive sum itself by any measure.  Overall, his rate of dishonesty is accelerating."The pace of the president’s dishonesty has increased significantly in 2018," Dale writes. "After averaging 2.9 false claims per day in 2017, he is averaging 5.1 per day in 2018."It's easy enough to write these findings off as obvious. Every reasonable observer will conclude that Trump is a liar, and even when he's not actively lying, he clearly has little regard for the truth of his statements.And yet the increasing rate of Trump's dishonesty surely tells us something important. As he plows through his second year in office, he appears to be more prone to making wild and untrue claims, perhaps suggesting an underlying anxiety about his myriad failures as president, the looming special counsel's investigation, and the upcoming midterm elections that will be seen as a referendum on his time in the White House.While Trump has always felt compelled to obscure the truth, he seems to think it's important to mislead the public now more than ever....<div>
</div><div></div></div><div style=""></div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/where-did-tax-benefits-trump-promised-average-americans-go-straight-big-oil-big-pharma-and-their">https://www.alternet.org/where-did-tax-benefits-trump-promised-average-americans-go-straight-big-oil-big-pharma-and-their</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Any tax cuts working families received this year after the Republican Party pushed through its <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/30/under-gop-tax-law-top-1-get-extra-33000-year-poor-40" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tax law</a> have likely been canceled out by higher costs of gas, healthcare, and other necessities, according to Americans for Tax Fairness (AFT), due to President Donald Trump's policies.The average American family is paying $420 more per year for fuel than they did before Trump entered office in January 2017, the group <a href="https://americansfortaxfairness.org/gas-prices-health-care-costs-rising-many-americans-will-see-no-benefit-trump-gop-tax-cuts/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> this week, while Trump's changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will cost middle class households an average of $2,000 more in healthcare costs than they paid previously.While traveling around the country selling their tax proposal, Republicans including Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) promised an <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/02/instead-2-trillion-corporate-tax-cut-gop-could-give-average-american-families-17000" style="text-decoration-line: none;">average tax cut </a>of $1,182 for the average American family—far less than the rising costs of necessities.  As AFT executive director Frank Clemente <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/04/july-fourth-americans-should-rebel-against-gop-economic-policies" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted,</a> the wealthiest Americans are enjoying a $51,000 tax cut this year alone while working families see little benefit to the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act."American families are seeing this tax cut law for what it is—a scam," said Clemente in a <a href="https://americansfortaxfairness.org/gas-prices-health-care-costs-rising-many-americans-will-see-no-benefit-trump-gop-tax-cuts/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a>. "It's a handout to the wealthy and big corporations while many of us will see little or nothing, especially when rising gas prices and higher health insurance premiums are factored in."Seventeen major oil and gas companies are saving $25 billion on their taxes this year, and four of the largest will get tax cuts of $15 billion over the next decade, according to AFT.Public Citizen has also tied <a href="https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/blame-trump-pump-highest-july-fourth-gas-prices-2014" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rising gas prices</a> to a number of Trump's policies, including his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/03/un-chief-implores-trump-maintain-important-diplomatic-victory-and-stay-iran-nuclear" style="text-decoration-line: none;">against the advice</a> of international leaders, which promptly sent oil prices <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/06/investing/oil-prices-70-dollars-barrel/index.html?iid=EL%20" style="text-decoration-line: none;">skyrocketing</a> to their highest levels since 2014.  Trump's proposed plan to roll back clean car standards—which saved Americans nearly $60 billion in gas costs—and his decision to export U.S. oil instead of encouraging companies to sell it domestically, have also contributed to sticker shock.According to ATF:"Because of Trump's costly policies, there will be fireworks for oil company profits this July Fourth at the expense of American consumers," said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program.</div><div style="">=</div><div style="">...As Trump rejects trade unions and would marginalize their members, it is time for Americans to speak out. On May 25, 2018, he issued three executive orders savagely attacking the largest sector of trade unionism—the federal sector. Trump is dangerous. He is also as serious as a heart attack on public employees and their unions’ official time, space arrangements and federal civil service protections. The Labor and Employee Relations Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is already chomping at the bit to implement Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/05/29/trumps-orders-show-unwavering-attack-on-federal-unions-employees/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">three anti-union executive orders</a>, two of which target labor organization and one that makes it easier to fire federal civil servants. Part of that effort is to deny union members the opportunity—and their privilege—to visit with lawmakers on official time. Should you be worried that these executive orders attacking federal unions—which are comprised of scientists and engineers—might negatively impact the environment and public health? Yes, if you’re concerned that a surge in allowable levels of particle and <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/pennsylvania-cities-have-some-of-the-worst-air-pollution-in-the-country/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ozone pollution in Pennsylvania</a> can harm children’s lungs. Yes, if you’re concerned that this White House will permit further <a href="https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/chemical-pollution-great-lakes.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">contamination of drinking water resources in our Great Lakes</a>. Yes, if you’re concerned that EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s arbitrary choices for Superfund remediation will give, according to an <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/administrator-pruitt-updates-list-superfund-sites-targeted-immediate-intense-action" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA press release</a>, “immediate and intense action” to some sites, while ignoring more acutely in-need and neglected <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16385568/hurricane-harvey-superfund-site-houston-dioxin-cancer-chemicals" style="text-decoration-line: none;">toxic lands in Houston</a> and across the nation. Yes, if you’re concerned that continued inaction is exacerbating the <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/flooding-hot-spots-why-seas-are-rising-faster-on-the-u.s.-east-coast" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate crisis along America’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts</a>.Without AFGE Council 238—the union for more than 8,000 EPA workers—there will be no one to let Congress know exactly what is going on at the EPA under <a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/3-ways-epa-chief-scott-pruitt-protects-polluters-not-people" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">Pruitt’s unethical leadership</a>. There will be more pressure put on EPA staff to certify state and local laboratories that don’t meet minimal standards, to approve air, water and land permits absent adequate protection of human health and the environment. And approvals of dangerous pesticides would be rushed through without adequate scientific review. In a nutshell, without the union protecting whistleblowers, they will not blow the whistle because they need their jobs to pay their mortgage, utilities and children’s education.To Trump’s discontent, labor is organized—and protesting. It will, however, require action by the judicial branch to rectify the president’s trampling on the legislative branch and existing statutes. So, perhaps America is moving backwards in time. Take, for example, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. Following the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled job seeker, Congress passed the act, which was introduced by Sen. George Pendleton (D-Ohio). It provided that federal government jobs be awarded based on merit and through competitive exams. It stopped the appointment of people to governmental offices merely because of their political affiliation or their connection to the president. The law offended politicians who belong to a small clique that controls a political party. These “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine" style="text-decoration-line: none;">machine politicians</a>” realized that with the Pendleton Act in place, they would have to find new means of income, as they could no longer count on donations from the wealthy hoping to receive jobs.Ultimately, Trump would end civil service protections and destroy labor’s federal sector unions. In February 2017, Trump <a href="https://www.bna.com/trumps-new-labor-n57982084346/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">quietly hired</a> James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation to handle labor and employment policy. Sherk believes that federal workers are overpaid; <a href="https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/15-minimum-wages-will-substantially-raise-prices" style="text-decoration-line: none;">he opposes increasing the minimum wage</a> and expanding workers’ rights. He was indoctrinated at the Koch-funded <a href="https://ourfuture.org/20161215/hillsdale-college-connection-reveals-trumps-extremist-education-agenda" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Hillsdale College</a> that has helped to advance the corporate agenda of ALEC, the <a href="https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>, to undermine the rights of workers using their so-called model legislation, which benefits special interests in more than a third of our 50 states. Fast forward to 2018, and Trump has made cronyism the order of the day, filling the executive branch with many who are simply unqualified to hold their positions. Trump would deny working families benefits protected by the Constitution. Those rights include collective bargaining on pay and working conditions, legal services, personal representation, health and safety and fairness. Trump’s executive orders would prevent our federal workforce from organizing. The right-wing Heritage Foundation was Sherk’s proving ground for Trump’s White House. It’s where he honed his craft of limiting the influence that unions have and undermining workers’ rights. Sherk is also a proponent of local governments pushing “right-to-work laws,” statutes in 28 states that prohibit agreements between employers and labor unions. Notably, three major aspects in <a href="https://www.nrtw.org/right-to-work-states/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">right-to-work states</a> are: 1) The right to work for <a href="https://iupat.org/campaigns/right-to-work-for-less/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">significantly less money</a>; 2) the right to work with <a href="https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/reports/2017/05/18/167539/right-work-harm-americans/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">less training</a>; and 3) the right to work with <a href="https://www.lhsfna.org/index.cfm/lifelines/august-2016/why-right-to-work-is-wrong-for-safety/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">fewer safety conditions</a>.Considering the fact that most Republicans disdain unelected federal employees and labor unions comprising working women and men, it’s difficult to feel optimistic. It’s hard to hold out much hope for the federal sector and labor unions under the Trump regime. If federal sector unions go, then the “<a href="https://savetheusepa.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Save the U.S. EPA Campaign</a>”—a national campaign being conducted by AFGE Council 238 and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to stop the destruction of the EPA—goes away as well. The interests of the coal and fossil fuel industries will continue to be placed above those of the American public. The abuse of taxpayer dollars will also go on, while jobs and programs that are critical to the health and safety of America’s air, water, land and endangered species will be drastically cut or even eliminated. Science will be undermined. Public health will suffer.Trump and Pruitt are reducing protections of federal employees to enshrine an era of cronyism. Simultaneously, they threaten the environmental protections for all Americans by refusing to staff open positions at EPA. By design, that will result in fewer civil servants keeping our land, water and air clean. Trump and his chief sycophant at the EPA will call that ‘Victory!’But the blame does not fall entirely on the Republicans. It is shared by the Democrats who consistently fail to vigorously support labor unions. For years, the pendulum has remained to the far right. As a result, one agency and department after another fail to meet objectives because they are not only understaffed and under-budgeted, but are filled with toadies. Meanwhile the people’s work doesn’t get done. The American taxpayers and voters are not served, while the Koch Brothers and their Republican cohorts get richer and more powerful. Worse yet, the best and the brightest younger generation is no longer attracted to government positions because they are treated with hostility, like second-class citizens. Morale at the EPA is down, because the moralities of America’s elected leaders are in the gutter. “…Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.” Who’s next? Maybe the Democrats?This article was produced by <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Earth | Food | Life</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</div><div style=""> =</div>an digby...ut it appears that Kim sized up Trump as an inexperienced and uninformed buffoon who would allow him to carry on his nuclear program and simply tell the public that it wasn't happening rather than admit that his "deal" was a sham. (He didn't actually have to meet him to know that: After all Trump is one of the only people in history who went bankrupt running casinos.) And that is exactly what's happening.I mentioned last week that satellite analysis showed that North Koreans were building up their nuclear research facility. But that's not all. The Wall Street journal <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-expands-key-missile-manufacturing-plant-1530486907&source=gmail&ust=1530617565649000&usg=AFQjCNGPVOPRlW5e_M_IB_DvouhvZicAcw" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-expands-key-missile-manufacturing-plant-1530486907" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> this on Sunday:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">North Korea is completing a major expansion of a key missile-manufacturing plant, said researchers who have examined new satellite imagery of the site, the latest sign Pyongyang is pushing ahead with weapons programs even as the U.S. pressures it to abandon them.The facility makes solid-fuel ballistic missiles — which would be able to strike U.S. military installations in Asia with a nuclear weapon with little warning — as well as re-entry vehicles for warheads that Pyongyang might use on longer-range missiles able to hit the continental U.S.</blockquote>NBC <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korea-has-increased-nuclear-production-secret-sites-say-u-n887926&source=gmail&ust=1530617565649000&usg=AFQjCNFMm4fKmnZpSgMlhqRapwKKJECaKg" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korea-has-increased-nuclear-production-secret-sites-say-u-n887926" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported </a>last week that more than a dozen intelligence sources confirmed to them that "North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong-un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration." They see "a regime positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration — while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival." Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/06/30/world/asia/30reuters-northkorea-china.html&source=gmail&ust=1530617565649000&usg=AFQjCNH63r1L1MaXMhEvH079Ix-AzQ1M9g" href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/06/30/world/asia/30reuters-northkorea-china.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that Kim has asked Chinese President Xi Jinping for early relief of sanctions and Xi told him he would make the “utmost effort” to help out.In an interview with Fox Business News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Trump reassured his followers for the hundredth time that he had great "chemistry" with Kim and said, "I made a deal with him. I shook hands with him. I really believe he means it." He finally shrugged, reluctantly admitting that it "may not work out," as if it were a development deal for some hotel in Miami Beach rather than the possible annihilation of millions of people.It's all working out quite well for North Korea. Sanctions are being relaxed, the U.S. is pulling back militarily and the regime is continuing to build up its nuclear arsenal. Kim must have read "The Art of the Deal" before the summit.Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1009848555333410816&source=gmail&ust=1530617565649000&usg=AFQjCNEkzq_JhfHeIPNu9iSv_fLrSbVXVg" href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1009848555333410816" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">seems to be feeding</a> Trump's delusional thinking by saying things like, "[Kim] made a personal commitment. His reputation is on the line in the same way that we are, that says we're going to create a brighter future for North Korea and denuclearize as quickly as we can achieve that." That sounds suspiciously like the neocon fever dreams that led to the Iraq war, but perhaps in this case it's the only thing keeping Trump from doing something truly crazy.The Bartiromo interview also featured more of Trump's Euro-bashing, which seems to be ratcheting up in advance of the upcoming NATO meeting and his summit with Putin in Helsinki.Trump told Bartiromo that he didn't want to single out China on trade, which was surprising to say the least. He also reiterated his how much he likes Xi personally, noting that he's "president for life, you can call him the king, right?" Which clearly sounds great to him.It was national security adviser John Bolton who made real news about the Helsinki summit on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, when he confirmed that Trump is seriously thinking of recognizing Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea. He did this in an especially weird way:As for the big Putin summit, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1012295859072126977&source=gmail&ust=1530617565650000&usg=AFQjCNFoatW_qGE43FFZbmU8jVn0Wax8eQ" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1012295859072126977" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tweeted</a> last week that Russia continues to insist it had nothing to do with any interference in the 2016 election. But apparently he will grudgingly bring it up again:That's not something you hear someone in Bolton's position say every day. The above-referenced exchange about Putin seems equally odd. Perhaps there is trouble brewing again in Trump's national security team?The upshot of this interview was that Trump is planning on rewarding Putin's interference in the 2016, and potentially in the 2018 midterms as well, by starting a trade war with Europe, degrading the NATO alliance and deciding to let bygones be bygones when it comes to the incursion into Crimea.No word on what Trump might ask for from the Russian leader in return. If it's anything like the North Korea deal, since Putin and Trump have such "chemistry," we can assume it will be nothing.Bolton told "Fox News Sunday" that people shouldn't "have a case of the vapors over discussions we have in NATO or the G7 versus discussions we have with Putin or Kim Jong-un," because they're "very different." Actually, they're not. Trump responds positively to flattery from anyone, but gives away the store to strongmen and treats allies like dirt.Bolton is proving to be just as much over his head as Trump is.Oh, and by the way, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-trade-war-leaked-bill-world-trade-organization-united-states-d51278d2-0516-4def-a4d3-ed676f4e0f83.html?utm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwsocialshare%26utm_campaign%3Dorganic&source=gmail&ust=1530617565650000&usg=AFQjCNFaslEd1euPwWdvItZG8s0ZLaZMaQ" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-trade-war-leaked-bill-world-trade-organization-united-states-d51278d2-0516-4def-a4d3-ed676f4e0f83.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twsocialshare&utm_campaign=organic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Axios</a> reported on Sunday night that Trump is also considering a unilateral withdrawal from the World Trade Organization. He's had draft legislation drawn up called the "United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act," which "provides Trump a license to raise U.S. tariffs at will, without congressional consent and international rules be damned."...<div style=""></div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/north-korea-reportedly-duped-trump-it-ramps-production-nuclear-fuel-they-are">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/north-korea-reportedly-duped-trump-it-ramps-production-nuclear-fuel-they-are</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Despite President Donald Trump's confident declaration after meeting with leader Kim Jong-un that North Korea's nuclear threat has passed, NBC News reported Friday that multiple intelligence community officials believe the rogue regime is, in fact, ramping up its production of nuclear fuel."There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea," <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1006837823469735936" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> said after the Singapore summit. "Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"Even this unrealistic assessment was quickly countered by his own <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-said-theres-no-more-nuclear-threat-north-korea-white-house-just-admitted-was" style="text-decoration-line: none;">declaration</a>that, in fact, North Korea remains a nuclear threat.  But now NBC News finds that not only does the country's standing nuclear arsenal remain, "North Korea was stepping up its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons" even while the negotiations were ongoing.As many observers noted, just meeting with the regime was something of a concession, since North Korean leaders have long sought to be seen as equal with the United States on the world stage. Trump also, completely unnecessarily, praised Kim effusively, despite the fact that he is a murderous dictator.But perhaps most strikingly, Trump decided to cancel the upcoming joint U.S. military exercises with South Korea, a major win for the Kim regime, even while the president received no tangible concessions in return.The country has paused testing of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, the officials told NBC News, but it is apparently not working to decrease its weapons stockpiles. The officials believe, in fact, that it is working to conceal its military capabilities from the Americans."There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the U.S.," one official reportedly said....<div>
</div><div>=</div></div>blames dems for baby jails, thot wd be winner issue w/ base<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...Trump bringing in Fox News people is now just a regular thing. It’s commonplace to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/business/media/jeanine-pirro-of-fox-news-helps-an-old-friend-president-trump.html" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">see</a> Fox host Jeanine Pirro in the Oval Office one day, and <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19664404/trump-lou-dobbs-policy-meetings/" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">hear about</a> host Lou Dobbs phoning in White House meetings the next. Fox & Friends weekend host Pete Hegseth is <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/03/14/trump-wants-to-put-fox-friends-host-in-charge-of-va/" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">rumored</a> to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs one week and is being <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1011566994481733632" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">considered</a> for a communications job a few weeks later. Former Fox & Friends anchor Heather Nauert was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/who-heather-nauert-former-fox-friends-host-trump-just-appointed-top-state-844923" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">installed</a> at a top position in the Department of State. Former Fox contributor John Bolton <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/25/fox-news-trumps-team-west-wing-casting-call" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">became</a> the national security adviser. Former Fox commentator Mercedes Schlapp <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/who-mercedes-schlapp-white-house-strategic-communications-director-backs-kelly-923505" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">is the</a> director of strategic communications at the White House. Former Fox commentator <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-fox-news-white-house-latest-john-bolton-larry-kudlow-west-wing-heather-nauert-mercedes-a8273166.html" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">Tony Sayegh</a> is a Treasury Department’s spokesperson. Former Fox commentator Richard Grenell <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/26/richard-grenell-trump-ambassador-germany-confirmed" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">is now</a> ambassador to Germany.So yeah, Bill Shine is a perfect fit for the Trump White House.</div>There are also those who didn’t make it: former contributor K.T. McFarland <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-agonizingly-slow-downfall-of-k-t-mcfarland" style="text-decoration-line: none;">resigned</a> as deputy national security adviser and later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/kt-mcfarland-nomination-ambassador.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">withdrew</a> her nomination to become ambassador to Singapore due to controversy over work for disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn; and contributor Monica Crowley was never hired after it was <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/monica-crowley-plagiarism-phd-dissertation-columbia-214612" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that she <a href="https://money.cnn.com/interactive/news/kfile-monica-crowley-dissertation-plagiarism/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plagiarized</a> parts of her Ph.D. dissertation. And there’ve been rumors at various times that Trump is considering hiring Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity....<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>=</div><div>omg</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/trump-mulls-hiring-former-fox-news-executive-who-covered-sexual-harassment-gets-bill-oreilly-stamp">https://www.alternet.org/trump-mulls-hiring-former-fox-news-executive-who-covered-sexual-harassment-gets-bill-oreilly-stamp</a></div><div>
</div><div>...uring the Trump administration, the position was also held by Sean Spicer twice, Mike Dubke and for ten days, by Anthony Scaramucci.</div><blockquote data-lang="en">SCOOP: Former <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">@FoxNews</a> co-president Bill Shine is in final talks with <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">@realDonaldTrump</a> about becoming <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">@WhiteHouse</a>Communications Director. Announcement could be soon.— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnrobertsFox/status/1011998905779834882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 27, 2018</a></blockquote>The move was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/us/politics/bill-shine-white-house-trump.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">confirmed</a> by The New York Times, which reported, “the move has not been finalized, but two people familiar with the decision said it was likely to be announced and that the president had offered him the job.”Shine left Fox News in May of 2017 after <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/fox-co-president-bill-shine-ousted-in-latest-fallout-from-sexual-harassment-scandal-report/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">women at the network reportedly circulated a petition demanding he be fired</a>.Shine reportedly told a female executive that the network’s pattern of sexual harassment was a “<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/ousted-fox-president-shine-told-female-exec-her-male-colleagues-sexual-harassment-was-a-necessary-evil/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">necessary evil</a>.”
“Officials at the White House are aware that they will face blowback for appointing someone so closely tied to Mr. Ailes and the culture of harassment toward women at Fox News,” The Timesnoted. “But they said Wednesday that they believe they can weather it.”It was also reported at the time that Shine had <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/accuser-says-ex-fox-exec-bill-shine-tried-to-have-her-committed-to-psych-hospital-against-her-will/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">attempted to have a female executive institutionalized against her will at a psychiatric hospital</a> to prevent her going public with about sexual harassment by former Fox News boss Roger Ailes.According to The Times, Kellyanne Conway declined the position and Mercedes Schlapp was not offered the job.<div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/short-list-giant-failures-brought-america-donald-trump">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/short-list-giant-failures-brought-america-donald-trump</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">sum, green:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">environment, Trump would likely disagree that there’s been an issue, because destroying the environment has been part of his plan from the beginning. On this one, it’s not just difficult, but impossible to believe that Trump doesn’t know that his statements are at odds with his actions. Trump has killed the Waters of the United States rule, blocked the Stream Protection rule, and done in the Ocean Protection rule. These moves have opened up everything from temporary lakes on the prairie that are critical to bird migration, to major rivers used for water supplies by cities, to oceans on all sides of the nation to increased pollution and “industrialization.” In fact, more “industrial uses” of U.S. waters and adjoining oceans is exactly what Trump’s policies call for.On the air front, Trump has destroyed the Clean Power Plan, scaled back CAFE standards, and done everything he can to ease the use of more highly-polluting power sources. That goes all the way to instituting policies that favor coal over natural gas … for reasons that seem to be little short of “because it’s worse.”And of course, as he has in other areas, when it comes to the international front Trump took an enormous move to isolate and humiliate the United States by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. To do so, Trump tried to sell the idea that an agreement that is totally voluntary somehow represented too great a burden for America to bear. It was another sign to another nations in the long list of “America: Why bother?” that Trump has been pushing.INFRASTRUCTUREThis is a short item, because Trump’s actions on infrastructure are … well, there aren’t any. Few areas are more visible to Americans. Few areas offer more possibilities for improvement. Few areas have been more roundly ignored by Trump.Despite declaring Infrastructure Week more often than marketing organizations have proclaimed National Donut Day, Pizza Day, or Pizza-Donut Day, each of those infrastructure weeks was notable only for all the non-infrastructure-related news each seemed to bring. This is despite the fact there are few programs that could make a greater impact on both employment and the day-to-day lives of Americans.One of the reasons this isn’t happening? Trump can pump smoke into the atmosphere and still claim to care about “clean clear air.” He can walk away from North Korea with nothing, and still tell Americans to “sleep tight.” He can even rip children away from their parents and talk about how much “Democrats love MS-13.” But if he starts claiming to have filled potholes, people might notice.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">devos combine dept ed with labor?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-attack-federal-labor-unions-harms-epa-environment-and-public-health">https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-attack-federal-labor-unions-harms-epa-environment-and-public-health</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump's Attack on Federal Labor Unions Harms the EPA, Environment and Public Health</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By marginalizing federal employees, Trump is risking America’s health and ecosystems.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By John O'Grady / Independent Media Institute June 22, 2018, 9:15 PM GMT</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And, history is definitely repeating itself. President Donald Trump’s rule-by-decree executive orders, especially regarding federal labor unions, remind me of the late Rev. Friedrich Niemöller, a German Lutheran pastor best known for a widely paraphrased statement:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Because I was not a Socialist.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Because I was not a Trade Unionist.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Because I was not a Jew.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">As Trump rejects trade unions and would marginalize their members, it is time for Americans to speak out. On May 25, 2018, he issued three executive orders savagely attacking the largest sector of trade unionism—the federal sector. Trump is dangerous. He is also as serious as a heart attack on public employees and their unions’ official time, space arrangements and federal civil service protections. The Labor and Employee Relations Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is already chomping at the bit to implement Trump’s three anti-union executive orders, two of which target labor organization and one that makes it easier to fire federal civil servants. Part of that effort is to deny union members the opportunity—and their privilege—to visit with lawmakers on official time. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Should you be worried that these executive orders attacking federal unions—which are comprised of scientists and engineers—might negatively impact the environment and public health? Yes, if you’re concerned that a surge in allowable levels of particle and ozone pollution in Pennsylvania can harm children’s lungs. Yes, if you’re concerned that this White House will permit further contamination of drinking water resources in our Great Lakes. Yes, if you’re concerned that EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s arbitrary choices for Superfund remediation will give, according to an EPA press release, “immediate and intense action” to some sites, while ignoring more acutely in-need and neglected toxic lands in Houston and across the nation. Yes, if you’re concerned that continued inaction is exacerbating the climate crisis along America’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Without AFGE Council 238—the union for more than 8,000 EPA workers—there will be no one to let Congress know exactly what is going on at the EPA under Pruitt’s unethical leadership. There will be more pressure put on EPA staff to certify state and local laboratories that don’t meet minimal standards, to approve air, water and land permits absent adequate protection of human health and the environment. And approvals of dangerous pesticides would be rushed through without adequate scientific review. In a nutshell, without the union protecting whistleblowers, they will not blow the whistle because they need their jobs to pay their mortgage, utilities and children’s education.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To Trump’s discontent, labor is organized—and protesting. It will, however, require action by the judicial branch to rectify the president’s trampling on the legislative branch and existing statutes. So, perhaps America is moving backwards in time. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Take, for example, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. Following the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled job seeker, Congress passed the act, which was introduced by Sen. George Pendleton (D-Ohio). It provided that federal government jobs be awarded based on merit and through competitive exams. It stopped the appointment of people to governmental offices merely because of their political affiliation or their connection to the president. The law offended politicians who belong to a small clique that controls a political party. These “machine politicians” realized that with the Pendleton Act in place, they would have to find new means of income, as they could no longer count on donations from the wealthy hoping to receive jobs.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fast forward to 2018, and Trump has made cronyism the order of the day, filling the executive branch with many who are simply unqualified to hold their positions. Trump would deny working families benefits protected by the Constitution. Those rights include collective bargaining on pay and working conditions, legal services, personal representation, health and safety and fairness. Trump’s executive orders would prevent our federal workforce from organizing. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Ultimately, Trump would end civil service protections and destroy labor’s federal sector unions. In February 2017, Trump quietly hired James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation to handle labor and employment policy. Sherk believes that federal workers are overpaid; he opposes increasing the minimum wage and expanding workers’ rights. He was indoctrinated at the Koch-funded Hillsdale College that has helped to advance the corporate agenda of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, to undermine the rights of workers using their so-called model legislation, which benefits special interests in more than a third of our 50 states. </div><div style="">
</div><div style="">The right-wing Heritage Foundation was Sherk’s proving ground for Trump’s White House. It’s where he honed his craft of limiting the influence that unions have and undermining workers’ rights. Sherk is also a proponent of local governments pushing “right-to-work laws,” statutes in 28 states that prohibit agreements between employers and labor unions. Notably, three major aspects in right-to-work states are: 1) The right to work for significantly less money; 2) the right to work with less training; and 3) the right to work with fewer safety conditions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Considering the fact that most Republicans disdain unelected federal employees and labor unions comprising working women and men, it’s difficult to feel optimistic. It’s hard to hold out much hope for the federal sector and labor unions under the Trump regime. If federal sector unions go, then the “Save the U.S. EPA Campaign”—a national campaign being conducted by AFGE Council 238 and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to stop the destruction of the EPA—goes away as well. The interests of the coal and fossil fuel industries will continue to be placed above those of the American public. The abuse of taxpayer dollars will also go on, while jobs and programs that are critical to the health and safety of America’s air, water, land and endangered species will be drastically cut or even eliminated. Science will be undermined. Public health will suffer.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump and Pruitt are reducing protections of federal employees to enshrine an era of cronyism. Simultaneously, they threaten the environmental protections for all Americans by refusing to staff open positions at EPA. By design, that will result in fewer civil servants keeping our land, water and air clean. Trump and his chief sycophant at the EPA will call that ‘Victory!’</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But the blame does not fall entirely on the Republicans. It is shared by the Democrats who consistently fail to vigorously support labor unions. For years, the pendulum has remained to the far right. As a result, one agency and department after another fail to meet objectives because they are not only understaffed and under-budgeted, but are filled with toadies. Meanwhile the people’s work doesn’t get done. The American taxpayers and voters are not served, while the Koch Brothers and their Republican cohorts get richer and more powerful. Worse yet, the best and the brightest younger generation is no longer attracted to government positions because they are treated with hostility, like second-class citizens. Morale at the EPA is down, because the moralities of America’s elected leaders are in the gutter. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“…Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.” Who’s next? Maybe the Democrats?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">wapo</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-signed-tax-returns-false-information-under-penalty-perjury-least-4-times">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-signed-tax-returns-false-information-under-penalty-perjury-least-4-times</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=<div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/trumps-getting-us-ready-fight-nuclear-war">https://www.alternet.org/trumps-getting-us-ready-fight-nuclear-war</a></div><div style="">cf mattis on china war</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">=</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-has-plan-even-further-demonize-food-stamps" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-has-plan-even-further-demonize-food-stamps</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an attempt to find new ways to make life worse for people receiving any government benefits, the Trump administration is seeking to lump together all government benefit programs into a renamed and reorganized Department of Health and Human Services. And you can be sure that the word “welfare” will be emphasized in any new organization.</div>According to a <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/06/trump-reorganize-federal-government-629133" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">story</a> that ran first in Politico, the White House Office of Management and Budget soon will release a new report outlining a plan to move all safety-net programs into HHS and to give the federal department a new name, emphasizing the “welfare” moniker that used to be part of the department’s name. A big reason for this recommendation is to lump the $70 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, more commonly known as food stamps, in with Medicare and Medicaid. SNAP would move out of the Department of Agriculture, where it is now housed.The reasoning is likely that once these benefits are combined under one departmental roof, it will be easier to cut them all.<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062018/trump-epa-air-pollution-data-clean-water-regulations-public-health-environmental-laws-harvard-study">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062018/trump-epa-air-pollution-data-clean-water-regulations-public-health-environmental-laws-harvard-study</a>Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's own numbers, two Harvard scientists have calculated that 80,000 more lives will be lost per decade if President Donald Trump's administration fulfills its plans to roll back clean air and water protections.<div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The researchers, terming their tally "an extremely conservative estimate," also estimated that the repeal of regulations will lead to respiratory problems for more than 1 million people. Their <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2684596?appid=scweb&appid=scweb&alert=article" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">essay</a> was published Tuesday in the authoritative Journal of the American Medical Association."We felt it was important to take a comprehensive view," said Francesca Dominici, a biostatistician and co-director of the Data Science Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "Some people, when looking at one specific repealing of a rule, might not think it's important. We wanted to put some numbers on the whole systematic repeal of rule after rule."She  and David Cutler, an economist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, drew their calculation from the health risk assessments that the EPA conducted during the Obama administration when determining the impact of rules it proposed. Last week, the Trump administration <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062018/pruitt-epa-cost-benefit-analysis-environment-regulation-health-climate-change-proposed-rulemaking" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">signaled it plans to overhaul</a> the way that those cost-benefit studies are conducted. The agency is <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0107-0001" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">taking comments </a>for the next 30 days on its plan, which has the potential to reduce the weight given to human health and climate benefits.Dominici and Cutler decried creating greater risks to the public's health for the benefit of "a relatively few well-connected companies.""The effects of the Trump administration's policies seem clear, even through the haze they will create," they wrote.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;">Pruitt's EPA Challenging the Assessments</h3>The EPA dismissed the article because it was not peer-reviewed but appeared instead in the JAMA Forum, where researchers offer perspectives. "This is not a scientific article, it's a political article," the EPA said in response to InsideClimate News' request for comment.But Dominici noted that she and Cutler pulled the numbers directly from the EPA risk assessments that had been developed for each of the rules they analyzed. "The EPA numbers themselves all rely on peer-reviewed science," Dominici said.The EPA numbers, in fact, are being challenged and in some cases scaled back by the Trump administration as it seeks to revoke or replace Obama-era rules. But these moves face numerous legal challenges, and the agency will have to show that it has not acted arbitrarily or capriciously to pass muster in the courts.It's hard to argue against the ample evidence that if air quality standards are relaxed, the health of those who breathe the air will suffer. The same goes for standards for water, pesticides, toxic waste and so on. Runaway climate change, too, would present a wide range of public health risks.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;">One Rollback, Majority of Respiratory Illnesses</h3>The largest and most immediate health consequences are likely to come through erosion of air quality, Cutler and Domenici wrote. They included in their calculation the repeal of President Barack Obama's signature climate change initiative, the Clean Power Plan, as well as the rollback of vehicle <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042018/climate-change-car-fuel-efficiency-cafe-standards-epa-pruitt-auto-pollution-gas-mileage-california-global-warming" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">fuel economy standards</a> and Trump's tariffs on solar power components from abroad.About 90 percent of the increase in respiratory ailments can be attributed to one deregulatory move—the effort to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23052018/scott-pruitt-epa-climate-change-clean-power-plan-scientific-review-board-trump-administration" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">re-open a loophole </a>that allowed trucks that don't comply with pollution rules to remain on the road, the authors found.Public health scientists have been raising increasing alarms as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has advanced Trump's deregulatory agenda. They have <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scientists-quit-epa-advisory-board-protest-us_us_5915e12fe4b0fe039b3459b6" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">protested </a>Pruitt's move to bar government-funded scientists from sitting on the agency's Science Advisory Board, and nearly 1,000 scientists signed a <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/news/press-release/scientists-oppose-new-pruitt-restrictions#.WyFPHlOUv-Y" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">letter</a> opposing Pruitt's plan to place restrictions on the EPA's use of science.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;">Pruitt's 'Secret Science' Plan Targets Health Data</h3>In their JAMA essay, Dominici and Cutler singled out the move to curb agency use of science as one of the most potentially consequential, because Pruitt is <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032018/epa-air-pollution-soot-rules-scott-pruitt-secret-science-policy-health-regulations" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">targeting epidemiological studies of human subjects</a>. Although Pruitt calls this a move for greater "transparency," Dominici said it would in fact bar EPA consideration of precisely the kinds of studies that formed the basis of the calculations that she and Cutler did."They are attacking the science because the science is what is putting the number of deaths where they are," she said. "It's a tactic to discredit the science, so that health impact analysis will not be able to be done any more."The EPA, which received more than 150,000 public comments in 30 days on its proposal to restrict agency science, has extended the <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259-0620" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">comment period</a>on that proposal through August.  The agency also has set a July 17 hearing in Washington, D.C., on the plan.</div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;">PUBLISHED UNDER:</label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/regulation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">REGULATION</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;">HEALTH</div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/scott-pruitt" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">SCOTT PRUITT</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">DONALD TRUMP</a></div></div></div></div>
see Agnotology<a href="https://www.alternet.org/were-america-btch-white-house-allies-detail-trump-administrations-fck-obama-doctrine">https://www.alternet.org/were-america-btch-white-house-allies-detail-trump-administrations-fck-obama-doctrine</a>=grid security bs coal nuke<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12062018/ferc-no-power-grid-national-security-emergency-trump-perry-coal-subsidy-energy-regulators-congress">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12062018/ferc-no-power-grid-national-security-emergency-trump-perry-coal-subsidy-energy-regulators-congress</a><div style="">=</div><div style="">trump wants russia back, bullies cda, tariffs</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10062018/g7-summit-climate-change-communique-trump-allies-estranged-germany-france-canada">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10062018/g7-summit-climate-change-communique-trump-allies-estranged-germany-france-canada</a></div><div style="">
</div>g7 bizarre call for russia re-enter; foto op trudeau not push around, stabe in back --> kudlow <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/watch-trump-economic-adviser-attack-trudeau-false-claim-canadian-leader-stabbed-us">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/watch-trump-economic-adviser-attack-trudeau-false-claim-canadian-leader-stabbed-us</a>briefing bkan ...<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ul><li>Separately, the press and communications staffs assemble clippings — often positive, to contrast the bad news he may be seeing on cable news.</li><li>'“If he reads something in the press, like if he sees it on TV, that grabs his attention,” said a source close to the president.</li><li>The packet can even include screen grabs of cable news chyrons.</li></ul><a href="https://www.axios.com/reality-bites-trumps-wake-up-call-1513299979-3bd3a708-26be-4232-8faa-6970e65c6cf1.html" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The president demands brevity</a>, <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-doesnt-read-his-presidential-briefings-report-1518192747-64a340a0-83dc-43ab-a749-391b48af475e.html" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none;">refusing to engage with briefers</a> like his former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, who’d come in with a PowerPoint deck dozens of pages long, filled with text.<ul><li>“He used complete sentences!” said one person who saw the briefings, and knows better about how Trump likes his information.</li><li>Trump got so exasperated with McMaster that he’d look at other papers on his desk while the national security adviser was talking — his view of an alpha male move to show that the general was failing to interest him.</li></ul><ul><li>The more effective approach with Trump is to use simple, short bullets, or a graphic or timeline — anything demonstrative.</li><li>The bullets are so pithy that one source said they're "basically slogans."</li></ul>McMaster, come back when you have colored buttons for me to press!</blockquote>Sometimes Trump reportedly flips through "The Book" during his "executive time," the morning hours in which Trump hangs out in his jam jams and slurps down diet coke while soaking in all that Fox News goodness like a sponge. Apparently, chief of staff John Kelly made the genius move to block out that time for Trump after he complained about his overly demanding schedule. Some aides would like to minimize Trump's executive time, but just like with a petulant child, once the expectation is set, "there's no going back," according to an unnamed source. Fingers crossed that some crackerjack aide manages to come up with a slick “nuclear North Korea” slogan because, outside of that, Trump doesn't have time to prep for those talks.=bob r AN...United States is premised on an agreement about how to deal with our disagreements. It’s called the Constitution. We trust our system of government enough that we abide by its outcomes even though we may disagree with them. Only once in our history – in 1861 – did enough of us distrust the system so much we succumbed to civil war.  But what happens if a president claims our system is no longer trustworthy?Last week Trump accused the “deep state” of embedding a spy in his campaign for political purposes. “Spygate” soon unraveled after Republican House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy dismissed it, but truth has never silenced Trump for long.Trump’s immediate goal is to discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation. But his strategy appears to go beyond that. In tweets and on Fox News, Trump’s overall mission is repeatedly described as a “war on the deep state.”In his 2013 novel “<a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F0143125311%2F%3Ftag%3Dthneyo0f-20&t=ZDU5ZTcwNzc3NmUxYmNlODExZjBmMDgyN2YwMmJmMzgwOTE4ZWFlZSxJaHNnTHhNRQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F174535949180" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A Delicate Truth</a>,” John le Carré describes the “deep state” as a moneyed élite — “non-governmental insiders from banking, industry, and commerce” who rule in secret.  Instead, Gilens and Page <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.princeton.edu%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fmgilens%2Ffiles%2Fgilens_and_page_2014-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf&t=MzRhOTdkZTgwMGY5ZGNhZTQ3YWVmZjg3NzBiMmI1ZmE4MzkxNmNhYixjUzRQWHFWZw%3D%3D&b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F171488664700" style="text-decoration-line: none;">concluded</a>, lawmakers respond to the policy demands of wealthy individuals and moneyed business interests.America already may be close to that sort of deep state. As Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Professor Benjamin Page of Northwestern University found after analyzing 1,799 policy issues that came before Congress, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”Gilens’ and Page’s data come from the period 1981 to 2002, before the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in its “Citizens United” decision. It’s likely to be far worse now.So when Trump says the political system is “rigged,” he’s not far off the mark. Bernie Sanders said the same thing.A Monmouth Poll released in March <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.monmouth.edu%2Fpolling-institute%2Fdocuments%2Fmonmouthpoll_us_031918.pdf%2F&t=ZThhZTgzZjFmYWI4ZjNkZGFiMTk0MDVhOWNhZjY3OTY0NjNhMDQ3ZSxJaHNnTHhNRQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F174535949180" style="text-decoration-line: none;">found</a> that a bipartisan majority of Americans already believes that an unelected “deep state” is manipulating national policy.In the real world, they’re supposed to be truth-tellers. In Trump’s conspiracy fantasy they’re out to get him – in cahoots with former members of the Obama administration, liberals, and Democrats.But here’s the crucial distinction. Trump’s “deep state” isn’t the moneyed interests. It’s a supposed cabal of government workers, intelligence personnel, researchers, experts, scientists, professors, and journalists – the people who make, advise about, analyze, or report on public policy.Trump has never behaved as if he thought he was president of all Americans, anyway. He’s acted as if he’s only the president of the 63 million who voted for him – certainly not the 66 million who voted for Hillary or anyone who supported Obama.  Nor has he shown any interest in unifying the nation, or speaking to the nation as a whole. Instead, he periodically throws red meat to his overwhelmingly white, rural, and older base.And he has repeatedly shown he couldn’t care less about the Constitution.So what happens if Trump is about to be removed – by impeachment or even an election? In early April, Sean Hannity <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fvideo%2F2018%2F04%2F02%2Fsean-hannity-warns-civil-war-if-mueller-goes-after-trump%2F219822&t=MGU4N2M1YmFiOWY5NWVkY2M4ZGI2MDMxYWJmMmVmMTEyYjM4YzAyZSxJaHNnTHhNRQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F174535949180" style="text-decoration-line: none;">predicted</a> that if impeachment began, “there’s going to be two sides of this that are fighting and dividing this country at a level we’ve never seen” – “those that stand for truth and those that literally buy into the corrupt deep state attacks against a duly elected president.”Last summer, Trump consigliore <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Ftopic%2Froger-stone&t=MjBlMDRhODBmN2EwMjExYzQ1NzdmZWZiYzI3MzQ2ZTE1Zjg0NzE3NyxJaHNnTHhNRQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F174535949180" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Roger Stone</a> <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fus-politics%2Fdonald-trump-roger-stone-impeach-vote-endanger-life-congress-house-senate-white-house-russia-meeting-a7911691.html&t=NDc4ZWIxZjU1ZTJlYTg0ZDhmZGY1ZWI0OWUzNmZiZmU2NDkwOThiNyxJaHNnTHhNRQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AhQ9Ds4P3Iv6D7mgEr8WMqg&p=http%3A%2F%2Frobertreich.org%2Fpost%2F174535949180" style="text-decoration-line: none;">warned</a> of “an insurrection like you’ve never seen,” and claimed any politician who voted to oust Trump “would be endangering their own life.”A second civil war? Probably not. But the way Trump and his defenders are behaving, it’s not absurd to imagine serious social unrest. That’s how low he’s taken us.<div style=""></div><div style="">for a while seemed like he had integrity, eg threat to quit when djt wanted to fire ppl, but: cult corrupt:</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/superfund-task-force-led-lawyer-spills" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/superfund-task-force-led-lawyer-spills</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AP) — A lawyer tapped to lead a task force at the Environmental Protection Agency overseeing cleanups at the nation’s most polluted places worked until recently for a top chemical and plastics manufacturer with a troubled legacy of creating some of those toxic sites.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Steven D. Cook has been named as the new chair of the Superfund Task Force, which EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt created last year to revamp how the agency oversees cleanups at the more than 1,300 toxic sites.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Before beginning work in February as deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, Cook served more than 20 years as in-house corporate counsel for LyondellBasell Industries — one of the world’s largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">EPA records show that LyondellBasell and its subsidiaries are listed as being potentially responsible for at least three dozen Superfund polluted sites.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>An analysis by The Associated Press shows that nearly half the political appointees hired at EPA under President Donald Trump have industry ties. Of more than 60 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the last year, about one-third worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers or other EPA-regulated companies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump promised as a presidential candidate to drain the swamp in Washington. An executive order signed two weeks after his inauguration bars former lobbyists and corporate lawyers from participating in any matter they worked on for private clients within two years of going to work for the government.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Following a request by AP, EPA provided a copy of an April 20 memo Cook signed recusing himself from participating in regulatory matters involving LyondellBasell. However, as stated in the letter, Cook can participate in matters affecting his former employer as long as his actions would also impact at least five similarly situated companies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“All EPA employees receive ethics briefings when they start and continually work with our ethics office regarding any potential conflicts they may encounter while employed here,” said Lincoln Ferguson, an EPA spokesman. “Steven Cook is no different.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>It was not immediately clear whether Cook would be allowed to participate in decisions involving LyondellBasell, anyway. AP reported in March that White House counsel Don McGahn has issued at least 37 ethics waivers to key administration officials, including three working at EPA, that allow them to help regulate the very industries from which they previously collected paychecks even after signing recusals. It was not clear whether Cook was granted a waiver, and Ferguson did not respond to AP’s inquiries on the subject.</div><div>...</div></div></div>---<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/roger-stone-says-trumps-most-recent-pardon-was-clear-signal-his-associates-and">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/roger-stone-says-trumps-most-recent-pardon-was-clear-signal-his-associates-and</a>From the moment President Donald Trump announced his pardon Thursday of conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza, observers began pointing out that the move looked like an attempt to signal to his associates that he's willing to use the pardon power as a weapon against special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into potential Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.While those claims remained largely in the realm of speculation at first, by Thursday night one Trump ally, Roger Stone, told the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-offers-pardon-to-conservative-pundit-dinesh-dsouza-for-campaign-finance-violations/2018/05/31/b4939a08-64d5-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.d5b78ba0eb5c" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post</a> that he had received the message that loud and clear:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It has to be a signal to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and even Robert S. Mueller III: Indict people for crimes that don’t pertain to Russian collusion and this is what could happen,” Stone said. “The special counsel has awesome powers, as you know, but the president has even more awesome powers.”..</blockquote>=anwr drill zinke=bright line cross<a href="https://www.alternet.org/forget-deep-state-trump-state">https://www.alternet.org/forget-deep-state-trump-state</a>...Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company's ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.Where oh where did they ever get the idea that the Republican nominee for president might be open to something so clearly illegal and unethical?As far as we know, the Saudi/UAE assistance never materialized, much like the Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton that Don Jr. was so keen to get his hands on. But it seems that even before he became president, people around the world knew that Donald Trump was a man who could be bought.They knew that because Trump had made little secret of it. As a businessman he was spectacularly corrupt, lying about the height of his buildings, skipping out on creditors, refusing to pay vendors, creating scams like Trump University, using <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/14/nyregion/after-15-years-in-court-workers-lawsuit-against-trump-faces-yet-another-delay.html?pagewanted=all" style="text-decoration-line: none;">illegal labor</a>, doing business with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/trumps-business-of-corruption" style="text-decoration-line: none;">kleptocrats</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910?paginate=false" style="text-decoration-line: none;">mobsters</a>, and gathering around him a collection of small-time crooks like Michael Cohen. This was plainly a man who didn't care too much about the rules.And in office, Trump has created a government that reflects himself, in which the most important question is what you can grab for yourself and the people who either paid you in the past or are going to pay you in the future. So when Michael Cohen went around to a bunch of corporations telling them to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars for his precious "insights" into health care or telecom policy, a bunch of them went ahead and paid up. That's just how things work with Donald Trump in charge.
That isn't to say that the administration isn't pursuing ideological goals, because it is. But certain ideological goals, like the exploitation of students, the befouling of the environment, the diminution of reproductive rights, or the relentless enhancement of corporate power at the expense of workers and consumers, are perfectly compatible with the Trump State, so long as those in policy positions remember that there is no value higher than loyalty to the boss. You might have experience or qualifications, but you certainly don't need them, not if your devotion to Donald Trump is beyond question.Some might protest that as a liberal I merely object to Trump's conservative agenda, which I certainly do. But this isn't just about things like reducing the size of government. You can reduce the size of government to actually promote efficiency, but no one thinks that's what Trump is up to. For instance, when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos not only <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/business/education-department-for-profit-colleges.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">stops</a> investigations of abuses by for-profit colleges but installs the former dean of DeVry University to oversee such investigations, it's not about efficiency. When you make a literal <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-senate-is-about-to-confirm-a-coal-lobbyist-as-top-epa-deputy/2018/04/12/b1bb6844-3dbe-11e8-a7d1-e4efec6389f0_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">coal lobbyist</a> the No. 2 person at the EPA, you aren't after sensible regulation.And in the Trump State, the idea that there are rules or institutions that stand outside the president—and heaven forbid might even hold him accountable—is unconscionable. Trump's attempt to wage war on the Justice Department, which he plainly sees as properly existing only to protect him and carry out his vendettas, is only one vivid example. Trump has also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-personally-pushed-postmaster-general-to-double-rates-on-amazon-other-firms/2018/05/18/2b6438d2-5931-11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">personally urged</a> the postmaster general to raise shipping rates on Amazon, according to reporting by The Washington Post, as part of his vendetta against Amazon CEO and Post owner Jeff Bezos.So far, the postmaster general has resisted, which shows that even in the Trump State there are people and institutions willing and able to resist the president's most authoritarian tendencies. But there may not be enough. Most Republicans have decided that there is almost no behavior or abuse on the part of Trump or his family that they wouldn't defend, whether it's monetizing the Oval Office for personal financial gain or cooperating with a hostile foreign power to distort an American election. Try to imagine Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell saying, "There are a lot of things I put up with, but this time the president has gone too far!" You can't do it, can you?And late Sunday, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-department-calls-for-inquiry-after-trump-demands-probe-into-whether-fbi-infiltrated-or-surveilled-his-campaign/2018/05/20/636a05a0-5c7d-11e8-b2b8-08a538d9dbd6_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">we learned</a> that the Justice Department has given in to Trump's demand and ordered its inspector general to investigate whether the FBI improperly investigated Trump's campaign. The Trump State corrupts all. And he's still got two and a half years to go.---<div style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-trump-science-2571740964.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-trump-science-2571740964.html</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">White House Considered Ignoring Climate Science, Internal Memo Reveals</div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2571740964" data-authors="Climate Nexus" data-headline="White House Considered Ignoring Climate Science, Internal Memo Reveals" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump</a> administration debated whether it should attack or simply ignore federal research on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.A memo obtained by the Post written last September by former top White House energy and environmental aide Michael Catanzaro presented three pathways for the administration to approach climate science. The menu of options: conducting a red team/blue team exercise to "highlight uncertainties"; using the Administrative Procedure Act to formally attack scientific findings; or "ignor[ing], and not seek[ing] to characterize or question, the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">science</a> being conducted by federal agencies and outside entities." The memo did not present an option for endorsing federal climate science.As reported by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/05/23/in-an-internal-memo-the-white-house-considered-whether-to-simply-ignore-federal-climate-research/?utm_term=.366c2c2cd57f" target="blank" style="text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">Post</a>, the document "highlights the dilemma the administration has faced over climate change since Trump took office. Even as Trump's deputies have worked methodically to uproot policies aimed at curbing the nation's carbon output, the administration's agencies continue to produce reports showing that climate change is happening, is human-driven and is a threat to the United States.""The scientific evidence about accelerating effects of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is so strong, and so prevalent, that it would be impossible to hush it up even if you wanted to," said Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in a phone interview with the Post. "<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Coral</a>deaths and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" style="text-decoration-line: none;">glacier</a> melting and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" style="text-decoration-line: none;">sea-level rise</a>, and all of these things are just so well documented and there's just new evidence every day, whether it's from USGS, or [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], or NASA, or Department of Energy, or various academic institutions. It just can't be swept under the rug."...</div></div><div></div>omg change how rules are madeswamp thing, inside the wire<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-nancy-beck-chemical-safety-2389388927.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-nancy-beck-chemical-safety-2389388927.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">  By Melanie Benesh</div>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">Trump administration</a> just appointed a <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/04/trump-just-put-chemical-industy-hack-charge-assessing-chemicals-epa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">chemical industry bigwig</a> to a high-level chemical safety position at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">EPA</a>) as deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.You read that right. Nancy Beck is coming to the EPA straight from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the powerful lobby whose members include Dow Chemical, DuPont, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">Monsanto</a>, ExxonMobil Chemical, Chevron Phillips Chemical and Bayer. Now she'll be making decisions as the deputy assistant administrator of the EPA department whose stated <a href="https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-office-chemical-safety-and-pollution-prevention-ocspp" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">mission</a> is to "protect you, your family, and the environment from potential risks from pesticides and toxic chemicals."Here's three things to know about Nancy Beck:1. She has helped craft the chemical industry's political agenda for years.<a href="https://www.alternet.org/dont-claim-trumps-doing-nothing-hes-destroying-federal-government-we-know-it">https://www.alternet.org/dont-claim-trumps-doing-nothing-hes-destroying-federal-government-we-know-it</a>no lnx<div><div>Don’t Claim Trump’s Doing Nothing — He’s Destroying the Federal Government as We Know It</div><div>Trump is draining the swamp — of anyone remotely competent or qualified. Rebuilding government may be impossible</div><div>By Heather Digby Parton / Salon May 15, 2018, 9:59 PM GMT</div><div>
</div><div>His "ethics reform" plan was:</div><div>
</div><div>First: I am going to re-institute a 5-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for 5 years after they leave government service. I am going to ask Congress to pass this ban into law so that it cannot be lifted by executive order.</div><div>
</div><div>Second: I am going to ask Congress to institute its own 5-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Third: I am going to expand the definition of lobbyist so we close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisors when we all know they are lobbyists.</div><div>
</div><div>Fourth: I am going to issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.</div><div>
</div><div>Fifth: I am going to ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in American elections.</div><div>
</div><div>His personal lawyer Michael Cohen obviously didn't read the third item on that memo. And it's interesting that someone in Trump's campaign thought it was important to pretend they cared about foreigners raising money in elections.</div><div>
</div><div>That tweet came on the heels of the first time Trump used the phrase "Drain the swamp" in the 2016 campaign -- which was very late in the game, just three weeks from election day. He had said earlier, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” but he didn't really run explicitly as a political reformer.</div><div>
</div><div>But as Newsweek reported, in October his message changed:</div><div>
</div><div>Trump promised to “drain the swamp” at a rally that day [Oct. 17, 2016] in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the first time he did so during the campaign. He did it the next day, October 18, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In Fletcher, North Carolina, he called Clinton “the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the Presidency.”</div><div>
</div><div>One week later, then-FBI Director James Comey announced that investigators had found emails from Clinton on former congressman Anthony Weiner's laptop. Trump ran with it:</div><div>
</div><div>"Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before," he said in New Hampshire. Later, in Maine, he said Clinton’s use of a private email server — which Comey had already decreed did not merit criminal charges — was the “biggest scandal since Watergate.”</div><div>
</div><div>The reason to bring this up isn't to point out Trump's hypocrisy, which is shooting fish in a barrel. The fact is, that despite his tiresome repetition of the slogan "Drain the swamp" since the election, it wasn't one of Trump's signature chants, like "Lock her up" or "Build the wall." It was something of an afterthought, a sort of extension of his claims that the system was "rigged" against him to steal the election. As the various investigations into his nefarious doings unfold, it seems obvious that was another projection of his own foibles onto his opponents.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Nonetheless, it is an article of faith among many of the chattering classes that he ran as a reformer who promised to clean up Washington. But the Trump administration's approach to dealing with the institutions of government is much more old-fashioned. It is simply governing by way of personal loyalty and fealty to the president rather than expertise, experience or seniority. It's a spoils system, and not a very efficient one.</div><div>
</div><div>This article by Evan Osnos in The New Yorker about the razing of the federal workforce at all levels is an eye opener:</div><div>
</div><div>Across the government, more than half of the six hundred and fifty-six most critical positions are still unfilled. “We’ve never seen vacancies at this scale,” Max Stier, the president and C.E.O. of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that works to make the government more effective, said. “Not anything close.”</div><div>
</div><div>Some of the vacancies are deliberate. As a candidate, Trump promised to “cut so much your head will spin.” Amid a strong economy, large numbers of employees are opting to leave the government rather than serve it. In Trump’s first nine months, more than seventy-nine thousand full-time workers quit or retired—a forty-two-per-cent increase over that period in Obama’s Presidency. To Trump and his allies, the departures have been liberating, a purge of obstructionists. “The President now has people around him who aren’t trying to subvert him,” Michael Caputo, a senior campaign adviser, told me. “The more real Trump supporters who pop up in the White House phone book, the better off our nation will be.”</div><div>
</div><div>If they cannot find a Trump loyalist to fill a position they simply leave it empty.</div><div>
</div><div>Trump's definition of "populism" is unique. Osnos writes:</div><div>
</div><div>In the 2013 novel “A Delicate Truth,” John le Carré presents the “deep state” as a moneyed, cultured élite — the “non-governmental insiders from banking, industry, and commerce” whose access to information allows them to rule in secret. Trump’s conception is quite different. A real-estate baron, with the wealthiest Cabinet in U.S. history, Trump is at peace with the plutocracy but at war with the clerks — the apparatchiks who, he claims, are seeking to nullify the election by denying the prerogatives of his Administration.</div><div>
</div><div>This attack on "bureaucracy" is really an attack on law enforcement, the State Department, the intelligence community and ordinary bureaucrats who enforce regulations and monitor compliance with the law, along with anyone else Trump and his henchmen see as enemies of the state. Even the usual suspects at the conservative think tanks who usually have the inside track on jobs in a new Republican administration (or, as with Iraq, a new occupied country) have been shut out because so many candidates were on record as being critical of Trump, which meant hiring them was out of the question.</div><div>
</div><div>Many people claim that underneath the bluster, Donald Trump is just another Republican who happens to have a big mouth and likes to use Twitter. But while he was made possible by the modern conservative movement and a political system that enabled such a man to become president, he is nonetheless sui generis. This evisceration of federal government institutions is nothing we've ever seen before.</div><div>
</div><div>The story Osnos tells about the elimination of experts and the deliberate erasure of institutional memory in department after department is chilling. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace these people even after Trump is gone. His lasting legacy may be the destruction of the federal government as we know it</div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-sean-hannity-and-donald-trumps-bromance-extends-them-chatting-bed-night-report">https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-sean-hannity-and-donald-trumps-bromance-extends-them-chatting-bed-night-report</a></div><div>
</div><div>Every night the phone rings for Fox News host Sean Hannity from the White House. While the first lady is in her own bedroom down the hall of the executive residence, the bromance between the two men is glowing through the phone as they gush over the president’s latest coverage on the network.A shocking expose in New York Magazine revealed Sunday the many sources that are intimately aware of the relationship the two men share and how it has crafted the communications strategy for the White House."White House staff are aware that the calls happen, thanks to the president entering a room and announcing, 'I just hung up with Hannity,' or referring to what Hannity said during their conversations, or even ringing Hannity up from his desk in their presence," the report outlined.Early on in the Trump presidency, the morning was spent flipping from cable news shows like MSNBC's Morning Joe to CNN's New Day, which ultimately lead to rage tweeting and an entire day's plans thrown out onto the White House lawn.“It got to the point that they were just like, ‘We need to get him off these channels and onto Fox & Friends or else we’re going to be chasing down this crazy-train bullshit from MSNBC and CNN all day,’” one former White House official told New York Magazine.Thanks to former chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer, however, the team was able to move the president to Fox News. The result has been a happier and more blissfully benighted Trump less likely to ignite World War III after a Chris Cuomo quip. That's not to say that there aren't other problems.“Sometimes on Fox, a lot of stories are embellished, and they don’t necessarily cover the big news stories of the day," explained the current White House official. "When they cover the smaller stories, if that gets the president riled up, then that becomes an issue. Whenever he tweets, all of us do a mad dash or mad scramble to find out as much information about that random topic as possible. We’re used to it in a lot of ways, so it’s part of our morning routine.”To make matters worse, Trump doesn't trust anyone willing to work for him. Instead he flocks to his phone, begging for outsiders to confirm he's right. At the center of those on speed dial, however, is Hannity.,....</div>=

trump, dobbs, rudy...
president gets his information from Fox, makes his decisions and

tweets accordingly, repeating network talking points minutes after he

has heard them, no matter how goofy. In turn, the personalities of Fox

have become presidential advisers; former judge and Fox host Jeanine

Pirro and attorney, conspiracy theorist and <a href="https://www.cnn/com/2018/03/25/politics/joseph-digenova-trump-legal-team/index.html">Fox regular Joe diGenova</a>,

who was on Trump’s legal team for about a week before conflicts of

interest forced him out, remain on the president’s speed dial.What’s more, Trump “cherishes” Lou Dobbs over at Fox Business, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-cherishes-lou-dobbs-so-much-he-puts-him-on-speaker-phone-for-oval-office-meetings">according to The Daily Beast</a>,

places him on speakerphone for meetings in the Oval Office and makes

sure “he is involved in some of the administration’s more sensitive

discussions.” And an insider tells <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hannitys-rising-role-in-trumps-world-he-basically-has-a-desk-in-the-place/2018/04/17/e2483018-4260-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?utm_term=.8c51d0f437af">The Washington Post</a> that Fox superstar Sean Hannity is so omnipresent at the White House, “he basically has a desk in the place.”Conversely,

the president and his minions repeatedly go on Fox programs to bluster

and dissemble. In the last week and a half, Trump himself has phoned

into his favorite show “Fox and Friends” for a thirty-minute, Grandpa

Simpsons-style rant – and threatens to do it again soon. And former New

York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the latest addition to Trump’s squad of

nerve-wracked legal eagles, has appeared on Fox almost as much as those

commercials for catheters.Ostensibly, Giuliani’s mission has been

to defend his boss against the Stormy Daniels and Russia scandals, and

whatever else may soon rear its head when it comes to Michael Cohen,

money laundering and other alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. Yet his

comments don’t seem to be helping the president’s cause; quite the

contrary. This <a href="https://politics.theonion.com/mueller-poses-as-fox-news-host-to-coax-rudy-giuliani-in-1825782607?utm_source=TheOnion_Weekly_RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&utm_term=">headline from The Onion</a> says it all, “Mueller Poses As Fox News Host To Coax Rudy Giuliani Into Giving Him Testimony On Trump.”....
<a href="https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-and-white-house-created-massive-toxic-bubble-its-about-pop">https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-and-white-house-created-massive-toxic-bubble-its-about-pop</a>
=
... AN418Follow the MoneyBut how, to return to the present, are the bean counters supposed to bring down Donald Trump? By following the money to reveal the international morass of gangsterism and corruption that is the Trump Organization. First, they’ll have to pick off his venal appointees like EPA director <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/politics/scott-pruitt-oklahoma-epa.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Pruitt</a>, with his penchant for <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/14/scott-pruitt-first-class-travel-347631" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">first-class flights</a>, $100,000 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/17/pruitt-upgraded-to-a-larger-customized-suv-with-bullet-resistant-seat-covers/?utm_term=.9f379b979c26" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">SUVs with bullet-resistant seats</a>, and frequent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/opinion/scott-pruitt-ridiculous.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">flights home</a> to Oklahoma at taxpayer expense. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has taken airborne luxury a step farther, preferring to charter private planes for his travel -- like the $12,375 <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-zinke-investigation-1506976980-htmlstory.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">taxpayers spent</a> to fly him the thousand miles from Las Vegas to his hometown of Whitefish, Montana.Then there are the people who worked on Trump’s campaign. Special counsel Robert Mueller has already indicted former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/31/us/politics/manafort-mueller-money-laundering-fraud.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">laundering $18.5 million</a> earned for lobbying work they did in Ukraine and this country. Following the bean trail also led prosecutors to uncover Manafort’s and Gates’s $2 million payments to a Washington lobbying firm working for Ukraine's former president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his pro-Russia party -- although the two Trump campaign workers had never registered as agents for this foreign client. You may recall that Michael Flynn, briefly Trump’s national security adviser, found himself <a href="https://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176263/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon%2C_believe_the_autocrat/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in similar trouble</a> for failing to register as an agent of the Turkish government.Closer to home, there’s Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance-trump.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">security-clearance-less</a> adviser on all things <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/jared-kushner-goes-it-alone-in-mexico" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mexican</a> and on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/12/04/kushner-has-no-idea-what-he-is-saying-about-the-middle-east/?utm_term=.747fee31a1f5" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bringing peace</a> to the Middle East. Following the money trail allowed New York Times journalists to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/jared-kushner-apollo-citigroup-loans.html?smid=tw-share" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> that Kushner’s real estate business got startlingly large loans from Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms. That was after he had several meetings at the White House with one of the company’s founders, Joshua Harris, who was reportedly under consideration for a White House job, although, as the Times indicates, “the job never materialized.” The Apollo loan refinanced an already-mortgaged Kushner family “Chicago skyscraper” and “was triple the size of the average property loan made by Apollo’s real estate lending arm.”Then there was the under-reported Deutsche Bank-Trump-Kushner connection, which Congresswoman Maxine Waters has <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/maxine-waters-connects-the-dots-on-trump-deutsche-bank-and-russia/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doggedly pursued</a> and Mueller is now investigating. The bank, suspected of using so-called mirror trading to launder money for Russian oligarchs, has loans with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-deutsche-bank-mueller-2017-12" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump's</a> real estate business totaling as much as <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/the-head-of-the-deutsche-bank-division-that-loaned-trump-364-million-just-got-a-big-promotion/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$364 million</a>; Deutsche has also extended lines of credit in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-28/kushner-loan-details-sought-from-deutsche-bank-two-others-je7dvy2p" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">millions of dollars</a> to the Kushners. Some might consider that a possible significant conflict of interest for a U.S. president. CNN has also <a href="https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/mueller-is-asking-russian-oligarchs-about-donations-to-trump.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that Mueller interviewed “at least two Russian oligarchs” about possible contributions to the 2016 Trump campaign.It’s not just Deutsche Bank that has occasionally bailed out the Trump and Kushner operations with mega-loans. As the Nation magazine <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/what-did-trump-and-kushner-know-about-russian-money-laundering-and-when-did-they-know-it/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>, both operations have long relied on the kindness of Russian bankers:“The Trump and Kushner families, a marriage (via Ivanka) between two of New York’s leading real-estate dynasties, are multiply connected to Russian real-estate deals. ‘We don’t rely on American banks,’ <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/eric-trump-russia-investment-golf-course" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said Eric Trump</a> back in 2014. ‘We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’”None of this should be too surprising, given what is apparently a long association with Russian gangsters and their oligarch bosses. As former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-18/trump-had-ties-to-russian-mob-figures-fusion-gps-founder-testifies" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> a congressional committee, Trump “built relationships with Russian gangsters who were themselves tied to the Russian government.” Those ties were related to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/trump-inquiry-hears-claim-of-russian-mafia-money-link-to-doonbeg-1.3361639" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">money-losing golf courses</a> in Ireland and Scotland. Simpson testified that Trump’s gangster ties go back decades to his association with the Italian mafia, whose loans may well have kept some of his businesses afloat. But wait, there’s more! In Panama, the Trump Organization <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/panama-tower-carries-trump-s-name-ties-organized-crime-n821706?cid=eml_nbn_20171117" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lent its name</a> to the Trump Ocean Club Panama, a high-rise condo where Russian and other organized-crime figures evidently used the purchase and sale of units to launder millions.And then there’s that potential firestorm of a subject: Did the Trump Organization use real estate deals to launder money from global criminal activities of various sorts? The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/opinion/sunday/trump-business-mueller-money-laundering.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">describes</a> a number of possible deals involving shady characters in countries from Azerbaijan to Panama, not to mention the U.S. Such deals may well have allowed government officials and other thieves to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/01/04/how-money-laundering-works-in-real-estate/?utm_term=.f94ae208ec89" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">turn</a> ill-gotten gains into clean money by parking it in shell corporations, which then invested in real estate. When condos or shares in a building are sold to another party, hey presto, the dirty money is now clean.Suspicions have long been rife that Trump & Co. were neck deep in the dismal swamp of pay-to-play money laundering and other I’ll-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine corruption schemes. But no one will be sure until the bean counters get their hands on the appropriate documents and lay out that money trail, dollar by ruble by hryvnia by peso, for Robert Mueller and others to follow. And when that happens, we can thank the women and men clicking their calculators and filling their spreadsheets in the accounting department.Rebecca Gordon, a <a href="https://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176404/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon%2C_making_atrocities_great_again" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">TomDispatch regular</a>, teaches at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1510703330/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes</a>. Her previous books include <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199336431/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States</a> and Letters from Nicaragua. Prior to her academic life, she worked as an accountant for a variety of nonprofit organizations, including as controller of the Tides Foundation in San Francisco.=congrats, alec koch alypse official:<h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase;">EMBRACING TRUMPISM</h2>In the era of Trump, the Koch machine, including ALEC, has fully embraced Trumpism. Shortly after the November 2016 election, ALEC’s Executive Director Lisa Nelson told funders and members that she was thrilled to report that the Trump administration “does have the potential to be an ALEC administration. It is full of the people and ideas we’ve advanced since 1973…Now is our time. And ALEC is ready.” Since then over 40 Koch political operatives have signed on to work for the the Trump White House and administration, according to a recent <a href="https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/44-trump-administration-officials-have-close-ties-koch-brothers-public-citizen" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">report</a> by Public Citizen. USA Today and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:<ol style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li>During his first year in office, Trump and White House staff promoted the Trump brand on at least 35 different occasions.</li><li>At least 11 foreign governments paid Trump-owned companies and at least six foreign government officials visited Trump Organization properties.</li><li>Political groups spent more than $1.2 million at Trump properties (compared to less than $100,000 in any previous year), and Trump sold $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive buyers.</li></ol>Not only is Trump continuing to profit from his companies -- it’s almost certain that he’s using his position to further enrich himself and his family.

And now, Trump has been summoned to appear in court after Attorneys General for Maryland and Washington, D.C. sued him alleging violations of the Emoluments Clauses!anwr<div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-refuge-drilling-trump-2561725554.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-refuge-drilling-trump-2561725554.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="widget__brief" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Interior Department has launched the process of holding lease sales for oil and gas drilling in the 1.6-million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).Despite decades of fierce resistance from Democrats and conservation groups, pro-drilling Republicans were able to realize their goal of opening the refuge after <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-refuge-drilling-2517635533.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">quietly including</a> the measure in last year's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.</div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A notice published Friday in the Federal Register starts the 60-day public scoping period to assist in the preparation of an environmental impact statement for the <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/plans-in-development/alaska/coastal-plain-eis" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">leasing program</a>.The sale targets the 1002 area on the Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska, which has an estimated 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude. The area is described by the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2018/04/threatening-indigenous-rights-and-arctic-ecosystem-interior-launches-process" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Sierra Club</a> as "the biological heart" of the Arctic Refuge—home to polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other species—as well as vital lands and wildlife for the subsistence way of life of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/how-drilling-in-anwr-would-threaten-the-gwichin-peoples-way-of-life-1882011846.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Gwich'in Nation</a>....</div></div><div></div>===<a href="https://www.alternet.org/trump-trauma/fascism-scholar-explains-why-trumps-desert-stormy-airstrike-totally-bogus">https://www.alternet.org/trump-trauma/fascism-scholar-explains-why-trumps-desert-stormy-airstrike-totally-bogus</a>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Climate and weather are not the same thing, but good luck convincing the president of the United States of that basic fact. As if his tweets dismissing global warming as a “hoax” manufactured by the Chinese and his decision to pull the U.S. out of the multinational Paris Agreement on climate change weren’t depressing enough, now there is evidence that Donald Trump’s determination to make the Republican Party the “stupid party” has been a wild success.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">As Americans have drifted further apart on a wide variety of issues over the past few years, perhaps nothing exemplifies the growing gulf between supporters of the two major parties more than climate change. (Gun control is a similarly divisive issue, especially now.) In the Trump era, Republicans appear to have significantly regressed in their beliefs about climate change -- which is admittedly saying something.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Fewer Republicans say they believe in a scientific consensus on climate change, a year into Trump’s presidency, than said they did shortly after he took office, according to a new Gallup poll. Released this week, Gallup's annual survey on the environment found that Trump has pushed Republicans to be more extreme on issues concerning the environment, specifically climate change.  </div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Only a third of Republicans said they worry about climate change or even acknowledge that it is already happening, down 3 percentage points from the year prior. Just 35 percent of Republicans believed global warming was caused by humans, compared with 40 percent at about this time in 2017, a few months after Trump took office.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">In 2017, 53 percent of Republicans agreed that most scientists believe climate change is occurring. That number declined 11 percentage points during Trump’s first year in office to 42 percent in 2018. Just to clarify that: A majority of Republicans now reject not merely the idea that climate change is real, but the idea that most scientists believe it is real. That suggests an imperviousness to fact that goes well beyond unorthodox opinion into outright delusion.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">In fact, 97 percent of climate scientists believe that global warming is caused by human activities. But according to a new report on Perceptions of Science in Americafrom the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, only 39 percent of U.S. adults trust climate scientists “a lot” to provide full and accurate information about the causes of climate change. Although last year was the second warmest year on record, behind only 2016, nearly 70 percent of Republican respondents told Gallup that the threat of climate change is "exaggerated," an increase from 66 percent last year. Only 4 percent of Democrats shared that view.</div>

</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Beginning with the Tea Party, the grassroots movement against the Obama administration that was heavily funded by GOP megadonors with personal investments in the fossil fuel industry, conservative Republicans have long embraced climate-change denialism. In 2013, Pew found that while 61 percent of Republicans who did not align with the Tea Party believed in climate change, 70 percent of Tea Party members did not.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Since then, Republicans have only grown more unified in their denialism. Now more than 59 percent of Republicans in the House, and 73 percent of Republicans in the Senate, doubt humans’ impact on climate change, according to a ThinkProgress analysis. During Trump’s first 100 days, the House and Senate voted against environmental protections 42 times. Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has removed numerous references to climate change from EPA documents, and reportedly ordered staffers to cast doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change and mankind’s role in the crisis.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Partisanship soaks into every public discussion in America, and Republicans’ response to their party’s denialism is to be expected in these increasingly polarized times. But the Trump administration's anti-scientific and counter-factual stance on climate also seems to be swaying the opinion of voters not affiliated with the Republican Party. Independent voters have grown more doubtful of scientists’ warnings about climate change over the past year, according to Gallup.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Even as the U.S. spent more money on weather-related disasters in 2017 than in any previous before, as devastating hurricanes battered several southern states and the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, independents who believe global warming is caused by human activities fell to 62 percent from 70 percent the year before.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Scientists believe that warming temperatures likely contributed to the destructiveness of last year’s storms, and the cost of climate change is only expected to increase. Still, in a strange and notable finding, conservative Republicans become less likely to agree that “there is ‘solid evidence’ of recent global warming due ‘mostly’ to ‘human activity such as burning fossil fuels’” the more educated they are, according to the report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.</div>

</div>

<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Trump’s campaign against climate science is working on conservatives and independents, and that is certainly worrying. But there is some good news for climate sanity buried in the latest public opinion surveys. A majority of Republicans in swing states won by Trump in the last election — namely Ohio and Pennsylvania — said they were more likely to support a candidate committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, according to a poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted in conjunction with the Sierra Club. </div>

</div>

===

</div>

<div style="">What’s worrying isn’t that Trump is now getting advice about policy from fanatics like John Bolton and Lawrence Kudlow. Trump has never cared about policy.</div>

The real worry is that – with Robert Mueller breathing down his neck, and several special elections suggesting a giant “blue wave” in November – Trump is getting ready to do whatever it takes to maintain his power, even if that requires fanatical policies.

Trump is preparing for an epic war over the future of his presidency. This has required purging naysayers from his Cabinet and White House staff, and replacing them with bomb-throwing advocates like Bolton and Kudlow.

Fox News is preparing for the same war, and has made a parallel purge – removing Trump critics like George Will, Megyn Kelly, and Rich Lowry, and installing Trump marketers like Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Sebastian Gorka.

Trump and Fox News are also approaching the war with the same story.

Some of it is by now familiar: Liberals have opened America to hostile forces – unauthorized immigrants, Muslims, Chinese traders, criminal gangs, drug dealers, government bureaucrats, coastal elites (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi), North Korea, Iran, and “political correctness” in all its forms.

Trump intends to protect America from these forces.

The new twist to the story– requiring the recent purges and a united front – is that these forces are conspiring with the FBI to oust Trump from the presidency.

We all know Trump watches an inordinate amount of Fox News, beginning in the wee hours with “Fox and Friends,” which provides much of the fodder for his morning tweets.The membrane separating Trump’s brain from Fox News has always been thin, but in coming months it’s likely to disappear entirely.

Trump has made John Bolton his National Security Advisor not because Bolton has valuable insights about foreign affairs, but because Bolton – for years, an on-air fixture on Fox News – is a showman who knows how to sell big lies and crazy ideas, and thereby help Trump in the looming battles.

As undersecretary of state for arms control in the Bush administration Bolton did more than anyone else to market the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. During his year and a half at the United Nations, Bolton was so outspokenly critical of the organization that he gained the devotion of xenophobic conservatives.

It hasn’t hurt that Bolton has sucked up to Trump since then. Describing Trump’s address last year to the United Nations, Bolton swooned “in the entire history of the United Nations, there has never been a more straightforward criticism of the unacceptable behavior of other member states.”

Several other cable news anchors and pundits are already in the Trump administration or will soon be, providing additional ammunition for Trump’s pending war.  Kudlow isn’t a Fox News pundit but he’s been the next best thing – a rightwing CNBC contributor known for his sharp wit and salesmanship.

“He’s looking for people who are ready to be part of that television White House,” says Kendall Phillips, a communication studies professor at Syracuse University. “This is the Fox television presidency all the way up and down.”

How can a television presidency be dangerous? Because it is solely about marketing Trump. Its only goal is to win. It is unconstrained by truth, reason, or the Constitution. It doesn’t give a fig about the public.

When the occupant of the White House and the sycophants surrounding him are prepared to do and use anything – including trade wars with China and possibly hot wars with North Korea and Iran – to win a political war at home, nothing and no one is safe.

<div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/world/trumps-quiet-meeting-saudi-arabia-and-israel-portends-dangerous-collision-course-iran">https://www.alternet.org/world/trumps-quiet-meeting-saudi-arabia-and-israel-portends-dangerous-collision-course-iran</a></div>

</div>

<div style="">bolten?!</div>

==

<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/omnibus-spending-bill-2018-2553135715.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/omnibus-spending-bill-2018-2553135715.html</a>

Last week the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-prepares-for-rapid-vote-today-on-jam-packed-13-trillion-spending-deal/2018/03/22/2074fe7e-2dd6-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html?utm_term=.f9650082ade1" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Senate passed the fy18 omnibus</a> spending package to keep the federal government running through September. The bill is a complete repudiation of President Trump's budget priorities, especially on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">clean energy</a>.

In fact, I'd argue that the "art of the deal" approach the administration took in negotiating with Congress over the budget numbers (pushing overly draconian cuts in the hope that Congress would move slightly closer in their direction) proved to have the opposite effect. It galvanized Congress in opposition to the president's budget priorities and solidified bipartisan coalitions in support of specific programs and agencies, proving once again that bullying Congress on funding is not an effective strategy for the executive branch.

The administration's interests would have been better served working in partnership with Congress—a lesson this president clearly has not learned given <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/budget-fy2019.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">his fy19 budget request</a>.

Here's how some important climate and clean energy programs fared in the fy18 omnibus:

...

==

jared pal (po'd qattar did not fund real estate, dad sez wd refuse $

<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/22/reformer_or_war_criminal_saudi_crown" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/22/reformer_or_war_criminal_saudi_crown </a>

President Trump met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, where the two leaders finalized a $12.5 billion weapons deal. This comes less than a year after Trump announced a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudis. During the meeting, Trump held up posters of recent Saudi weapon purchases from the United States and said, “We make the best equipment in the world.” Human rights groups warn the massive arms deal may make the United States complicit in war crimes committed in the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. We speak with Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan and Medea Benjamin of CodePink.

...

==

</div>

<div style="">admit makes up shit</div>

</a></div>

<div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-brags-about-inventing-facts-conversation-canadian-prime-minister-justin">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-brags-about-inventing-facts-conversation-canadian-prime-minister-justi</a>n</div>

</div>

<div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/one-type-voter-was-uniquely-vulnerable-donald-trump-and-brexit-study">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/one-type-voter-was-uniquely-vulnerable-donald-trump-and-brexit-study</a></div>

</div>

<div style="">A new Social Psychological and Personality Science study published Thursday found that “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550618755874" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">neurotic traits positively predicted</a>” shares of voters who opted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election or to “leave” in the Brexit vote that same year.</div>

According to University of Austin psychology professor Sam Gosling—one of the study’s co-authors—of the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), ”regions highest on neuroticism are particularly receptive to political campaigns that emphasize danger and loss and that previous campaigns have not tapped into these themes as strongly as we saw in 2016.”

The study, spearheaded by Queensland University of Technology psychologist Martin Obschonka, analyzed personality data from 17,217 Britons and over 3 million U.S. participants, testing for “regional prevalence of neurotic personality traits”—including anxiety, and depression.

The researchers them compared those traits with models previously used to predict voting behavior, namely openness and conscientious. As ZMEscience notes, “<a href="https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/brexit-trump-neuroticism-773463/" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">past studies have shown</a> that low openness and high conscientiousness are good indicators of conservative political views.”

“The models traditionally used for predicting and explaining political behavior did not capture an essential factor that influenced people’s voting decisions in 2016,” Obschonka said.

Researchers found higher levels of anxiety in regions that voted for Trump and Brexit, and Science Daily reports those traits were even stronger “<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180308190807.htm" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">when considering Trump gains</a> since the 2012 election, when Mitt Romney was the Republican candidate.”

In England, rural areas “and the industrialized centers have higher neurotic traits, and higher Brexit votes,” <a href="https://psmag.com/news/regions-with-more-neurotic-people-supported-trump-and-brexit" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">the report notes</a>. “Trump gains (over Romney’s level of support) and higher neurotic traits overlap. The ‘rust belt’ shows a concentration of both neuroticism and Trump gains.”

The researchers say Trump’s gains on Romney in these regions “underscores our initial assumption” that neurotic individuals were drawn to Trump’s “Make American Great Again” message.

Obschonka’s team said their findings are “consistent with the idea that populist campaigns played on the fears of the voters,” adding “campaigns that draw on fear should be particularly compelling to people already prone to being anxious.”

But why did neuroticism win out in these regions, as opposed to openness and conscientiousness—the Big Five personality traits more frequently associated with voter behavior?

“We propose a kind of ‘sleeper effect,’” Obschonka said. “Under normal conditions these traits have no influence, but in certain circumstances, widespread anxiety and fear in a region have the potential to profoundly impact the geopolitical landscape.”

“Both campaigns traded on themes of fear, lost pride and loss aversion which tap into fear-prone personalities; a construct not previous associated with the behavior of voters,” the researched added. Obschonka described this voting behavior as “irrational” because “it was not predictable by means of rational models.”

“So the campaigns of fear worked,” Obschonka said.

this week, during a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remarks/index.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">freewheeling speech to Republican donors at Mar-a-Lago</a>, Donald Trump cracked the following joke about Chinese leader Xi Jinping: "He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday."

If he was doing his best Don Rickles impression, only the most febrile members of his base seemed amused. Since Trump abruptly removed James Comey as FBI director last May, the United States has been slowly <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/charles-blow-america-lurching-towards-constitutional-crisis" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">lurching toward a constitutional crisis</a>. In January, we learned the president had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/us/politics/trump-mueller-special-counsel-russia.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">ordered the firing of special prosecutor Robert Mueller</a> last June, only to back off after White House attorney Don McGahn threatened to resign. (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/politics/trump-witnesses-special-counsel-priebus-mcgahn.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">A New York Times report</a>published Wednesday revealed that Trump has contacted several key witnesses in the collusion probe, directly disobeying his legal counsel). The following month, Trump lobbied the Justice Department to open investigations of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Meanwhile, his administration continues to stack the courts at a breakneck pace, trampling norms and procedures to <a href="https://www.alternet.org/trump-trauma/gops-right-wing-takeover-federal-courts-continues-senate-judiciary-committee-ends-blue" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">accelerate the appointment of right-wing judges</a> in a host of blue and purple states.

For Steven Levitsky, co-author of <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938/?tag=alternorg08-20" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">How Democracies Die</a>, these are but two telltale signs of creeping authoritarianism. While violent coups have largely become a thing of the past, elected officials can dismantle a republic just as effectively as a military junta. Examples abound, from Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Hungary) to Latin America (Venezuela and Nicaragua) and Asia (Turkey, the Philippines and Singapore). As he writes in the book's introduction, "Democracy's erosion is, for many, almost imperceptible."

Nearly a week before the far-right Lega Nord made huge gains in the Italian elections, Levitsky spoke with AlterNet over the phone about Trump's hypothetical impeachment and the danger he poses to the global democratic order. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Jacob Sugarman: Since your book published, Donald Trump has effectively bullied Andrew McCabe and Rachel Brand into resigning from the FBI and the Justice Department respectively. Do you believe the guardrails of American democracy are still holding, or have they begun to buckle even in the past month?

Steven Levitsky: I think they're still fundamentally holding for now. But there's no question that the Trump administration has done what virtually every elected autocrat we've studied anywhere in the world has before him, which is go after the legal system, law enforcement and the courts in an effort to control the referees. That accomplishes two things: It creates a shield to protect the government from investigation and prosecution, and ultimately, it can be used as a weapon.

You can use the legal system to "legally" go after your rivals, and both Trump and the Justice Department have made noise about doing just that. This is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. I'd say I'm more worried now than I was when we first wrote How Democracies Die. It once appeared that there was at least a handful of Republican senators who were willing to draw a red line, particularly in terms of protecting the FBI, law enforcement agencies and the Mueller investigation. That seems less likely now.

JS: It feels like every week there's an explosive new development in the collusion probe. Democrats are unlikely to take back the Senate, but if they were to recapture the House, is it in the interests of the party and the country for them to pursue impeachment? Do you believe a push has the potential to backfire?

SL: Impeachment is a constitutional mechanism and one of the few tools that we have to remove presidents who have committed a crime or are otherwise unfit for office. There's at least some reason to believe that Trump meets one or both criteria, so if the Mueller investigation were to uncover serious wrongdoing, it has to be considered. In the book, we look at two separate crises of executive overreach: FDR's court-packing scheme and Nixon's gross abuse of power. In both instances, a bipartisan consensus was what contained both presidents.

But things are so polarized now, and the Republicans have become so Trumpified, that there may not be enough votes even if Mueller uncovers egregious criminal activity. That would put us in uncharted territory, where impeachment becomes a truly double-edged sword. If Republicans actively oppose it, if it's viewed as a coup by the Fox News wing of the Republican Party, which is to say the majority, then it could tear the country apart. It might be the right thing politically for Democrats, and the probe may well demand it, but it would further weaken our norms of mutual toleration and forbearance. The next Democratic president would have to watch their back.

JS: Your book does an excellent job of explaining why norms are so essential to a functioning government, but can a rigid adherence to them pose a danger to democracy itself? I'm thinking specifically of Obama's refusal to pursue the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis, as well as certain members of the Bush administration for their crimes in Iraq. Doesn't that generate an apathy that a demagogue like Trump can exploit?

SL: It almost certainly can, and there's really no easy way out of that dilemma. We're definitely not advocating an unthinking preservation of all norms. Societies evolve, and politics change all the time. But I think I was sympathetic to Obama's predicament, even if a lot of my progressive friends were not. There is a real cost to pushing for, or even permitting, the prosecution of your major political rivals. It's led to the failure of any number of democracies in Latin America.

Look at what's happening in Brazil right now. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a coup, but the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff was highly politicized. The Democratic Labour Party has every right to be angry about it, and now Lula may be barred from running for president. The corruption charges against him are likely legitimate, but the right has created an environment in which the PT no longer trusts the political establishment.

SL: I want to be clear that the decline in power and prestige of the United States and the European Union, along with the rise and increasing self-confidence of Russia and China, clearly do not bode well for democracy across the world. The horizon is darker than it was 20 years ago. The challenges for new democracies in central Europe, in Africa, in Latin America are much greater than they once were, so there is real reason for concern.JS: I'm glad you brought up Brazil, because democracy would appear to be in retreat across the globe. I was a little surprised to see that your book largely rejects this narrative.

But the number of democracies in the world is the same as it was 10 years ago. The notion that we're in a global democratic crisis simply isn't true. It may well happen in the next five years, but it hasn't happened yet.

JS: Given the scope of America's wealth and influence, does Trump pose an existential threat to global democracy?

SL: Because the United States has completely abandoned even the pretense of promoting democracy abroad, Trump's presidency could end up expediting a democratic recession, yes. We're already seeing some signs of it. Duterte in the Philippines faces no external pressure, despite massive human rights violation, while Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández recently held an election whose results have been widely disputed. Autocrats are learning that they can get away with more than they have in a decade.

JS: What kind of threat does Trump pose to American democracy? Do you see a scenario in which the United States elects a blood-and-soil fascist?

SL: Trump may ultimately lead us into a devastating war, but I think we're actually fortunate that he doesn't have a political project. Or if he does, he doesn't have the discipline, the intelligence or the attention span to build something really destructive. If there's another major terrorist attack, I think all bets are off, but if we can get through the next three years crisis-free, I'd bet our democratic institutions muddle through.

Trump's attacks on the press and the integrity of our elections can't be minimized, but the lasting damage of his presidency will likely be his explicit appeal to white nationalism. Once you let that genie out of the bottle, it's almost impossible to put it back inside. As long as the GOP is an exclusively white Christian party in a society as diverse as the United States in 2018 and 2020, it will remain vulnerable to extremism and authoritarianism. We saw it in South Carolina during Reconstruction: if Republicans, in this case, fear becoming a permanent minority, they could try to hold onto power by any means necessary.

JS: Where do you think we go from here? The people who voted for Donald Trump obviously aren't going away, so how do we rebuild our democratic institutions? And what can the Democrats do as an opposition party?

SL: If I had the answers to those questions, I would be in a much more powerful position than I am today. The answer is, we really don't know. But if our republic is truly under threat, which none of us thought possible just a few years ago, then normal politics has to be set aside and we need to build much broader coalitions. This is not a concrete formula, of course, but a way of thinking—one we want to encourage because it's been a very long time since progressives found partners outside their traditional ideological camp. Maybe that includes some evangelicals or members of the private sector, as distasteful as the idea might sound. Once we successfully defend our democracy, we can go back to fighting for economic and social justice.

As for the Democrats, they're not the only center-left coalition to set aside economic redistribution over the past 25 years. Basically everybody has, but that's the problem, and there's no quick fix. Taking up the cause of inequality is probably their best hope right now of combating this wave of right-wing populism we're facing.

Jacob Sugarman is a managing editor at AlterNet.

</div>

===

<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-history-libel-and-defamation-lawsuits-silence-critics" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-history-libel-and-defamation-lawsuits-silence-critics</a>

...

Trump has vowed to seek revenge on BuzzFeed for <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.hbWjOVoBo#.jo4VnOzxz" style=" text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">publishing the Steele Dossier</a> almost a year ago. Now, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is suing BuzzFeed for defamation.

BuzzFeed stands by its decision to publish the dossier. Katie Rayford, a BuzzFeed spokesperson, told AlterNet: "The dossier is, and continues to be, the subject of active investigations by Congress and intelligence agencies. It was presented to two successive presidents, and has been described in detail by news outlets around the world. Its interest to the public is obvious. This is not the first time Trump's personal lawyer has attacked the free press, and we look forward to defending our First Amendment rights in court."

...

no link

trump loves both suing and threatening lawsuits over any perceived slight, whether it’s an artist who depicted the president nude with a micropenis, or an analyst who (correctly) predicted the Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino would fail. The president has a long history of using bogus claims of libel and defamation to bully opponents and tie them up in court. The American Bar Association has called him a "libel bully," but was afraid to make the claim public because its lawyers feared Trump might sue in retaliation. There’s even a nifty online counter tracking the number of hours since Trump last threatened a journalist or critic. According to the makers of the counter, he’s threatened to sue at least 45 times since the 1980s.

As outrageous as some of Trump’s claims are, being sued for defamation or libel is no laughing matter. It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, not to mention the opportunity cost of time spent in court, plus the emotional strain and reputation damage that can occur during a complicated lawsuit. For someone as powerful as Trump, who can hand these burdens off to someone else, lawsuits are an easy way to threaten anyone who challenges him.

Here are some of the least credible and most obnoxious lawsuits Trump has followed through on in an effort to silence his opponents.

1. The Chicago Tribune

Back in 1984, Trump sued Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Gapp for a staggering $500 million after the writer mocked a proposed Trump building in the New York financial district. Gapp called the building plan unrealistic and “one of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York or any other city”—and Trump was not having it.

The case was tossed out by a particularly sardonic judge, whose full statement is a delight to read. In Gapp’s defense, the building design was totally silly, as you can see below.

2. Trump biographer Timothy O’Brien

In 2005, Trump sued his own biographer, Timothy O’Brien, for writing in TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald that the real estate mogul was worth only $150 to $250 million. Trump insisted he was worth at least $5 billion, and took the case to court. Seriously. A judge ultimately dismissed the case. After he lost, Trump bragged to the Washington Post: "I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees but they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make [O’Brien’s] life miserable, which I’m happy about."

3. Miss USA contestant Sheena Monnin

In 2012, pageant contestant Sheena Monnin complained on Facebook that the Miss USA contest Trump oversaw was "fraudulent," "trashy" and "rigged.” Trump sued her for $5 million in response and won an arbitration award. Trump attorney Michael Cohen later bragged that he and Trump had “destroyed” Monnin’s life.

4. The Daily Beast

Trump’s team sued the Daily Beast in 2015 after it published an article about Ivana Trump’s accusations of rape against her ex-husband. On that occasion, attorney Cohen, who headed many of these lawsuits, made it perfectly clear that the suit was intended to punish anyone who smeared Trump’s name.

“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen told the Daily Beast. “So I’m warning you, tread very f---ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f---ing disgusting. You understand me?”

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up…for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet…you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he said.

5. Union workers at Trump Hotel Las Vegas

In 2015, Trump sued the Culinary Union and Bartenders Union at his own Las Vegas hotel for printing “misleading” flyers that suggested Trump himself did not stay at Trump Hotel Las Vegas because the rooms weren’t luxurious enough. At the time, employees at the hotel were in the midst of efforts to unionize.

A union spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter: "This lawsuit is an effort to distract from the unionizing effort...There are over 500 workers who are fighting for justice and respect at the Trump Hotel Las Vegas.”

6. Univision

Trump's long and well-publicized feud with Univision has resulted in threats of several lawsuits, including one against programming chief Alberto Ciurana for posting an Instagram with Trump’s face spliced next to Dylann Roof’s. So basically, Trump threatened to sue over a meme calling out his blatant racism.

It's no wonder Univision's lawyers called Trump "thin-skinned" in response. Their memorandum to dismiss the suit nails Trump's tactics of intimidation perfectly: "There is a rich irony to Trump’s cry that he is the target of an effort to 'suppress [his] right to free speech,' when it is Trump himself—a candidate for president—who is attempting to invoke the coercive power of the courts to punish a citizen’s speech."

==

</div>

<div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/food/trump-wants-deny-struggling-americans-access-healthy-farmers-market-food">https://www.alternet.org/food/trump-wants-deny-struggling-americans-access-healthy-farmers-market-food</a></div>

<div>

</div>

<div>

last week’s presidential budget, the administration proposed replacing most Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits with a pre-selected box of mostly dry goods like peanut butter, pasta and cereal. They wanted to stop benefit recipients from choosing their own food, including redeeming their federal assistance at farmers’ markets such as those our organization manages across Los Angeles. That’s right, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts or whole grains—any semblance of a product that looks like it came from a farm—were excluded. Meanwhile, the plan was introduced with Orwellian descriptors like "access to a nutritious diet" and "100% U.S. grown and produced food."...

</div>

<div style=""> Trump’s corruption is unparalleled in the history of the presidency.

Here are the facts, according to USA Today and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: During his first year in office, Trump and White House staff promoted the Trump brand on at least 35 different occasions. At least eleven foreign governments paid Trump-owned companies and at least six foreign government officials visited Trump Organization properties. Political groups spent more than $1.2 million at Trump properties (compared to less than $100,000 in any previous year). And Trump sold $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive buyers.</div>

<div style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-budget-proposal-2534464104.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-budget-proposal-2534464104.html</a></div>

</div>

<h1 class="headline h1" style=" margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">While Exploding Military Spending, Trump Budget Eviscerates Funding for EPA, Healthcare and More</h1>

</div>

By Julia Conley

Nearly <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/02/12/thehill.com/homenews/administration/373441-the-federal-programs-trump-proposes-cutting-in-2019-budget" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">two dozen</a> federal programs and agencies are in danger of losing funding under President Donald Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/budget-fy2019.pdf" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">2019 budget proposal</a>, released Monday. The proposed cuts will potentially result in drastic changes to social welfare programs and other government efforts to improve the lives of working people across the country as well as those in impoverished nations.

While programs heralded by progressives may be in peril, the budget calls for a 13 percent increase in spending by the military, up from the Pentagon's 2017 level of spending. The president is asking for $686 billion in defense spending—$80 billion more than the Pentagon currently receives for its bloated and unaccountable budget.

<div id="google_ads_iframe_18190176/AdThrive_Content_1/58d2e52b44e6236dc5819ee2_0container" style=" border: 0pt none;">"When our nation can't manage to turn the lights on for the people of Puerto Rico, when we can't help those suffering from opioid addiction get treatment, and when we can't ensure education and healthcare to all of our citizens, how is it possible we can justify spending billions more on weapons that don't work to fight enemies that don't exist?" said Stephen Miles, head of the peace group Win Without War in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/09/senate-budget-deal-us-military-spending" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a> last week, ahead of the budget release.</div>

</div>

Below are some of the initiatives that the president is asking Americans to sacrifice while ramping up military spending.

International Reproductive Health Aid

As part of the anti-choice <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/02/08/reproductive-rights-groups-slam-wh-report-trumps-unconscionable-global-gag-rule" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">global gag order</a> the president reinstated to bar health organizations that rely on federal funding from providing abortion care and counseling, the administration is requesting new investments in family planning efforts, "with an emphasis on evidence-based methods, including fertility awareness"—suggesting funding for contraceptives in impoverished countries will be slashed.

"This budget confirms that Trump and his cronies in his White House of ill-repute are hell-bent on substituting religious dogma for evidence and that the gratuitous cruelty of their first year can be expected in the second as well," said Brian Dixon of the Population Connection Action Fund.

Department of Education (DOE)

The president is requesting a 10.5 percent decrease in funding for the DOE. The budget would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/12/devos-seeks-massive-cuts-from-education-department-to-support-school-choice/?utm_term=.185a3b9ef85a" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">eliminate</a> the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and reduce the number of income-based loan repayment plans offered. Meanwhile, more than $1 billion would be spent on private school vouchers, charter schools and other initiatives that shift funding away from public schools.

Public Media

The president is proposing eliminating federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the non-profit which helps finance PBS and NPR, over a two-year period.

The budget cut would likely be rebuked by much of the U.S. population. On Monday PBS released the results of a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/americans-rate-pbs-and-its-member-stations-most-trusted-institution-for-the-15th-consecutive-year/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">survey</a> that found that Americans ranked the organization as the number-one most trusted public institution in the country.

"PBS, our 350 member stations and our legions of local supporters will continue to remind leaders in Washington of the significant benefits the public receives in return for federal funding, a modest investment of about $1.35 per citizen per year," PBS President Paula Kerger said in a <a href="http://deadline.com/2018/02/pbs-donald-trump-paula-kerger-responds-budget-eliminate-public-media-funding-1202286441/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">statement.</a>

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The president's budget proposal would bring funding for the EPA to its lowest level since 1990, with a 34 percent reduction in spending from 2017. Funding cuts for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a> research, the Environmental Education Program, and programs that protect American waters from pollution are among those that will be made.

"President Trump's budget is nothing short of devastating for all Americans who value clean air, safe drinking water and protected public lands," said Rhea Suh, president of the National Resources Defense Council, in a statement. "Congress must reject it, and instead invest in a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous future for everyone."

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

Under the proposed budget, the Trump administration would cut the budget for SNAP benefits by about 27 percent and would dictate the food that low-income households are able to purchase using the benefits, also known as food stamps. About half of a family's monthly benefits would come in the form of a box of pre-selected food, including "shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit and vegetables," according to the budget.

"They have managed to propose nearly the impossible, taking over $200 billion worth of food from low-income Americans while increasing bureaucracy and reducing choices," Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/12/585130274/trump-administration-wants-to-decide-what-food-snap-recipients-will-get" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">told</a>NPR.

Medicare and Medicaid

Hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/02/12/morally-bankrupt-budget-after-15-trillion-gift-rich-trump-demands-17-trillion-safety" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">also included</a> in the budget. On social media, critics summed up the president's plan as consistent with the tax law he signed in December—with sacrifices coming from working families as the wealthy benefit.

...

</div>

<div style=""><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-news-trump-2534506140.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-news-trump-2534506140.html</a></div>

</div>

<h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style=" margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-news-trump-2534506140.html" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;"> Trump Effect on Climate News</a></h1>

By Jeremy Deaton

All press is good press—except when it isn't.

For those who are happy about President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Trump</a>'s attacks on climate science and policy, this will come as bad news. By shining a spotlight on the issue, Trump drove media coverage of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate change</a> last year.

</div>

<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2018/02/12/how-broadcast-tv-networks-covered-climate-change-2017/219277" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">New analysis</a> from <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Media Matters for America</a> finds that, following a year of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/minutes/141567/media-essentially-stopped-covering-climate-change" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">lagging coverage</a> of climate change, 2017 saw network news programs scramble to report on Trump's full-scale assault on federal climate policy. The spike in coverage coincided with an increase in concern about climate change—Americans are now <a href="https://ecoamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ecoamerica-american-climate-perspectives-2017-annual-summary-1.pdf#page=4" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">more worried than ever</a> about the carbon crisis.

What's more, the heightened awareness comes in spite of the fact that broadcasters fell short in several key areas. "Even though corporate broadcast news coverage of climate change increased between 2016 and 2017, the quality of coverage remained poor across the board, primarily because the networks centered their climate coverage around Donald Trump while largely neglecting other important climate stories," said Lisa Hymas, director of climate and energy programs at Media Matters for America.

Here are the key takeaways from the report.

Trump drove coverage of climate change in 2017.

The nation's broadcasters didn't spend a lot of time on climate change last year, but when they did, it was almost always in response to Trump. Segments that dealt with his policies or featured statements from members of his administration accounted for 79 percent of the total time given over to climate change. Roughly half of all climate segments centered on his <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/almost-everyone-opposes-trump-on-paris-video-b6351302e90d" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">decision</a> to pull out of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Paris agreement</a>.

<img src="/d6adccbc-76aa-5fa5-9197-01f01b75544b.png"/><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2018/02/12/how-broadcast-tv-networks-covered-climate-change-2017/219277" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Media Matters</a>

"The networks paid disproportionate attention to the political spectacle Trump made of rejecting the Paris climate agreement, while they largely overlooked crucial stories like the ongoing rollback of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/clean-power-plan" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Clean Power Plan</a> and the role of climate change in a year of record-setting weather disasters," Hymas said.

Broadcasters gave almost no time, for example, to the impact of climate change on public health, national security, infrastructure or the economy—not to mention numerous protests against Trump's climate policies. For example, broadcasters scarcely mentioned the <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/scenes-from-the-peoples-climate-march-81064890391c" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">People's Climate March</a>, which drew 200,000 people to the National Mall in April.

In a year of record storms, heat waves and wildfires, networks failed to explain how climate change is fueling extreme weather.

2017 was a marquee year for climate change, as rising temperatures exacerbated <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/what-climate-change-did-and-didnt-have-to-do-with-the-socal-fires/547712/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">wildfires</a> in California, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23062017/deadly-heat-wave-southwest-climate-change" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">heatwaves</a> in the Southwest, and three <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/was-the-extreme-2017-hurricane-season-driven-by-climate-change/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">devastating hurricanes</a>— <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-harvey" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Harvey</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-irma" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Irma</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-maria" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Maria</a>. Last year's weather disasters were the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/08/hurricanes-wildfires-made-2017-the-most-costly-u-s-disaster-year-on-record/?utm_term=.ac7065d21cb4" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">costliest</a> in U.S. history. And yet, broadcasters devoted just four segments in total to the influence of climate change on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">extreme weather</a>, including just two about <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/abc-and-nbc-failed-to-explain-how-climate-change-fueled-hurricane-harvey-fcdb24c0477a" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">last year's hurricanes</a>.

<img src="/371729e0-788f-56a6-b988-c5b39af033df.png"/><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2018/02/12/how-broadcast-tv-networks-covered-climate-change-2017/219277" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Media Matters</a>

This is not to say the news outlets failed to cover natural disasters, just that they neglected to examine the influence of climate change. To be fair, it can take scientists weeks, months or longer to sift through the data to find the human fingerprint on a particular storm or <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">wildfire</a>. But, amid a record-setting hurricane, for example, broadcasters can invite climate scientists to explain how climate change is contributing to extreme weather more generally. Per usual, PBS far outperformed its peers in this regard, while CBS came in at a distant second.

News outlets gave an uncontested platform to climate deniers.

Broadcasters gave a considerable amount of time to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-denier" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate deniers</a> in 2017, much of it unavoidable. The president of the U.S. has said human-caused climate change is a fiction, and reporters have to report on what he says. That doesn't mean, however, that they must do so uncritically.

Reporters have a responsibility to put the president's remarks in context, explaining that scientists <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">overwhelmingly agree</a> that humans are causing climate change. Yet, in 37 percent of segments noting Trump has called climate change a "hoax," broadcasters did not challenge his claim. TV news anchors were similarly lax in pushing back on the fallacious claims of administration officials. The report highlighted this exchange between U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">EPA</a>) chief <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Scott Pruitt</a> and Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press:

<img src="/74301c90-682a-5fff-95e9-1d65d11f3897.png"/><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2018/02/12/how-broadcast-tv-networks-covered-climate-change-2017/219277" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Media Matters</a>

More generally, journalists charged with providing an objective account of the day's news often settle for a he-said-she-said roundup of political elites. The consequence is that reports from scientists or policymakers about the severity of climate change are often paired with statements from high-profile climate deniers.

Americans are more worried than ever about climate change. Trump may have something to do with it.

There's evidence the public uses the volume of coverage of a particular issue to gauge the <a href="https://www.utwente.nl/en/bms/communication-theories/sorted-by-cluster/Mass%20Media/Agenda-Setting_Theory/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">importance</a> of that issue. And <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2012.694986" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">study</a> after <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/class/comm1a/readings/bennett-press-state.pdf" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">study</a> after <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1081180X99004003006" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">study</a> has found that elites drive what news outlets cover. A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Carmichael3/publication/311446538_Elite_cues_media_coverage_and_public_concern_an_integrated_path_analysis_of_public_opinion_on_climate_change_2001-2013/links/5a4d0d81458515a6bc6dc678/Elite-cues-media-coverage-and-public-concern-an-integrated-path-analysis-of-public-opinion-on-climate-change-2001-2013.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">2016 paper</a>, for example, found that "opinion on climate change is directly influenced by media coverage," and that "the most important driver of media remains elite cues from politicians and movement actors."

Trump is driving TV coverage of climate change, and as a result, he is raising the profile of the issue. Last year's spike in coverage of climate change corresponded with an uptick in public concern. Worry about climate change is now at an <a href="https://ecoamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ecoamerica-american-climate-perspectives-2017-annual-summary-1.pdf#page=4" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">all-time high</a> across several polls.

<img src="/2448e308-ed22-5440-9930-f3014c4d066a.png"/><a href="https://ecoamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ecoamerica-american-climate-perspectives-2017-annual-summary-1.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">EcoAmerica</a>

In this way, climate change mirrors several other issues. When this particular president takes a stance—that the press can't be trusted, or that immigrants are a threat—large numbers of Americans <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/4/16408968/trump-midas-touch" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">run in the other direction</a>. Just as the public has grown more concerned about the climate, it has also become more trusting of the press and more supportive of immigration.

The retreat from Trump may reflect the president's habit of playing to his base while antagonizing Democrats and independents. Persuasion is a lost art in this White House. So far, the administration's repeated attacks on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">science</a> and policy have pushed broadcasters to cover an issue that, until recently, they were happy to ignore.

Going forward, Hymas argued, TV reporters should take their cues not just from political elites, but from the scientific community, which has made clear that climate change is an <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">existential threat</a>. "As the climate crisis intensifies,

the broadcast networks must report on the real-world effects of climate change and climate policies rather than treating the issue as Trump's political football," she said.

<div class="around-the-web__headline" style=" font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div>

<li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-researchers-rsquo-work-is-turned-into-fake-news/" class="around-the-weblink" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">Climate Researchers' Work Is Turned into Fake News - Scientific ... ›</a></li>

<li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bill-nye-trump-2502407698.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">Bill Nye: Trump Administration Will Be 'Last Gasp of the Anti-Science ... ›</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

</div>

<div style=""><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-cabinet-climate-deniers-2ff87aba57ec/">https://thinkprogress.org/trump-cabinet-climate-deniers-2ff87aba57ec/</a></div>

</div>

<div style="">February 11, 2018</div>

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=9ba93edfe3&e=8710facb33" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1518395082761_8903" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline: none; font-weight: bold;">Tomgram: Michael Klare, Militarizing America's Energy Policy</a>

Think of President Trump and his administration as a den of thieves. There is, of course, the obvious thievery: what they will in the end, as with the recently passed tax “reform” bill, steal from ordinary citizens and offer as never-ending presents to the already staggeringly wealthy, among them the president himself (<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=6d7dcaaf6a&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">possible savings</a> up to $15 million annually) and son-in-law Jared Kushner (possible savings: up to $12 million annually). <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=82332f03d8&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">According to</a> the Congressional Budget Office, government cash reserves are already starting to <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=187b64ccb6&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">fall faster</a>than expected as a result of lost revenue from that bill. And the modest gains offered to ordinary taxpayers to give cover to a <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=7d88f97fcd&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">vast increase</a> in the wealth of the <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=06b9ad274e&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">top 1%</a> will all sunset in the 2020s, while that bill’s corporate tax cuts are <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=c5c466897e&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">meant for</a> eternity.

Think of such moves not as acts of petty theft, but as robbery of the most basic sort, since they involve stealing from the future to fund an increasingly plutocratic present. The Donald, in other words, isn’t just stealing from us but from our children and grandchildren. And if that’s true of his tax bill, it’s so much truer of his energy policies, as <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=07ba9c304b&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">TomDispatch regular</a> Michael Klare makes clear in a newsworthy manner today. That the president’s addiction to fossil fuels, his belief that freeing Big Energy from every form of restriction and regulation, is crucial to future American global domination has, Klare informs us, been embedded in the administration’s recently released <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=983cf3bb18&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">National Security Strategy</a>.  In other words, the exploitation of fossil fuels in North America is now officially the heart and soul of the global policy-making of President Trump and his generals.

This isn’t just a matter of stealing future money from our children and grandchildren, or even of polluting the American environment in which they’ll grow up in a fashion familiar to anyone -- like <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=030b175229&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">Donald Trump</a> (or me) -- who was raised in the 1950s.  It’s a matter of stealing everything from them, including potentially the very environment that’s nurtured generation after generation of children on this planet for all the thousands of years of human history.  If the president and his crew of <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=d9bf1ea70f&e=8710facb33" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1518395082761_8822" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">climate deniers</a> have their way and a fossil-fuelized version of energy “<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=93d0459604&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">dominance</a>” comes to rule our American world, while the path to alternative energy growth is <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=a649b14dc9&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">crippled</a>, then they will have stolen from the future in the most basic way imaginable for the comfort of just a few human beings now.  As part of what can only be thought of as a semi-conscious plan to further warm the planet, President Trump’s energy policy will, without any doubt, represent not just thievery, not just the crime of this century, but <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=4f4d63c3f7&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">terracide</a>, the destruction of the planet itself, which will be the crime of any century. Keep that in mind as you read Klare’s piece today. Tom

The Strategy of Maximal Extraction

How Donald Trump Plans to Enlist Fossil Fuels in the Struggle for Global Dominance

By <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=a7479c1387&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">Michael T. Klare</a>

The new U.S. energy policy of the Trump era is, in some ways, the oldest energy policy on Earth. Every great power has sought to mobilize the energy resources at its command, whether those be slaves, wind-power, coal, or oil, to further its hegemonic ambitions. What makes the Trumpian variant -- the unfettered exploitation of America’s fossil-fuel reserves -- unique lies only in the moment it’s being applied and the likely devastation that will result, thanks not only to the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=97061ce512&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">1950s-style</a> polluting of America’s air, waters, and urban environment, but to the devastating hand it will lend to a globally warming world.

Last month, if you listened to the chatter among elite power brokers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, you would have heard a lot of bragging about the immense progress being made in renewable energy.  “My government has planned a major campaign,” <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=e1642412e9&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">said</a> Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the group.  “By 2022, we want to generate 175 gigawatts of renewable energy; in the last three years, we have already achieved 60 gigawatts, or around one-third of this target.”  Other world leaders also boasted of their achievements in speeding the installation of wind and solar energy.  Even the energy minister of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Khalid Al-Falih, <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=d945c0b23d&e=8710facb33" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1518395082761_8895" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">announced</a> plans for a $30 billion to $50 billion investment in solar power.  Only one major figure defied this trend: U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.  The United States, he <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=55242f1c9b&e=8710facb33" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">insisted</a>, is “blessed” with “a substantial ability to deliver the people of the globe a better quality of life through fossil fuels.”

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=ebc68b46b1&e=8710facb33" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1518395082761_8819" style=" -webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">Click here to read more of this dispatch.</a>

</blockquote>

</div>

The Strategy of Maximal Extraction

How Donald Trump Plans to Enlist Fossil Fuels in the Struggle for Global Dominance

By <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/michaelklare" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Michael T. Klare</a>

The new U.S. energy policy of the Trump era is, in some ways, the oldest energy policy on Earth. Every great power has sought to mobilize the energy resources at its command, whether those be slaves, wind-power, coal, or oil, to further its hegemonic ambitions. What makes the Trumpian variant -- the unfettered exploitation of America’s fossil-fuel reserves -- unique lies only in the moment it’s being applied and the likely devastation that will result, thanks not only to the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176222/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,donald_trump%27s_energy_nostalgia_and_the_path_to_hell/" target="blank" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">1950s-style</a> polluting of America’s air, waters, and urban environment, but to the devastating hand it will lend to a globally warming world.

Last month, if you listened to the chatter among elite power brokers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, you would have heard a lot of bragging about the immense progress being made in renewable energy.  “My government has planned a major campaign,” <a href="https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/pm-modi-at-davos-india-making-rapid-strides-in-renewable-energy/62619924" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the group.  “By 2022, we want to generate 175 gigawatts of renewable energy; in the last three years, we have already achieved 60 gigawatts, or around one-third of this target.”  Other world leaders also boasted of their achievements in speeding the installation of wind and solar energy.  Even the energy minister of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Khalid Al-Falih, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/faisal-abbas/-in-davos-saudi-energy-mi_b_14280690.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> plans for a $30 billion to $50 billion investment in solar power.  Only one major figure defied this trend: U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.  The United States, he <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fossil-fuels-can-provide-better-quality-of-life-rick-perry-tells-davos-energy-forum/article/2646960" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">insisted</a>, is “blessed” with “a substantial ability to deliver the people of the globe a better quality of life through fossil fuels.”

</blockquote>

A better quality of life through fossil fuels? On this, he and his Trump administration colleagues now stand essentially alone on planet Earth.  Virtually every other country has by now chosen -- via the Paris climate accord and efforts like those under way in India -- to speed the transition from a carbon-based energy economy to a renewable one.

A possible explanation for this: Donald Trump’s indebtedness to the very fossil fuel interests that helped propel him into office.  Think, for example, of his interior secretary’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/trump-seen-urging-all-u-s-coastal-waters-be-opened-to-drilling" target="blank" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">recent decision</a> to open much of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to offshore drilling (long sought by the oil and gas industry) or his administration’s <a href="http://thehill.com/regulation/overnights/326404-overnight-regulation-trump-tackles-war-on-coal" target="blank" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">moves</a> to lift restrictions on coal mining on federal lands (long favored by the coal industry).  Both were clearly acts of payback.  Still, far more than subservience to oil and coal barons lurks in Trump’s energy policy (and Perry’s words).  From the White House perspective, the U.S. is engaged in a momentous struggle for global power with rival nations and, it is claimed, the country’s abundance of fossil fuels affords it a vital edge.  The more of those fuels America produces and exports, the greater its stature in a competitive world system, which is precisely why maximizing such output has already become a major pillar of President Trump’s national security policy.

He laid out his dystopian world vision (and that of the generals he’s put in charge of what was once known as American “foreign policy”) in a December 18th address announcing the release of the administration’s new <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/new-national-security-strategy-new-era/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">National Security Strategy</a> (NSS) document.  “Whether we like it or not,” he <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-administrations-national-security-strategy/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">asserted</a>, “we are engaged in a new era of competition.” The U.S. faces “rogue regimes” like Iran and North Korea and “rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth.”  In such an intensely competitive world, he added, “we will stand up for ourselves, and we will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before... Our rivals are tough.  They’re tenacious and committed to the long term. But so are we.”

To Trump and his generals, we’ve been plunged into a world that bears little relation to the one faced by the last two administrations, when great-power conflict was rarely the focus of attention and civilian society remained largely insulated from the pressures of the country’s never-ending wars.  Today, they believe, the U.S. can no longer afford to distinguish between “the homeland” and foreign battle zones when girding for years of struggle to come. “To succeed,” the president concluded, “we must integrate every dimension of our national strength, and we must compete with every instrument of our national power.”

And that’s where, in the Trumpian worldview, energy enters the picture.

Energy Dominance

From the onset of his presidency, Donald Trump has made it clear that cheap and abundant domestic energy derived from fossil fuels was going to be the crucial factor in his total-mobilization approach to global engagement. In his view and that of his advisers, it’s the essential element in ensuring national economic vitality, military strength, and geopolitical clout, whatever damage it might cause to American life, the global environment, or even the future of human life on this planet.  The exploitation and wielding of fossil fuels now sits at the very heart of the Trumpian definition of national security, as the recently released NSS makes all too clear.

“Access to domestic sources of clean, affordable, and reliable energy underpins a prosperous, secure, and powerful America for decades to come,” it <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905-2.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">states</a>.  “Unleashing these abundant energy resources -- coal, natural gas, petroleum, renewables, and nuclear -- stimulates the economy and builds a foundation for future growth.”

So, yes, the document does pay lip service to the role of renewables, though no one should take that seriously given, for instance, the president’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/22/trump-imposes-tariffs-on-solar-panels-and-washing-machines-in-first-major-trade-action/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">recent decision</a> to place high tariffs on imported solar panels, an act likely to cripple the domestic solar-installation industry.  What really matters to Trump are those domestic reserves of fossil fuels.  Only by using them to gain energy self-sufficiency, or what he trumpets not just as “energy independence” but total “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/28/trump-america-energy-dominant-policy.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">energy dominance</a>,” can the U.S. avoid becoming beholden to foreign powers and so protect its sovereignty.  That’s why he regularly hails the successes of the “shale revolution,” the use of fracking technology to extract oil and gas from deeply buried shale formations.  As he sees it, fracking to the max makes America that much less dependent on foreign imports.

It follows then that the ability to supply fossil fuels to other countries will be a source of geopolitical advantage, a reality made painfully clear early in this century when Russia <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187936651100011X" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">exploited</a> its status as a major supplier of natural gas to Ukraine, Belarus, and other former Soviet republics to try to extract political concessions from them.  Donald Trump absorbed that lesson and incorporated it into his strategic playbook.

“Our country is blessed with extraordinary energy abundance,” he <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-unleashing-american-energy-event/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">declared</a> at an “Unleashing American Energy Event” last June. “We are a top producer of petroleum and the number-one producer of natural gas... With these incredible resources, my administration will seek not only American energy independence that we’ve been looking for so long, but American energy dominance. And we’re going to be an exporter... We will be dominant. We will export American energy all over the world, all around the globe.”

Attaining Energy Dominance

In energy terms, what does dominant mean in practice?  For President Trump and his cohorts, it means above all the “unleashing” of the country’s energy abundance by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/climate/trump-executive-order-climate-change.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">eliminating</a> every imaginable regulatory impediment to the exploitation of domestic reserves of fossil fuels.  After all, America possesses some of the largest reservoirs of oil, coal, and natural gas on the planet and, by applying every technological marvel at its disposal, can maximally extract those reserves to enhance national power.

“The truth is that we have near-limitless supplies of energy in our country,” he declared last June.  All that stood in the way of exploiting them when he entered the Oval Office, he insisted, were environmental regulations imposed by the Obama administration.  “We cannot have obstruction. Since my very first day in office, I have been moving at record pace to cancel these regulations and to eliminate the barriers to domestic energy production.”  He then cited his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/24/trump-gives-green-light-to-dakota-access-keystone-xl-oil-pipelines/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">approval</a> of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/us/politics/under-trump-coal-mining-gets-new-life-on-us-lands.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">cancellation</a> of a moratorium on the leasing of federal lands for coal mining, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-regulation-methane/trump-administration-plans-to-delay-methane-controls-on-oil-gas-idUSKBN1C92LI" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">reversal</a> of an Obama administration rule aimed at preventing methane leakage from natural gas production on federal lands, and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-signs-order-at-the-epa-to-dismantle-environmental-protections/2017/03/28/3ec30240-13e2-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">rollback</a> of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which (if implemented) would require sharp cuts in coal usage.  And from the recent <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/senate-tax-bill-indigenous-communities/547352/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">opening</a> of the pristine Alaskan Arctic Refuge to that of those coastal waters to every kind of drilling, it’s never ended.

Closely related to such actions has been his repudiation of the Paris Agreement, because -- as he saw it -- that pact, too, stood in the way of his plan to “unleash” domestic energy in the pursuit of international power. By withdrawing from the agreement, he claimed to be preserving American “sovereignty,” while opening the path to a new kind of global energy dominance. “We have so much more [energy] than we ever thought possible,” he asserted.  “We are really in the driving seat.  And you know what? We don’t want to let other countries take away our sovereignty and tell us what to do and how to do it.  That’s not going to happen.”

Never mind that the Paris agreement in no way intruded on American sovereignty. It only <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/climate/qa-the-paris-climate-accord.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">obligated</a> its partners -- at this point, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/climate/syria-joins-paris-agreement.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">every country</a> on Earth except the United States -- to enact its own greenhouse gas emissions reduction measures aimed at preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above their pre-industrial levels. (That is the biggest increase scientists believe the planet can absorb without experiencing truly catastrophic impacts like a <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-levels-rise-20-feet-19211" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">10-foot rise</a> in global sea levels).  In the Obama years, in its own self-designed blueprint for achieving this goal, the United States promised, among other things, to implement the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/reduce-emissions/what-is-the-clean-power-plan" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Clean Power Plan</a> to minimize the consumption of coal, itself already a dying industry. This, of course, represented an unacceptable impediment to Trump’s extract-everything policy.

The final step in the president’s strategy to become a major exporter involves facilitating the transport of fossil fuels to the country’s coastal areas for shipment abroad.  In this way, he would also turn the government into a major global salesman of fossil fuels (as it <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176372/" target="blank" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">already is</a>, for instance, of American weaponry).  To do so, he would expedite the approval of permits for the export of LNG, or liquefied natural gas, and even for some <a href="http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/11/10/coal-deals-possible-us-holds-industry-event-un-climate-talks/" target="blank" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">new types</a>of “lower emissions” coal plants. The Department of the Treasury, he revealed in that June talk of his, “will address barriers to the financing of highly efficient, overseas coal energy plants.” In addition, he claimed that the Ukrainians tell us “they need millions and millions of metric tons [of coal] right now.  There are many other places that need it, too.  And we want to sell it to them, and to everyone else all over the globe who need[s] it.”  He also announced the approval of expanded LNG exports from a new facility at Lake Charles, Louisiana, and of a new oil pipeline to Mexico, meant to “further boost American energy exports, and that will go right under the [as yet unbuilt] wall.”

Such energy moves have generally been viewed as part of a pro-industry, anti-environmentalist agenda, which they certainly are, but each is also a component in an increasingly militarized strategy to enlist domestic energy in an epic struggle -- at least in the minds of the president and his advisers -- to ensure America’s global dominance.

Where All This Is Headed

Trump achieved many of these maximal-extraction objectives during his first year in office.  Now, with fossil fuels uniquely imbedded in the country’s National Security Strategy, we have a clearer sense of what’s happening.  First of all, along with the <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/364457-trump-signs-nearly-700b-defense-policy-bill" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">further funding</a> of the U.S. military (and of the “<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/news/cbo-nuclear-arsenal-cost-12-trillion" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">modernization</a>” of the country’s nuclear arsenal), Donald Trump and his generals are making fossil fuels a crucial ingredient for bulking up our national security.  In that way, they will turn anything (or any group) standing in the way of the extraction and exploitation of oil, coal, and natural gas into obstructers of the national interest and, quite literally, of American national security.

In other words, the expansion of the fossil fuel industry and its exports has been transformed into a major component of American foreign and security policy.  Of course, such developments and the exports that go with them do generate income and sustain some jobs, but in the Trumpian view they also boost the country’s geopolitical profile by encouraging foreign friends and partners to rely ever more heavily on us for their energy needs, rather than adversaries like Russia or Iran.  “As a growing supplier of energy resources, technologies, and services around the world,” the NSS declares without a hint of irony, “the United States will help our allies and partners become more resilient against those that use energy to coerce.”

As the Trump administration moves forward on all this, the key battlefield will undoubtedly be the building and maintaining of energy infrastructure -- the pipelines and railroads carrying oil, gas, and coal from the American interior to processing and export facilities on the coasts.  Because so many of the country’s large cities and population centers are on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, or the Gulf of Mexico, and because the country has long depended on imports for much of its petroleum supply, a surprising share of existing energy infrastructure -- refineries, LNG facilities, pumping stations, and the like -- is already located along those same coasts.  Yet much of the energy supply Trump seeks to exploit -- the shale fields of Texas and North Dakota, the coal fields of Nebraska -- is located in the interior of the country.  For his strategy to succeed, such resource zones must be connected far more effectively to coastal facilities via a mammoth web of new pipelines and other transport infrastructure.  All of this will cost vast sums of money and lead to intense clashes with environmentalists, Native peoples, farmers, ranchers, and others whose lands and way of life will be severely degraded when that kind of construction takes place, and who can be expected to resist.

For Trump, the road ahead is clear: do whatever it takes to install the infrastructure needed to deliver those fossil fuels abroad.  Not surprisingly then, the National Security Strategy asserts that “we will streamline the Federal regulatory approval processes for energy infrastructure, from pipeline and export terminals to container shipments and gathering lines.”  This is bound to provoke numerous conflicts with environmental groups and other inhabitants of what Naomi Klein, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451697392/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">This Changes Everything</a>, calls “Blockadia” -- places like the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where thousands of Native people and their supporters <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/us/dakota-pipeline-protests/index.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">camped out</a>last year in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to block construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.  Given the administration’s insistence on linking energy extraction to U.S. security, don’t for a moment imagine that attempts to protest such moves won’t be met with harsh treatment from federal law enforcement agencies.

Building all of that infrastructure will also prove expensive, so expect President Trump to make pipeline construction integral to any infrastructure modernization bill he sends to Congress, thereby securing taxpayer dollars for the effort.  Indeed, the inclusion of pipeline construction and other kinds of energy build-out in any future infrastructure initiative is already a major objective of influential business groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Rebuilding roads and bridges is fine, <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/2018/01/us-chamber-chief-wants-energy-included-in-infrastructure-discussions.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">commented</a> Thomas Donohue, the Chamber’s influential president, but “we’re also living in the midst of an energy renaissance, yet we don’t have the infrastructure to support it.” As a result, he added, we must “build the pipelines necessary to transport our abundant resources to market.”  Given the influence such corporate interests have over this White House and congressional Republicans, it’s reasonable to assume that any bill on infrastructure revitalization will be, at least in part, energy focused.

And keep in mind that for President Trump, with his thoroughly <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176222/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,donald_trump%27s_energy_nostalgia_and_the_path_to_hell/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">fossil-fuelized view</a> of the world, this is just the beginning. Issues that may be viewed by others as environmental or even land-conservation matters will be seen by him and his associates as so many obstacles to national security and greatness.  Facing what will almost certainly be a series of unparalleled potential environmental disasters, those who oppose him will also have to contest his view of the world and the role fossil fuels should play in it.

Selling more of them to foreign buyers, while attempting to stifle the development of renewals (and thereby ceding those true <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/24/news/economy/solar-jobs-us-coal/index.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">job-creating</a> sectors of the economy to other countries) may be good for giant oil and coal corporations, but it won’t win America any friends abroad at a moment when climate change is becoming a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-trailguide-updates-1485281303-htmlstory.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">growing concern</a> for ever more people on this planet. With <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/causes-of-drought-climate-change-connection.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">prolonged droughts</a>, increasingly severe storms and <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">hurricanes</a>, and <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/early-warning-signs-of-global-6.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">killer heat waves</a> affecting ever-larger swaths of the planet, with sea levels rising and extreme weather becoming the norm, the urge for progress on climate change is only growing stronger, as is the demand for climate-friendly renewables.

Donald Trump and his administration of climate-change deniers are quite literally living in the wrong century.  The militarization of energy policy at this late date and the lodging of fossil fuels at the heart of national security policy may seem appealing to them, but it’s an approach that’s obviously doomed.  On arrival, it is, in fact, already the definition of obsolescence.

Unfortunately, given the circumstances of this planet at the moment, it also threatens to doom the rest of us.  The further we look into the future, the more likely international leadership will fall on the shoulders of those who can effectively and efficiently deliver renewables, not those who can provide climate-poisoning fossil fuels.  That being so, no one seeking global prestige would say at Davos or anywhere else that we are blessed with “a substantial ability to deliver the people of the globe a better quality of life through fossil fuels.”

Michael T. Klare, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176222/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,donald_trump%27s_energy_nostalgia_and_the_path_to_hell/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">TomDispatch regular</a>, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250023971/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">The Race for What’s Left</a>. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.

</blockquote>

</div>

</div>

</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>