Trump’s Harm To Rights

Everyone has to worry about their constitutional and human rights not just people coming from other countries.  Getting rid of rights, protections and regulations may be great for businesses but if you’re a human being, even a human being with a business, not so much.  And can be viewed as an attack on all except the top 1% to 10% of the people in the country who can always afford to go around anything that anyone throws at them.  What about the rest of us, the bottom 90% to 99% of the country who are still here?  Although there is nothing new for the Republicans to want to do this but Trump and the current Republicans in office are going much further than they had in the past and they are looking through everything and finding ways to undo rights, protections and regulations, that we previously took for granted as Americans, and to do as much harm as possible.  Or as Bill Maher says in his New Rule: “What Would a Dick Do?”.

 

*The text of the “Big Day” TV ad follows:
“Every day we trust that our families and kids will be safe.
Safe in their beds…
And in the car on the way to school.
That our homes and workplaces will be safe.
And that when our kids play, the air they breathe and the water they drink will be clean.
We trust their grandparents will have a safe flight when they come to visit.
And that our food will be safe to eat.
Fair enforcement of common sense safeguards keeps our families safe.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are working with corporate lobbyists to undo these safeguards.
We can’t let Trump and Congressional Republicans put corporate profits ahead of our health and safety.
Because our loved ones should come first.”

Watch the “Big Day” TV ad here and it is downloadable too.

 

On June 30th 2017, Trump delivered on that vow, signing an executive order that would establish a commission to investigate alleged voter fraud and voter suppression in the American election system.  According to the text of the executive order, the commission will be tasked with studying “those laws, rules, policies, activities, strategies, and practices that enhance the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the voting processes used in Federal elections” as well as those laws that “undermine” that confidence, in addition to “those vulnerabilities in voting systems and practices … that could lead to improper voter registrations and improper voting, including fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting.”

In isolation, this sounds unobjectionable.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with creating a commission to address problems in our election system.  The trouble is who is leading that commission: Vice President Mike Pence and, more importantly, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.  Far from a neutral figure, Kobach is a fierce advocate for harsh, restrictive voting laws.  By itself, his presence is a sign that this commission is a sham, and that the drive for “confidence” is actually a push to raise the barriers to voting and participation.

To understand why Kobach’s presence on this panel is so alarming, you need to know his background.  The architect of draconian anti-immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama—as well as the mind behind Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” rhetoric—Kobach has been a prominent champion for voting restrictions.  In the aftermath of 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act, Kobach emerged as a major voice for voter suppression.  He has backed strict ID laws and pushed for states to require a birth certificate or passport for registration, measures that primarily burden low-income voters, including many voters of color.  From his perch as Kansas’ top election official, Kobach has launched a crusade against “illegal voting,” winning power from state lawmakers to prosecute “voting crime.”  In keeping with most studies of voter fraud—which find little to no evidence of its existence—Kobach has found just nine cases of alleged fraud out of 1.8 million registered Kansas voters.

By making Kobach a co-chair for this commission, Trump has announced its actual purpose: to impose new strict requirements for voting and registration under the guise of “election integrity.”  And while the commission may include Democrats, Kobach’s presence robs it of any credibility.  It is a farce.

The chair of Trump’s Election Integrity Commission has penned a letter to all 50 states requesting their full voter-roll data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state.  In the letter, a copy of which was made public by the Connecticut secretary of state, the commission head Kris Kobach said that “any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made available to the public.”  On June 28th, the office of Vice President Pence released a statement saying “a letter will be sent today to the 50 states and District of Columbia on behalf of the Commission requesting publicly available data from state voter rolls and feedback on how to improve election integrity.”

Here’s what every state is saying.  Mississippi: Will not comply, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said the commission can “go jump in the gulf of Mexico.”, we’ll take that as a no.  Kansas: Will provide what’s publicly available, “Kobach now says Kansas won’t be sharing the last 4 social.  Update coming on http://KansasCity.com soon #ksleg”, so Kobach will not be fully complying with his own request.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Rachel Maddow reports on a new initiative from the Donald Trump administration, led by Kris Kobach, to gather lots of personal data from state voting records, a request that is not being well received by state officials.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks with Rachel Maddow about why Donald Trump’s history and the people he is putting on his voter fraud commission point to a goal of suppressing voter participation.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Rachel Maddow reports on the White House publishing the feedback to its voter fraud task force without redacting any of the personal information, hurting confidence in their ability to properly handle the actual voter data they seek.

On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams Discussing the comments from both Trump and the vice chair of his election integrity commission, Charlie Sykes argues the president is undermining our entire election system.

 

“People supporting the EAC are quite frankly proponents for a greater federal role in our elections,” said Representative Tom Graves (R., Ga.) at a June committee hearing on the proposal to eliminate the agency.  “States themselves, they’re responsible for all the elections.  We do not have a federally run election system.”  However, Democrats have said Russian meddling in the 2016 election has boosted the importance of the EAC.  The agency helps train local officials on such tasks as recruiting poll workers and, during last year’s campaign, distributed memos keeping election officials apprised on potential vulnerabilities in voting systems.

The commission “has a unique task that they’re best situated to accomplish,” said Representative Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat who has been fighting to preserve the agency.  Mr. Quigly said that the intelligence community judgment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign of interference in the 2016 election makes it the “worst time” to try to eliminate the agency.  “Cutting funding to it is a green light to Putin to do it again,” said Mr. Quigley.  The Election Assistance Commission said in December it was “working with federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the potential breach and its effects.”  It said recently it has thoroughly scanned its systems to make sure there are no additional security concerns.  The commission provides election-management guidelines and develops specifications for certifying voting systems, though responsibility for administering elections ultimately falls to state and local governments.

The hacking probe is being conducted at the same time the FBI is undertaking a broader investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including attempts to get into state election databases, and whether anyone working with President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded in the effort.  Trump and his campaign have denied any collusion with Russian hacking.  It is unclear if the EAC hack is part of that review; the FBI declined to comment on the matter.

The hack appeared to include a breach of the EAC’s administrative-access credentials as well as access to nonpublic reports on flaws in voting machines, according to Andrei Barysevich, an analyst with cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.  Access to the reports could have allowed someone to exploit flaws in voting machines, Mr. Barysevich said.  The stolen credentials could have been used to install malicious code on the EAC site, thus potentially infecting any user of it.  The users could include state election officials, who might then use a thumb memory stick to interact with other machines, such as ballot machines not connected to the internet.  The security firm, which assessed the hack as having likely occurred in November, turned the information over to law enforcement in December, and Mr. Barysevich has been cooperating with the FBI on its probe.

 

The announcement suggests that the project will be run out of the division’s front office, where the Trump administration’s political appointees work, rather than its Educational Opportunities Section, which is run by career civil servants and normally handles work involving schools and universities.

The document does not explicitly identify whom the Justice Department considers at risk of discrimination because of affirmative action admissions policies.  But the phrasing it uses, “intentional race-based discrimination,” cuts to the heart of programs designed to bring more minorities to university campuses.  Supporters and critics of the project said it was clearly targeting admissions programs that can give members of generally disadvantaged groups, like black and Latino students, an edge over other applicants with comparable or higher test scores.

The project is another sign that the civil rights division is taking on a conservative tilt under Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  It follows other changes in Justice Department policy on voting rights, gay rights and police reforms.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Charlie Savage, reporter for The New York Times, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about his reporting on a memo that shows Donald Trump’s Justice Department under Jeff Sessions intends to sue universities for discriminating against white people through affirmative action.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Vanita Gupta, former acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about the DoJ’s civil rights division under Jeff Sessions and his reported intention to attack affirmative action in college admissions.

 

In a two-paragraph statement, the White House said that Mr. Arpaio gave “years of admirable service to our nation” and called him a “worthy candidate for a presidential pardon.”  Mr. Trump called Mr. Arpaio “an American patriot” in a tweet later Friday.  “He kept Arizona safe!” the president said.

Mr. Arpaio had touted himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” making inmates wear pink underwear and serving jail food that at least some prisoners called inedible.  He was also at the forefront of the so-called birther movement that aimed to investigate President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

The criminal conviction grew out of a lawsuit filed a decade ago charging that the sheriff’s office regularly violated the rights of Latinos, stopping people based on racial profiling, detaining them based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally and turning them over to the immigration authorities.  A federal district judge hearing the case ordered Mr. Arpaio in 2011 to stop detaining people based solely on suspicion of their immigration status, when there was no evidence that a state law had been broken.  But the sheriff insisted that his tactics were legal and that he would continue employing them.

He was convicted last month of criminal contempt of court for defying the order, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

 

 

 

  • Trump had the FCC, Federal Communications Commission, roll back Net Neutrality rules. The Net Neutrality rules, approved by the FCC in 2015, were intended to keep the internet open and fair.  The rules prevent Internet Providers from playing favorites by deliberately speeding up or slowing down traffic from specific websites and apps.  “If they get rid of the classification, they’re certainly toothless to enforce strong net neutrality rules and other consumer protections,” Gigi Sohn, a counselor to former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, told CNNTech.  The rules safeguarding a fair and open internet are gone so good luck getting to your favorite websites (that is if your favorite websites have not been censored).

 

As early as March, officials said, some of the 800,000 young adults brought to the United States illegally as children who qualify for the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, will become eligible for deportation.  The five-year-old policy allows them to remain without fear of immediate removal from the country and gives them the right to work legally.

Mr. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who announced the change at the Justice Department, both used the aggrieved language of anti-immigrant activists, arguing that those in the country illegally are lawbreakers who hurt native-born Americans by usurping their jobs and pushing down wages.

Mr. Trump said in a statement that he was driven by a concern for “the millions of Americans victimized by this unfair system.” Mr. Sessions said the program had “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

Protests broke out in front of the White House and the Justice Department and in cities across the country soon after Mr. Sessions’s announcement.  Democrats and some Republicans, business executives, college presidents and immigration activists condemned the move as a coldhearted and shortsighted effort that was unfair to the young immigrants and could harm the economy.

 

 

Their plans quickly changed on Friday, July 28th when Lizandro made a courtesy call to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to inform officials he was moving and to seek permission to make his required yearly check-ins with ICE in a North Carolina office.  Lizandro “had his regularly scheduled check-in either August 17, or 18, but because he wanted to make sure he had everything in order for the fall, he notified ICE of this scholarship opportunity and the fact that he wanted to move to North Carolina in September,” said George Escobar, a senior director with CASA de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group.  ICE told Lizandro it would consider his request and asked him to come in with his brother.  The two young men, who had fled El Salvador when Lizandro was 11 and Diego 14, were detained.

The Claros brothers had no criminal record.  “They did everything the right way,” Escobar told NBC News.  “Lizandro and Diego were detained despite the fact that they have never committed a crime, despite the fact that they came to the U.S. as children, despite the fact that they have been valuable contributors to their community and American society, and despite the fact that they would qualify for legal status under the new bipartisan DREAM Act,” said CASA’s Senior Legal Manager Nick Katz.

Their detention and possible deportation has drawn protest from the community.  On Monday (July 31st), high school graduates and members of the Bethesda Academy School soccer club stood outside the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, D.C. protesting the pending deportation of their teammate.

The Trump administration regularly touts its arrests and deportations of people with criminal backgrounds and has said it’s fulfilling Trump’s pledge to get rid of the “bad hombres.”  But immigration officers also have been rounding up and deporting people with final deportation orders, regardless of circumstances of their age or that they have no criminal record beyond entering without legal permission.

The US is a nation of immigrants; the indigenous people of the 48 contiguous states (also known as The Lower 48) of the United States are various tribes of Native Americans also known as American Indians.  So unless you are a Native American Indian then you too are technically either an immigrant or descended from immigrants.  Whether you or your ancestors immigrated to this country of your own free will or not you are still technically either an immigrant or descended from immigrants because they were not or you are not a Native American Indian.  It is as simple as that, any other issues are beside the point.  And it is hypocritical to say well I was born here, okay, I was born here too but I am not a Native American Indian so I too am descended from immigrants.  Therefore, we need immigration reform so that people will be treated fairly and not dragged into countries that either they have not been in since they were small children or not been in since they were born and so families are not split up.

 

“This competitive application process will favor applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy,” Mr. Trump said.  “This legislation,” he added, “will not only restore our competitive edge in the 21st century, but it will restore the sacred bonds of trust between America and its citizens.  This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first and that puts America first.”

The bill, sponsored by Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, would reduce overall legal immigration by 41 percent in its first year and by 50 percent by its 10th year, according to projections cited by its authors.  The reductions would come almost entirely from those brought in through family ties.  The number of immigrants granted legal residency on the basis of job skills, about 140,000, would remain roughly the same, though a much higher proportion of the reduced overall number.

The proposal revives an idea that was included in broader immigration legislation supported by President George W. Bush in 2007 but that failed in Congress.  Republican supporters argued that it would modernize immigration policy that had not been updated significantly in half a century, but critics in both parties contended it would harm the economy by keeping out workers who filled low-wage jobs that Americans did not want.

Under the current system, most legal immigrants are admitted to the United States based on family ties.  American citizens can sponsor spouses, parents and minor children for visas that are not subject to any numerical caps, while siblings and adult children get preferences for a limited number of visas available to them.  Legal permanent residents holding green cards can also sponsor spouses and children.

In 2014, 64 percent of more than one million immigrants admitted with legal residency were immediate relatives of American citizens or sponsored by family members.  Just 15 percent entered on the basis of employment-based preferences, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.  But that does not mean that those who came in on family ties were necessarily low skilled or uneducated.  The projections cited by the sponsors said legal immigration would decrease to 637,960 after a year and to 539,958 after a decade.

The legislation would establish a system of skills points based on education, English speaking ability, high-paying job offers, age, record of achievement and entrepreneurial initiative.  But while it would still allow the spouses and minor children of Americans and legal residents to come in, it would eliminate preference for other relatives, like siblings and adult children.  The bill would create a renewable temporary visa for elderly parents who come for caretaking purposes.

The legislation would limit refugees offered permanent residency to 50,000 a year and eliminate a diversity visa lottery that the sponsors said does not promote diversity.  The senators said their bill is meant to emulate “merit-based” systems in Canada and Australia.

Trump appeared with Republican Senators Tom Cotton (Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.) at the White House to unveil a modified version of a bill the senators first introduced in April to cut immigration by half from the current level of more than 1 million foreigners each year who receive green cards granting them permanent legal residence in the United States.  Trump had met twice previously at the White House with Cotton and Perdue to discuss the details of their legislation, which is titled the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act.

On All In with Chris Hayes Things are bad for undocumented immigrants, and the White House is fanning the flames again.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about the Trump administration attacking immigrants in an effort to shore up his base while ignoring the value of immigrants to the American labor force.

The 11th Hour with Brian Williams Jon Meacham and Michael Beschloss talk about the White House comments on the Statue of Liberty.  Beschloss compares it to separating the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

After five months of bitter legal squabbling, the Trump administration’s modified travel ban took effect Thursday night under new guidelines designed to avert the chaos of the original rollout.  But the rules will still keep many families split and are likely to spawn a new round of court fights.  The State Department on June 29th announced new criteria to determine who will be allowed to enter the United States as a visitor or a refugee.  The travel restrictions are temporary for now — 90 days for visitors and 120 days for refugees coming from six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.  But the administration took a particularly strict interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling June 26th that only those with “bona fide” relationships, such as close family members, can enter the country.  The administration’s new rules do not allow grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, cousins and fiances.  They do allow sons-in-law, daughters-in-law and stepchildren.  Advocates and lawyers criticized the family list as capricious.  “The president is supposed to protect American families, not rip them apart,” said Shayan Modarres, a lawyer with the National Iranian American Council.

The State of Hawaii is asking a federal judge to rule that the administration’s latest plan to carry out Trump’s travel ban executive order defies the ruling the Supreme Court issued on the subject just four days ago.  In a new court filing, lawyers for the state and for a Hawaii imam say guidance the Trump administration issued June 29th takes too narrow a view of what family relationships qualify to exempt a foreigner from the travel ban and would deny admission to refugees who should be exempt from the ban due to their connections to a US resettlement agency.  “This Court should clarify as soon as possible that the Supreme Court meant what it said, and that foreign nationals that credibly claim connections with this country cannot be denied entry under the President’s illegal Order,” Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin and private counsel Neal Katyal wrote in a motion filed June 29th with US District Court Judge Derrick Watson.  However, moments before officials were set to start limiting visa issuance under new guidelines, the State Department changed its website to indicate that fiancés of US citizens would be able to receive visas as usual.  When asked about the shift, a State Department official confirmed the change, but offered no explanation.

 

 

  • Trump made it harder for people to be able to buy a house.  Trump suspended, as one of his first acts as Commander-In-Chief, one of Mr. Obama’s last acts as President, which was to make FHA mortgages more affordable by cutting the insurance premium down from .85 percent to .60 percent for most borrowers.

 

Trump’s 1st tweet:  “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……  8:55 AM – Jul 26, 2017”

For a full nine minutes, the nation, and the entire world for that matter, were on edge waiting for the rest of the message to come through via additional tweets.  We were all wondering what the ‘United States Government would not accept or allow,” but those at the Pentagon were even more frantic.  For nine whole minutes, Pentagon officials sat in anticipation, with officials telling BuzzFeed that they thought that the President was in the midst of announcing military action in North Korea or some other area of the world.  It was only after the second tweet came through that tensions subsided a bit.  Instead of an attack on North Korea, or another enemy State, Trump instead attacked the LGBT community here in the United States.

Then came Trump’s 2nd tweet:  “….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.  Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..  9:04 AM – Jul 26, 2017”

And finally Trump’s 3rd tweet:  “….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.  Thank you  9:08 AM – Jul 26, 2017”

There currently are military regulations that allow transgender troops to serve, and a tweet cannot undo those.  Pentagon officials told BuzzFeed News they read the tweet as a directive to craft the necessary policy and procedure to undo that regulation.  It does not appear the branches of the military have been ordered to craft new directives.  “The full implications of that tweet are to be determined.  My read of it is that it appears that those currently serving transgender troops will be forced out,” Brad Carson, the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness from 2015–16, who help craft the policy that ended the ban a year ago.  “To have a tweet reverse a DoD personnel policy is unprecedented.”

On All In with Chris Hayes ‘To have a president who never served,’ said Senator Tammy Duckworth, ‘but instead got what, 4, 5 deferments to avoid service in Vietnam be a guy to question someone else’s patriotism because of their gender identity is sickening.’

On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Trump’s tweets about a transgender military ban caught the Pentagon and Republicans off guard.  His snap decisions — like firing James Comey and calling the health care plan “mean” — tend to come back to bite him.  Ana Marie Cox and Max Boot join Lawrence O’Donnell.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Trump wants to get rid of regulations and consumer protections to make it easier for businesses to rip you off. I’m referring to, the full name of the bill is, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but it is better known and most often referred to as Dodd-Frank.  On February 3, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order asking the U.S. Treasury Department to revise Dodd-Frank regulations, basically to kill Dodd-Frank.  One financial reporter said “Trump’s Plan to Kill Dodd-Frank Act Could ‘Crash’ the Financial System” so it’s actually bigger than just being able to rip you off.

Its eight components made it less likely the 2008 financial crisis could recur.  It is the most comprehensive financial reform since the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall regulated banks after the 1929 stock market crash.  The republicans already crashed the economy once and safe guards were put into place to keep it from happening again and Trump got rid of those safe guards so it could happen again.  As reported in The Balance:

  1. Oversees Wall Street.
  2. Stops Banks from Gambling with Depositors’ Money.
  3. Regulates Risky Derivatives.
  4. Brings Hedge Funds Trades Into the Light.
  5. Oversees Credit Rating Agencies.
  6. Regulates Credit Cards, Loans and Mortgages.
  7. Increases Supervision of Insurance Companies.
  8. Reforms the Federal Reserve.

 

On June 14th 2017, a man angry with Trump unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday morning at Republican members of Congress as they held a baseball practice at a park in Alexandria Virginia, wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others in a frenzied scene that included a long gun battle with police.  The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old unemployed home inspector from southern Illinois, was killed in the shootout.  Two Capitol Police officers assigned to Scalise’s security detail were wounded.  Hodgkinson, who had been living in his van in Alexandria for the past few months, had posted anti-Trump rhetoric on his Facebook page and had written letters to his hometown newspaper blaming Republicans for what he considered an agenda favoring the wealthy.

Everyone’s thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.  This was not the right thing to do, violence is always the wrong way to go about things and is never the answer, violence will not solve the problem.  Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress came together in agreeing that an attack on one is an attack on all.  Coming-together is great, we should do that, however, this coming-together will not last, it never has and it has already started falling apart.  And thoughts and prayers are not enough, we need actions.  And I do not mean just the actions of the Democrats easily defeating Republicans 11 to 2 in the 2017 Congressional Baseball Game.  So looking ahead into the future, perhaps elected officials should look in the mirror and ask themselves what could I have done to have helped to prevent such actions.  Perhaps elected officials could start by toning down the vitriol and hateful rhetoric, for one thing.  We can disagree without being disagreeable.

Also perhaps elected officials should look in the mirror again and any elected officials who are in the pocket of the NRA and against sensible gun control, which are mostly Republicans, perhaps could reconsider that position and do the right thing because sensible gun control would have lessened the likely event of this happening again.  Especially if sensible gun control had been put in place after Gabrielle Giffords was shot in 2011.  The elected officials are busy trying to get more security even outside of Congress, they need that, but what about the rest of us?  The attack at the congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, is the 154th mass shooting this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks information on shootings in the United States.  On 165 days through the calendar year, that averages out to a little less than one mass shooting per day.  The majority of the country is in favor of sensible gun control, even Republicans are in favor of sensible gun control, but not the elected Republicans.  The only reason we still do not have sensible gun control is because of elected officials who are in the pocket of the NRA so they are against sensible gun control, which are mostly Republicans.  Without sensible gun control tragedies like this and other mass shootings will happen again.

And perhaps elected officials should look in the mirror at least one more time to try to find some empathy for the other side.  Think about it, you may be rich now but how would you feel if you were already struggling and rich people just kept trying to take more from you even though the rich people did not need it because they are already rich?  Although I do not support or agree with what Hodgkinson did, the frustration of the Republicans taking from everyone else to give to themselves and to the rich, who do not need it, is real and understandable and 90% to 99% of us have it in one way or another.

 

But on the bright side of water news, on June 14th 2017 it was reported that the Michigan Attorney General is bringing charges against officials for the Flint water crisis.  These are the 15 people criminally charged in the Flint water crisis.  Here on The Rachel Maddow Show Mayor Karen Weaver of Flint, Michigan, talks with Rachel Maddow about charges filed against Snyder administration officials in the Flint water crisis, including involuntary manslaughter related to deaths from a spike in Legionnaires disease.

 

  • Trump is killing the EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency); he even removed climate change data and other scientific information from the website. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/29/epa-removes-climate-change-data-other-scientific-information-website/101072040/)  So I hope you used to like breathing clean air and drinking clean water, those may not be around too much longer.  So if at some point in the future you are able to light your faucet water on fire then blame Trump.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Rachel Maddow looks at the dubious job Donald Trump’s EPA is doing as a steward of the environment and tells the story of Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.’s Board of Scientific Counselors, who was pressured by an EPA official to change her testimony to Congress.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.’s Board of Scientific Counselors, talks with Rachel Maddow about the pressure she received from an EPA official to change her congressional testimony and how the EPA’s outside scientific review board has been “decimated.”

 

  • June 1st 2017 Trump said that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, the Paris Climate Accord agreement.  Trump also said he would start talks to re-enter the accord with what he called a more “fair” deal, but was immediately rebuked by several European governments.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in a rare joint statement the agreement could not be renegotiated and urged their allies to hasten efforts to combat climate change.  They pledged to do more to help developing countries adapt.  “While the US decision is disheartening, we remain inspired by the growing momentum around the world to combat climate change and transition to clean growth economies,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Even though China overtook the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007 China’s state news agency Xinhua published a commentary on Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord, describing it as a “global setback.”  That’s how bad this is.  “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump said.  Pittsburgh’s mayor, Democrat Bill Peduto, shot back on Twitter that his city, long the heart of the US steel industry, actually embraced the Paris accord.  With Trump’s action, the United States will walk away from nearly every other nation in the world on one of the pressing global issues of the 21st century.  Syria and Nicaragua are the only other non-participants in the accord.  And Nicaragua did not participate because they did not think that the accord went far enough.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry denounced Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord.  Kerry warned, “kids will have worse asthma in the summer” because of Trump.  Kerry told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that Trump made “one of the most self-destructive moves I’ve ever seen by any president in my lifetime.”  Kerry said, “My immediate reaction is that it is an extraordinary abdication of American leadership, it is a shameful moment for the United States to have unilaterally walked away from an agreement which did not have one other country requiring us to do something.  It was a voluntary program.  We designed the program.  The president was not truthful with the American people today and the president who talked about putting America first has now put America last.  Together with Syria, which is in the midst of a civil war, and Nicaragua, which thought the agreement didn’t go far enough.  This is an extraordinary moment of fake news because the economy he described is not the economy of America.  America has been gaining jobs in solar.  Solar has gained 17 times the rate of our economy.  There are 2.6 million jobs in our country in clean energy.  Half of them are in states that Donald Trump won.  So he is not helping the forgotten American.  He’s hurting them.  Their kids will have worse asthma in the summer.  They will have a harder time having economic growth.  He’s made us an environmental pariah in the world.  And I think it is one of the most self-destructive moves I’ve ever seen by any president in my lifetime.”

The decision sets the world’s largest economy apart from almost all other nations on Earth, and moves in opposition to many large American companies, as well.  “Today’s decision is a setback for the environment and for the US’s leadership position in the world,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein wrote on Twitter.  CEOs of some of the largest US-based companies disagree with the president and his backers.  They say the Paris Agreement gives them a level playing field to compete with foreign rivals and would grow the economy and create jobs by encouraging investment in new technology.  A number of large American companies were among those advocating for staying in the Paris Agreement, including U.S. energy giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron and their European peers Royal Dutch Shell and BP.  The oil majors say the accord offers a framework for tackling global warming and gives the United States a role in steering the global response to climate change.  Even some coal producers like Cloud Peak Energy and Peabody Energy argued the United States should remain a party in order to negotiate coal’s future in the global energy mix.  CEOs of companies like Apple and Microsoft, among many others, also pushed Trump to uphold the agreement.  Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a Paris deal proponent whose company also benefits from a shift to renewable energy sources, immediately carried out his threat to leave three White House advisory councils after Trump spoke in the Rose Garden.  Here is additional world reaction to Trump pulling out of global accord.

After US Climate Accord exit some state and local governments step up.  Pittsburgh plans to step up its efforts to meet the climate goals Trump has repudiated.  And California made no secret of its ambitions when it enacted a landmark law on global warming just over a decade ago.  But here is the thing, countries can’t withdraw until three years after the Paris Agreement went into effect.  The Paris Agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016, so this means the US would have to stay with it until November 2019.  After that, the rules mandate a one-year notice period, which would mean a withdrawal in late 2020, after the next presidential election on November 3, 2020.  So vote.

On All In with Chris Hayes Former Vice President Al Gore sees reason for hope on climate change in his new movie, ‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.’

On The Rachel Maddow Show Richard Engel looks at how countries like India are pushing for a greener future, and China is leading the way in wind and solar manufacturing and the jobs that come with it, while Donald Trump holds the U.S. back with a focus on coal.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Anne Thompson, NBC News chief environmental affairs correspondent, looks at how the city of Pittsburgh is pursuing green energy as part of its tech growth strategy as Donald Trump keeps the US facing backward at a coal-powered past.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Richard Engel talks with the former top U.S. diplomat in China, David Rank, who resigned from 27 years in foreign service over Donald Trump’s environmental policies, citing patriotism, parenthood, and Christianity as his motivation.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Richard Engel traces the history of U.S. efforts to address climate change, from the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change during the Reagan administration to Donald Trump’s pullout from the Paris climate accord.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Janis Mackey Frayer, NBC News correspondent, looks at how the dropping price of solar energy is changing life in developing areas of the world.

 

But then Trump got mad and threatened to shut down the government in September 2017, tweeting “Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!”.  I do not know how or what Trump thinks shutting down the government will fix.  Shutting down the government will not only not fix anything but what it would do is damage the economy more than he is already threatening to do.  Trump’s team released its first full budget proposal on May 23rd 2017, which is the more complete version to the “skinny budget”, and CNN tells what this full version of Trump’s budget cuts and why.  This budget is no better than Trump’s previous budget.  Both Republican and Democratic Congressional Representatives say that Trump’s budget is DOA (Dead On Arrival).  He’s going to crash the economy again.  Trump makes Bush look smart; at least it took Bush 8 years to crash the economy I don’t think it will take Trump even 4 years to do it.  Lawrence O’Donnell talks to Senator Elizabeth Warren about Trump’s proposed budget cuts, Michael Flynn pleading the Fifth, and how the Trump-Russia investigation may make it easier for Trump to get his legislative agenda through Congress.

On All In with Chris Hayes Thing 1/Thing 2:  Donald Trump donated his salary for the second quarter of 2017 to the Department of Education – after calling for over $9 billion in cuts to the department’s budget.

 

 

 

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DemV

Just a Democrat with an opinion and enough insight to share my 2 cents.