Trumps First 100 Days

QueEx

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THE FIRST WEEK

TIME TO PANIC ?

President Trump: The normal, the abnormal, and the truly alarming




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How terrified should Americans be by President Donald Trump's first week in office?


To judge by media coverage (and especially the commentary of journalists on Twitter), the answer would appear to be "more terrified than you can possibly imagine, with the terror ratcheting upward with every far-right executive order, leak-filled expose of West Wing lunacy, and Bizzaro World presidential tweet."

I get it. I'm not a Republican. I loathe and fear President Trump. And numerous events over the past week have been truly unprecedented and disturbing. For the first time in my life, I genuinely fear for the future of the nation's democratic norms and institutions. But that doesn't mean that every single thing the new president does or says is an occasion for full-bore panic. More than ever, all of us need to keep our heads and not fall into a pattern of issuing hourly alarms about the imminent demise of democracy and advent of a fascist dictatorship in the United States.

Some of what we're seeing is truly alarming — direct challenges to liberal democratic norms. But other moves are typical early actions of post-Reagan Republican presidents, while still others go much further than previous administrations but should be considered acceptable (if perhaps deeply worrying) efforts to shift policy direction in a dramatic though not democratically illegitimate way.

It is crucially important to distinguish among these different types of moves. It's the only way to maintain some sense of equilibrium and orientation in a profoundly destabilizing and deranging moment in American political history.

The normal

The Republican Party opposes abortion.

It also favors the extraction of fossil fuels, views environmental regulations with suspicion, and aims to rein in the regulatory powers of the administrative state more broadly.

It's perfectly understandable that Democrats, who take very different positions on public policy, react angrily when a Republican wins the White House and institutes policies that change course. But it is a perfectly normal consequence of the ordinary back-and-forth of partisan politics.

That's what we've seen over the past week with the Trump administration's re-imposition of the so-called Global Gag Rule, which blocks aid money to foreign NGOs that perform or actively promote abortion. The policy dates back to the Reagan administration, was rescinded by President Clinton, reinstituted and expanded by President George W. Bush, rescinded again by President Obama, and now revived yet again (and yes, expanded even further) by President Trump. That's a normal partisan shift in policy direction.​

The same goes for Trump's decision to complete the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines — a policy that every one of the 17 Republicans who ran for president in 2016 would have pursued. Even Trump's order temporarily freezing the regulatory power of federal agencies can be described as normal to the extent that it flows from longstanding GOP opposition to many regulations adopted by Democratic presidents, very much including Barack Obama.​


The abnormal

Things become much trickier as we move into areas where Trump is acting in ways that diverge from the priorities and positions of past Republican presidents, either because those presidents chose not to pursue a policy popular with the base of the party or because that base has shifted positions (becoming more extreme) in the eight years since a Republican last sat in the Oval Office.

The Trump administration's intent to:

privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and

eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities​
are examples of policies conservative and libertarian activists have favored for decades but which have never been seriously acted on. That makes them abnormal.

Even more abnormal are:

policies that flow from the "America First" populism and nationalism that helped Trump land the GOP nomination and ultimately propelled him to the White House.
executive orders in favor of (temporarily) blocking immigrants and refugees from seven majority-Muslim nations,

cutting funds to so-called "sanctuary cities" that welcome and provide social services to undocumented immigrants, and

drastically reducing the U.S. role in the United Nations and other international groups.​
There are many good reasons to oppose these drastic changes in policy direction, not least because they are potentially so radical, with such far-reaching ramifications for America's role in the world. But should they be considered in principle unacceptable? Illegitimate? A threat to liberal-democratic government as such? I don't think so.

To insist on the illegitimacy of changing direction in the way Trump is proposing is to treat the bipartisan globalist-internationalist consensus that has dominated our politics for much of the past seven decades as something more fundamental to the American constitutional order than it is or should be. Breaking sharply from this consensus is a very big deal, and one that entails considerable risks, especially when it is being done haphazardly and with an apparent absence of strategic foresight. But it shouldn't be considered politically beyond the pale. The U.S. can certainly remain a liberal democracy while sharply curtailing immigration, enforcing its own immigration laws, and playing a much smaller role in international institutions than it has since the end of World War II. These are not existential threats.
The truly alarming

Here's where things get very, very worrying.

Can America truly remain a liberal democracy while led by a corrupt, paranoid, potentially despotic president who actively spreads falsehoods and conspiracies? Maybe not. Which is why of all the dozens of eyebrow-raising stories from the first week of the Trump administration, the ones that belong in the category of the truly alarming are those that focus on the president's erratic personal statements, behavior, and tweets — and the actions of his senior staff in response to these tendencies.​

There were the 40 staffers Trump brought with him to CIA headquarters last Saturday afternoon to act as a personal cheering section.

And the press secretary's first bizarre, hostile, extravagantly dishonest press conference about the size of the crowd at the inauguration.

And Trump's insistence on repeating the wholly unsubstantiated assertion that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in the November election.

And his subsequent vow to launch an investigation of voter fraud (just a decade after a five-year investigation by the Bush administration's Justice Department uncovered "virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections").

And his threat (inspired by data promoted by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News) to "send in the feds" to combat violent crime in Chicago.

And the news that Trump's hotel management company hopes to triple the number of Trump-branded hotels in the United States, despite widespread calls (so far ignored) for the president to divest his holdings.​


With every such story, the office of the presidency is degraded.

With every flouted ethical norm, tolerance for corruption expands.


With every officially sanctioned falsehood, the distinction between truth and lies, fact and fiction, becomes blurrier. And as each of these new thresholds is crossed, another barrier to outright authoritarian government gets kicked away.


It's far harder to reverse the collapse of fundamental norms and assumptions than it is to change policy direction, even when the change is significant. Which is why, however troubling the Trump administration's policy agenda might be, we should reserve our greatest outrage and most heated opposition for the times when the president indulges his penchant for outright demagoguery and begins behaving like the deranged tinpot dictator his character apparently inclines him to be.



SOURCE: http://theweek.com/articles/676011/president-trump-normal-abnormal-truly-alarming



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QueEx

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A Man Without Grace
Meets a Party Without Conscience

Just one week into the Trump presidency,
Republicans have already shown they are
unwilling to stand up to the worst of his instincts.
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Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast


Joy-Ann Reid

01.28.17 1:17 PM ET

Donald Trump is off to quite a start.

He sits atop a globally despised kakistocracy whose first 24 hours included historic opposition marches around the country (and indeed around the world) and top White House flaks beclowning themselves and eviscerating their credibility with shouted lies and the absurdity of “alternative facts.” The first week of the Trump administration included revelations that the president of the United States personally ordered the head of the Parks Service to produce pictures of his sparsely attended inaugural that might mitigate the humiliation of the day he grandly declared a “Day of Patriotic Devotion”; and evidence that he spends much of his time obsessively live-tweeting cable TV news.

Trump is an erratic figure – seemingly fragile, consumed by his own unpopularity and desperate to somehow exceed Barack Obama in public acclaim. He appears trapped by his campaign’s most extreme promises, and locked in the clutches of bigoted ideologues like Stephen Bannon, who push him to follow through on his most demagogic vows: to strip tens of millions of Americans of their healthcare, string a wall across our southern border, cancel multilateral trade pacts and ban Muslim students, families, visitors and refugees from entering the U.S.; a policy that is already causing companies like Google to recall their employees from America. Never mind that the first three of those things will cost American taxpayers billions of dollars (otra vez: Mexico is NOT paying for any wall) and in some cases their health and perhaps their lives, and the fourth is both unconstitutional and morally obscene.

If Trump is a man without grace, his daily outrages would not be possible were he not surrounded by men and women without honor. And indeed, the diminution of the Republican Party is perhaps the saddest part of this sorry spectacle. Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mike Pence used to ++oppose a Muslim ban++ http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/ryan-trump-muslim-ban-224312 as unconstitutional and repugnant. Now they smile and nod and consent as a ban on visitors from majority Muslim countries is implemented – one that will ultimately impact people of all faiths from those countries, and which somehow skips countries where previous attackers have actually come from, but where Trump and his family happens to have business interests.

Republican lawmakers fret behind closed doors about the devastating impact of ripping away tens of millions of Americans’ healthcare, yet in public they grin along and say nothing; or duck their constituents and head for cover out the back door.

American civil servants and scientists are being gagged, long-serving diplomats dismissed from their posts, and the institutional memory of our federal government shoved out in an ideological putsch by the new administration, while GOP Senators refuse to lift a finger in protest. Instead, they approve each of Trump’s billionaire cabinet nominees, after pretending to dress them down for the C-SPAN cameras.

They sit around the table at a White House luncheon, grimacing in stale silence while Trump fantasizes about millions of phantom “illegal voters” who kept him from winning the popular vote; as if Republicans haven’t spent decades spinning the same fables about “voter fraud” to justify enacting draconian voter ID and other restrictive laws that keep people of color from the franchise.

Far from acting as a check or balance on the White House, the Party Men and Women of the Grimacing Old Party are content to fiddle while the amateur administration descends into chaos. Men like Speaker Ryan are too married to their ideological determination to dismantle the social safety net to let a little thing like an unraveling president, who’s tossing away allies while racing to get on the phone with Vladimir Putin, trouble their spotless minds.

Republicans bow and scrape before Trump, as he insults the CIA – not allowing its staffers to sit down and then claiming a standing ovation; and carting in ringers, then foisting their applause off on the men and women who serve their country in ways Trump, with his five Vietnam draft deferments, never even contemplated.

They stand silently by while he proposes tariffs on Mexican imports that they know would devastate American consumers, rips apart a Pacific trade pact he clearly doesn’t understand, empowering China in the process; and proposes his vicious Muslim ban on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

As far as Ryan and Jason Chaffetz – Trump’s self-appointed congressional masseuse – the preening Marco Rubio and the cynical Mitch McConnell are concerned, the country can burn, so long as they get their tax cuts for the super-rich, their oil company friends can rip apart the American heartland unimpeded by environmental concerns, and their insurance company pals get to wriggle out of covering people with pre-existing conditions.

If the Republicans have cast aside shame, they can at least be comforted that they are not completely alone.

The Democrats have proved themselves to be an ineffectual and weak opposition. Senate Democrats have belatedly vowed to oppose Betsy DeVos for education secretary, following a popular outcry that followed numerous Democrats, including progressive heroes like Elizabeth Warren, meekly approving Ben Carson for a position for which he is most assuredly not qualified: that of HUD secretary.

Seeming to ignore the roaring message sent by millions of Americans who participated in protests both before and after the inaugural, Senate Democrats have shown none of the fight exhibited by civil rights leaders, citizen activists and House Democrats. They seem to be whiffing on such awful nominees as foreclosure king Stephen Mnuchin, Putin pal Rex Tillerson and neo-confederate would-be Attorney General Jefferson Sessions, as if there would be any political price to pay for voting “no” on each and every one. It’s as if the core constituencies of the Democratic Party – notably African-Americans and others who rely on the soon-to-be gutted Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department – are unimportant, while (luckily, by the way) teachers unions continue to hold at least some sway.

Democrats are languishing without a leader, while they wait for their much-belated DNC chairman’s vote – one that may be too little, too late. They’re pitifully congratulating themselves for not being hypocritical, due to their absurd vow to work with Donald Trump wherever they can; a plan that can only ensure him more power.

We, the media, have also proved unequal to the task of dealing with Donald Trump. The Washington press corps continues to be pelted with lies in the daily press briefings, with little in the way of a comprehensive strategy to combat them. Reporters laugh along with Sean Spicer’s jokes and share space with right wing blogs (who typically get the first question.) Editors continue to produce tweet-to-headline transfers, fishing for the elusive Trump “pivot.” And while some exceptional journalism has come out of Trump’s first week, helped in no small part by the leaky sieve that is the cacophonous White House, it’s easy for even the vaunted media to become overwhelmed by an administration that has declared us the “opposition.”

Worst of all, Bannon, the most repugnant of the White House lot, was given a New York Times platform to rant about who should speak, and who should be quiet in America. As if anyone needs or cares to have his permission.

Every day of this administration feels like a hellish year. And we’re not even two weeks in. We have yet to have the first Black Lives Matter protest put down with extreme prejudice by the new “Justice Department.” We have not had our first tranche of government data whose veracity we cannot trust. The administration has not yet lied to us about a Keystone pipeline leak that leaches oil into the water or food supply, or demanded federal number crunchers invent impossible employment data to buck up Trumpian claims of a job-creating miracle. And no city mayor has faced down federal forces demanding that they produce their undocumented men, women and children, or their Muslim residents for deportation. But it feels like that’s what’s coming. And it will be worse than you think.

At this point, there is only one entity left who can reverse this awful course; and it is the American people; or rather, those not still under Trump’s populist spell. Only they stand a chance of reining in the White House madman, whom the fates and 77,000 Rust Belt voters handed the nuclear football.

Voters can stop the unmitigated disasters that a Trump administration can and will inflict on this nation and the world. Starting this year (in Virginia and New Jersey) and next, they can elect governors and mayors who will protect their citizens and replace their feckless representatives with congressmen and Senators who will assert their Article 1 authority. That goes for Democrats, who must field candidates willing to stand up to the administration, and Republicans willing to seat “country over party” primary challengers for the bootlicks hiding behind a president with sub-40 percent approval ratings. Voters can pay special attention to their state legislatures, and elect representatives and secretaries of state who will protect, rather than abrogate, their right to vote.

Nothing short of a voters rebellion over the next two years can yield for the country, or what’s left of it, any hope of restraining a man who has made it clear that he intends to use the presidency for two things: first, to enrich himself, his family and his friends, and second: to build a giant, moving, breathing monument to his own wounded, desperate and bloated ego.

Here’s praying the American people come through.


SOURCE: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...t-grace-meets-a-party-without-conscience.html


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QueEx

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Super Moderator
D A Y 1 0 - S I G N S T H E E M P I R E M A Y B E S T R I C K I N G B A C K


Republicans Begin to Break With President Trump ?


For the first time in his presidency, Donald Trump is facing significant criticism from Republican officials and conservative groups who are rattled by his ban on immigrants and refugees from Muslim-majority nations, questioning his domestic policy agenda and worrying about what steps the New York billionaire might take next in the name of nationalism.


By Sunday evening, more than a dozen GOP members of Congress had spoken out against Trump’s executive order on immigration. Among them were an array of the party’s most influential figures. The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said the United States should not implement a religious test. Sen. Rob Portman of Ostahio said the plan to strengthen vetting of refugees was itself not vetted. And the political and policy groups led by Charles and David Koch offered their first public criticism of Trump, whose candidacy the billionaire brothers found so unpalatable they sat out the 2016 election.


HONEYMOON'S END?

The wave of criticism marks the end of a startlingly brief honeymoon period for a new President who has been in office for scarcely a week, and even set the White House on defense as it backtracked on the ban applying to green-card holders. And while much of the blowback was driven by Trump’s immigration orders, the controversial plans he has on the horizon suggest the rest of his term could be just as rocky.

The emerging rifts come amid mass protests in cities around the U.S. against an executive order that would block millions of people from entering the United States. Legal permanent U.S. residents were detained at airports, refugees were trapped en route to the United States and judges from coast to coast stepped in to stop the unprecedented White House action. The chaos knocked the White House back on its heels and prompted Trump on Sunday night to release a defense of the policy.

“This is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House. “This is not about religion—this is about terror and keeping our country safe.”

The sentiment did little to calm skittish conservatives, who have already grown tired of the theatrics and hysterics. From removing the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the National Security Council, to trolling news organizations on Twitter, the precedent-breaking new President was testing the patience of Republicans who had hoped he might change tactics and tone once he was in the Oval Office.​


ENOUGH VOICES TO CHANGE A 70-YEAR-OLD BILLIONARE ?

But there is no changing a 70-year-old billionaire. And by Sunday some of the party’s most influential figures had begun to break publicly with the Republican President. “We cannot be partisan. We can’t say, ‘OK, this is our party, right or wrong,’” Charles Koch said Sunday as he gave a pep talk to his deep-pocketed pals who plan to spend as much as $400 million heading toward the 2018 midterm elections. The network’s official position, taken Sunday with no caveats, was that Trump’s immigration ban was anathema.

During a later session at the Koch retreat near Palm Springs, Calif., the co-chairman of the policy and politics network told donors not to expect Trump to get a pass, especially if he goes after specific groups of people or adds red ink to government budgets.

“We have the courage to oppose bad policies that will only harm people’s lives, regardless of who proposes it,” Brian Hooks said. “Remember: A trillion-dollar government stimulus was a bad a idea under Democrats. It’s a bad idea when a Republican proposes it.” Hooks, one of Charles Koch’s top aides, vowed that the Koch network would “hold all politicians accountable, regardless of political party.” Put another way: Stand with Trump at your own risk, lawmakers.

To be sure, the number of Republicans to publicly excoriate the new President is still relatively low. Silence reigned for most of the weekend as protests raged. And there were few signs that Trump was ready to bend in any meaningful way in the face of criticism. If anything, the criticism may only convince Trump to step up attacks on his opponents and the media. His first public comment on Sunday morning, after a day of striking protests, was a broadside at The New York Times.

Yet it is clear Trump will not have an unconditional coalition behind him. Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania called the move “ridiculous.” Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said the order gives terrorists a win because they can claim the United States just equated all Muslims with jihadists. Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington said many immigrants are “having their lives needlessly disrupted.” Sen. Bob Corker, a finalist to be Trump’s Secretary of State, joined fellow Tennessean Sen. Lamar Alexander in calling for changes to this policy. All are Republicans and come from across the ideological spectrum.

At the same time, conservatives are building blockades on Trump-style fiscal policy. “I really don’t like it,” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said of Trump’s border tax plan, which could add a 20% tax on good and materials imported from Mexico. (Companies are most likely to pass the cost along to American consumers.) Asked later about Trump’s moves to shut out immigrants from seven countries with Muslim majorities, Lee tried his best to dodge. “I wasn’t aware that I’d lose my First Amendment rights after walking out this door,” he said gamely as as he left reporters behind.

Until now, the prospect of sweeping policy changes under unified Republican government had largely swept aside the tensions between Trump and members of his party. Trump rode a populist wave to victory, and many lawmakers are skittish about being the next target of a tweeted tirade. Some lawmakers are hoping Trump proves pliable on policy, or that he defers to Vice President Mike Pence or White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Still, there’s an unknowable risk of sitting on the sidelines and hoping things turn out just fine. It’s simply not what’s in the DNA of the outside groups who pushed the party to the right during the Obama administration.​



Jason Pye, a spokesman for the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, said that there is plenty to like about Trump’s policy agenda, from his early push to gut Obamacare to his pledge to usher in sweeping regulatory reforms. But Pye said he was troubled by plans to shell out billions to build a border wall without corresponding spending cuts, invest up to $1 trillion in infrastructure and impose tariffs while doing little to tackle entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. It’s a far cry from the conservative mantra during the Obama years, when the GOP insisted on offsetting all new discretionary spending—including for emergency disaster relief and unemployment insurance for the needy—with reductions elsewhere. There was no mention of doing the same for Trump’s proposed border wall.

Republicans “spent the last eight years complaining about budget deficits,” Pye says. “It makes us look like hypocrites.” During the Bush administration, he added, “Congressional Republicans abandoned any sort of fiscal restraint they claimed to have. I’m worried that just because the man in the White House has an ‘R’ next to his name that we’re going to do it all over again.”

Other conservative groups echoed the sentiment. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity wrote a letter to House Ways and Means chair Kevin Brady complaining that the GOP’s border-adjustment plan amounted to a “whopping tax hike.” Club for Growth spokesman Doug Sachtleben says the proposal is “really a bad idea.” The free-market group opposes some of Trump’s other trade ideas as well. “ We don’t think getting the country involved in the trade war is a good idea,” Sachtleben says. “The notion that you punch first with a tariff threat is just not good for the economy.”

But for now, disagreements on fiscal policy have taken a backseat to the backlash over the immigration ban. Even Trump’s allies struggled to excuse the hastily composed order. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, told reporters at the Koch summit that he appreciated Trump’s intentions to secure borders. But, he added, he had no idea what Trump was thinking when it came to residents who have green cards. “I don’t understand what they’re trying to do,” Chaffetz said.

The rupture in GOP unity, coming so soon after Trump took office on Jan. 20, portends bigger fights to come. Many of the big-ticket items on Trump’s domestic agenda are sure to ruffle feathers among budget hawks. Airports aren’t cheap to rebuild, and bridges, roads and tunnels aren’t free, either. The widespread protests against the immigration moves suggest Trump’s critics are energized, if not organized—and that not all Republicans will blindly have Trump’s back.


“This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country,” Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said in a joint statement. “That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.”

In typical fashion, Trump brushed them off as weak on immigration and “always looking to start World War III” in a tweet. He ordered the White House, too, to release a statement defending the President’s moves. Two of his top advisers convened a conference call late Sunday to further brief reporters and dispute coverage of the order as a ban on Muslims.

Yet there are signs that patience with the President is wearing thin. Breaking with Trump carries political risks. But some Republicans are beginning to believe that not doing so would be even riskier.


SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...t-trump/ar-AAmo70V?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp


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Wendy Katsekas She lost me when she claimed he is a man of integrity. He has been caught in so many lies that if it wasn't so horrifying it would be laughable.
Unlike · Reply · 1,867 · Yesterday at 5:12pm
76 Replies · 7 hrs

Louise Hildreth
The largest problem in America, bigger than Trump is the massive hole in their education system. To have produced a nation so badly educated to have voted in such an idiot.
Like · Reply · 1,571 · Yesterday at 5:15pm
86 Replies · 18 mins

Angela Coles
Number of Americans killed annually by: Islamic Jihadist Immigrants(SINCE 9/11) = 1. Far right wing terrorists= 5 ,All islamic J terrorist(including US citizens) = 9 , Armed toddlers = 21. Lightning = 31. Lawnmowers = 69 , Being HIT BY BUS =264 , Falling out of bed = 737. BEINBG SHOT BY ANOTHER AMERICAN =11,737
Like · Reply · 1,207 · Yesterday at 5:06pm
142 Replies · 2 hrs

Eunice Georgia
To keep the American people safe???? Holy cow!!! From what???? From an alien attack???
1f61b.png
:p Or from the American government? Who is basically responsible for a lot of the atrocities worldwide! Disgrace.....
Like · Reply · 730 · Yesterday at 5:09pm
36 Replies

Kathy Robertson
I am American, and that woman is full of....it. Trump's supporters are dwindling, in light of his actions over the last 11 days, and they are hanging on for dear life to who they voted for. Integrity?? I doubt if she knows the meaning of that ...See More
Like
· Reply · 545 · Yesterday at 5:11pm · Edited
59 Replies · 2 mins


Jessica Grady Gans
A man of integrity? Please! Stop lying about the pussy grabber in chief...there is not a shred of integrity in his entire body!
Like · Reply · 320 · Yesterday at 5:12pm
11 Replies

Cherolyn Bright
NOT MY PRESIDENT! This pig of a man is a nightmare, ramming his agenda down America's throat. He is a dictator, amoral, racist with total disregard for the views of the majority of Americans. He needs to be impeached and removed before he destroys our country. I am so sad, disheartened and frightened. God help America.
Like · Reply · 280 · Yesterday at 5:18pm
47 Replies · Just now

Melanie Neß
God, the blonde woman obviously has no clue at all. She talking about integrity and that Trump is working within the framework of his mandate to keep Americans safe. Guess what? He's only working for himself, his ego and his bank account!
Like · Reply · 264 · Yesterday at 5:15pm
11 Replies

Caroline Brading
So how is Trump planning to keep the US people safe from their real threat- themselves? 11,737 American citizens have been murdered by armed American citizens. DONALD, YOUR REAL THREAT IS FROM WITHIN!!
Like · Reply · 174 · Yesterday at 5:15pm
17 Replies · 11 hrs

Laura Golian
The first woman sounds like she lives in another universe.
Like · Reply · 152 · Yesterday at 5:03pm · Edited
12 Replies


Heather Mccreary
Please don't believe that the majority of Americans think like this...We dont!! Just because Trump was elected it did not mean he has the majority of votes!
Like · Reply · 95 · Yesterday at 5:21pm
6 Replies

Jim South
You say borderS, plural. Does that mean you want to build a wall on our northern border also? Because "a nation without borders..." I wish you would just admit that you hate brown people and stop pretending it's about safety.
 

QueEx

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Super Moderator

GOP Congress unnerved by Trump



The crush of crises that have consumed the first month of the Trump administration are frustrating and unnerving congressional Republicans looking for guidance and details from the White House on key policy issues like healthcare and tax reform.

Some in the GOP are shrugging off the barrage of negative headlines, chalking it up to an unorthodox president and growing pains for a new administration still staffing up.

Other key voices in the party say the Trump controversies are adding up and preventing Republicans from devoting their full attention to their top legislative priorities: repealing and replacing ObamaCare and overhauling the Tax Code.

"It is a distraction," Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said this week after Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and news outlets reported close ties between Trump campaign aides and Russia. "I mean every day you guys, you're not focused on tax reform right now... nor [are] the American people. It's taking away from other efforts."

The health and tax issues are extremely complex and leaders and committee chairmen are operating on tight timelines; any major delays could jeopardize the agenda Republicans hope to fulfill in Trump's first 200 days.

Communication also has been a challenge. The White House's decision to keep Congress in the dark about Trump's controversial travel ban infuriated GOP leadership and rank-and-file members, who argued they could have helped shape and defend the order if they had been briefed beforehand. Trump officials pledged to improve communication with the Hill, and there's been some evidence of that.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters Thursday that he speaks with Trump, Pence, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and other top White House officials almost daily. And the Speaker said the GOP's ObamaCare efforts will begin to pick up now that former Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) has been confirmed as Trump's Health and Human Services secretary. Price met separately with House and Senate Republicans this week.

"Our House and Senate teams are in consultation with the White House constantly," Ryan said at a news conference after a Hill reporter asked whether communication could be better. There's "fantastic communication, better than I've ever seen before."

Ryan's remarks came shortly after Trump huddled with a dozen House Republicans who had been early supporters during the campaign. During the White House meeting, Trump, far from a policy wonk, gave some clarity on at least one policy issue: He voiced support for renewing the Export-Import Bank.

"He was very positive on that. He kinda had a conversion on that," said one participant, who explained to Trump how Ex-Im benefits his congressional district.

But the past week has felt like Trump's White House is careening from one crisis to the next, reacting to the controversy du jour, and unable to string together positive news cycles. Some GOP allies worry that, under attack, the White House will make the mistake of recoiling rather than reaching out to friends on Capitol Hill.

"The danger is they become hunkered down over there in a bunker mentality, and you get more problems like the roll out of the immigration executive order," said one House GOP lawmaker who backs Trump. "They are not reaching out to their allies here in the House and the Senate. The danger is they become more insular and it creates more problems.

"The solution," the lawmaker continued, "is they need to be communicating to us more, reaching out more, coordinating more. There couldn't be too much of that."

Such complaints were raised by Democratic lawmakers during the Obama presidency, when the White House was frequently criticized for being too distance with its allies on Capitol Hill.

Another huge problem is staffing. Trump still has not nominated many of the deputy secretary, ambassador and other key posts requiring Senate confirmation. The White House continues to lack a full-time communications director, with Press Secretary Sean Spicer pulling double duty. And many offices in the sprawling Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House still remain vacant.

"They have got to figure out how to get people into these key slots," said House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who met privately with Trump earlier this month. "I was walking in EEOB today. There are still a lot of empty seats. Once they get fully staffed, it will get better, but it can't happen soon enough."

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs a House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Energy Department and water infrastructure, agreed, said it's been challenging to proceed with regular oversight work without key Trump officials in place.

"We're sitting here going, 'OK, we gotta do hearings and so forth, who do I call up do have a hearing at Energy and Water?'" Simpson said.

Simpson also echoed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in criticizing Trump for going off message.

Mainstream Republicans who voted for Trump "are saying, 'What the hell is going on? And why are we talking about Ivanka's clothing line and whether there were 3 to 5 million illegals, he would have won the popular vote?'" Simpson said. "Why are we talking about all this stuff?"

"I'm just hoping that we will get to where he focuses on those things that are important ... Most Republicans agree with his agenda and what he wants to do."

Ryan and his leadership team say all is going to plan. Republicans will overhaul both the healthcare and tax systems, even if the Speaker has to will it to happen.

"We are doing tax reform. Tax reform is going to happen. Do you know why tax reform is going to happen? Because it has to happen," Ryan said.

The GOP plans to roll out their much-anticipated ObamaCare repeal and replace bill after the President's Day recess, though divisions remain in the conference over how to do it.

The rollout could correspond with Trump's first joint address to Congress set for Feb. 28 - a speech many Hill Republicans hope is less of a campaign speech and heavier on policy prescriptions that could fill in the blanks on issues like the border wall, infrastructure and taxes.

In interviews with The Hill, a number of Republicans insisted that the key committees working on Obamacare and tax reform - Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce - are making progress and have been unaffected by recent White House distractions.

But they said it would help enormously if Trump sent an Obamacare bill to Capitol Hill.

"I'd love for somebody to come out and say, 'Here's the plan with specificity,' or 'Here's the bill,' but it's unrealistic to expect this administration to, new as they are and with all the problems they've had in the Senate getting their key personnel confirmed," Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) told The Hill.

"I think it's unrealistic for us to get this, but would I like to have it? Certainly I would."

Cristina Marcos and Jordain Carney contributed.


SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...p-bumps/ar-AAn4uQw?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp


.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Anderson Cooper fact-checks Trump presser with
ultimate supercut of his ‘first 100 days’ promises
to Repeal and Replace Obamacare


Sarah K. Burris
24 Mar 2017 at 20:37 ET


President Donald Trump’s press conference today contained one lie after another, and Anderson Cooper spent part of Friday’s “AC36” calling him out on it.

Trump failed to do what he said he would from the beginning of his campaign: Today, Republicans failed to do what they’ve been promising for year, the president failed to do what he said he would from the beginning of his campaign,” Cooper said, claiming that he was speaking from the “smoking political crater formerly known as Washington.”

LIE: According to Trump, he never intended to pass the repeal and replacement of Obamacare in the first 100 days. Cooper fact-checked the claim with a supercut of videos showing that over and over again Trump pledged for Trumpcare to be the first issue and take place on “day one.”

Supercut of Trump claims that he was doing healthcare FIRST





LIE: All the times Trump said he was the best dealmaker and everyone else sucked at dealmaking




https://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/an...mate-supercut-of-his-first-100-days-promises/


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MASTERBAKER

༺ S❤️PER❤️ ᗰOD ༻
Super Moderator
President Donald J. Trump walked out of an executive order signing ceremony Friday -- without actually signing the orders. He later signed them behind closed doors. http://cnn.it/2ojxOMY
https://www.facebook.com/anne.comeau.5?fref=ufi&rc=p


Anne Comeaux
How dare that reporter ask a question. That is not allowed and especially if it might make 45 look bad. Best to just to hide.
Like · Reply · 30 · 3 hrs
2 Replies · 31 mins

Gary Basham
I am a Republican. I am more Conservative than not. I could not, in good conscience, and did not, vote for Donald Trump.
I try to understand those who did vote for Donald Trump, as there are many legitimate reasons why they did so: concerns over jobs, border security, terrorism, etc. are real and pressing issues. However, despite the fact that many voted for him with good intentions, the dangers of Donald Trump are real, and we must as a nation now come to terms with what we’ve done.

His supporters would rather see America destroyed than admit they were wrong. I have voted Republican all my life. My morals and faith wouldn't allow me to vote for Trump because he's a liar and a racist. I cannot put party before my beliefs. I served for 26 years in the military and view it as my duty to do what's best for America. It's pretty simple to me - if I fall in line and support a racist president, I am supporting racism. I cannot do that. I have biracial children. I am in an interracial marriage. I served alongside every race and religion during a 26 years military career including combat deployments. We are in trouble here. We need to come together and get him out of office for AMERICA

Donald Trump is dishonest.
Donald Trump lies compulsively.
Donald Trump has no moral compass.
Donald Trump is small-minded, and vindictive.
Donald Trump is a fatalist, whose philosophy in life is “screw or be screwed”.
Donald Trump has no history of Faith, yet now professes to be a true Christian.
Donald Trump has no history of being Pro-Life, yet now poses as an anti-abortionist.
Donald Trump embodies the rich elite, aloof “1%”, yet now postures as a “man of the people”.
Donald Trump evaded Military Service, yet now claims he understands ISIS better than our Generals.
Donald Trump’s companies declared bankruptcy on numerous occasions.
Donald Trump took advantage of every conceivable loophole in our tax codes.
Donald Trump took on massive amounts of debt that his companies couldn’t possibly repay.
Donald Trump’s business abuses contributed materially to the Financial Meltdown/Great Recession.
Donald Trump is leading the effort to roll back the very same Dodd-Frank regulations that were designed to keep us from ever again being subject to this type of financial abuse by Wall Street/Big Business.
Donald Trump is embracing in that effort the very same Jamie Dimon, billionaire banker and Head of JP Morgan Chase, who was one of the leading villains in the 2008 Financial Meltdown/Great Recession.
Donald Trump has been compromised by the forces of extremism. When the media was uniformly against Trump, the only news agency other than Fox that embraced him was Breitbart News. The resulting relationship with Steve Bannon is perhaps the gravest concern of all.
Donald Trump is now setting policy, and sending members of our Armed Forces into harm’s way, on the counsel of a racist, anti-Semitic, anarchist whose expressed desire it is to “bring everything crashing down and destroy today’s establishment”.

The world is laughing at us. We've made a mistake. Instead of pointing fingers, or assigning blame let's fix this. This country belongs to US, not Donald Trump or any party

I have posted this several times in a number of places. The response has been mostly good. I am a little surprised that many Trump supporters keeping telling me that - there's no way I'm a conservative if I'm against racism. WTH?? Did I miss something in the rule book?
Unlike · Reply · 38 · 1 hr

Thomas M. Black Jr.
#StandWithRand2020. Get that fake conservative Trump (aka Hillary's best friend) out of the White House as soon as possible.
Like · Reply · 2 · 1 hr

Twanda Freeman
Thank you, Gary, for your brief voice of sanity. Now back to our regularly scheduled meltdown. I'm starting to think there are just too many people to have a real democracy. There has always been a percentage of naive / ignorant people who will vote for a racist / nationalist, but that percentage seems to be growing higher, and both parties have lost their internal unity as well as the common goals and values both parties used to adhere to.
Like · Reply · 1 · 54 mins

Karen Baker
Well said and may I say I have been a democrat all of my life and I did not vote for Hillary either! I have changed my party affiliation to no party affiliation! I admire your honesty and I applaud your post' maybe there is a middle ground for all of us! I hope so!
Like · Reply · 1 · 40 mins

Dianette Gonzalez
Thank you but getting him out is going to be difficult. He wants to annihilate our establishment and tve Republican party is behind bim.
Like · Reply · 1 · 30 mins

Zenobia Craig
Thomas M. Black Jr. I've been telling these #45 supporters that Hilary and #45 are best friends along with Bill! Presidents are SELECTED, not ELECTED. They pacify us to think our votes count when it really doesn't!
Like · Reply · 19 mins · Edited

Bianca Szentesi
Thank you Gary!
I would still mention he destroyed friendships between the countries. We in Europe look with disquiet to his new friendship with Russia.
I know the 2%. Until now, only 4 countries of 28 have paid. Already Obama has made pressure therefore within the NATO. That must be paid for!
These 2% are not a reason to break the friendship to us Europeans! We are worried. We do not want Russian troops in Paris or Madrid. Greetings from Germany!
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Trump Pulls Back Obama-Era Protections For Women Workers


BBziblM.img



With little notice, President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that advocates say rolls back hard-fought victories for women in the workplace.

Tuesday's "Equal Pay Day" — which highlights the wage disparity between men and women — is the perfect time to draw more attention to the president's action, activists say.

On March 27, Trump revoked the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order then-President Barack Obama put in place to ensure that companies with federal contracts comply with 14 labor and civil rights laws. The Fair Pay order was put in place after a 2010 Government Accountability Office investigation showed that companies with rampant violations were being awarded millions in federal contracts.

In an attempt to keep the worst violators from receiving taxpayer dollars, the Fair Pay order included two rules that impacted women workers: paycheck transparency and a ban on forced arbitration clauses for sexual harassment, sexual assault or discrimination claims.

Noreen Farrell, director of the anti-sex discrimination law firm Equal Rights Advocates, said Trump went "on the attack against workers and taxpayers."

"We have an executive order that essentially forces women to pay to keep companies in business that discriminate against them, with their own tax dollars," said Farrell. "It's an outrage."

Out of the 50 worst wage theft violators that GAO examined between 2005-2009, 60 percent had been awarded federal contracts after being penalized by the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. Similar violation rates were tracked through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Labor Relations Board.

But the research did not reveal much about sexual harassment or sexual assault claims. That's because forced arbitration clauses — also sometimes called "cover-up clauses" by critics — are commonly used to keep sex discrimination claims out of the courts and off the public record.

"Arbitrations are private proceedings with secret filings and private attorneys, and they often help hide sexual harassment claims," said Maya Raghu, Director of Workplace Equality at the National Women's Law Center. "It can silence victims. They may feel afraid of coming forward because they might think they are the only one, or fear retaliation."

Mandatory arbitration clauses are increasingly used in employment contracts, said Raghu, who added that banning the process was an important step forward for victims of workplace harassment or assault.

Many learned about forced arbitration clauses for the first time just last year through the Fox News sexual harassment case. Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson dodged her own contract's arbitration clause by directly suing former CEO Roger Ailes rather than the company. Ailes' lawyers accused Carlson of breaching her contract, and pressed for the private arbitration to try to keep the story out of courts and the public record.

A new lawsuit filed Monday by Fox News commentator Julie Roginsky joined a growing list of accusations against Ailes, and claims Roginsky faced retaliation "because of plaintiff's refusal to malign Gretchen Carlson and join 'Team Roger' when Carlson sued Ailes," NPR reported.

By overturning the Fair Pay order, Trump made it possible for businesses with federal contracts to continue forcing sexual harassment cases like Carlson's into secret proceedings — where the public, and other employees, may never find out about rampant sex discrimination claims at a company.

After the Fox News sexual harassment problem came to light, Carlson testified before Congress about forced arbitration — and Senators Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin and Al Franken wrote to major arbitration companies to ask for information on the amount of secret arbitration proceedings involving sexual harassment and discrimination.

RELATED: Why women wore white to Trump's speech

"If Ms. Carlson had followed Mr. Ailes's reading of her contract, her colleagues might never have learned that she was fighting back," read the August 2016 letter. "They might never have followed her example; Roger Ailes might never have been exposed; and Fox News might never have been forced to change its behavior. Decades of alleged abuse — harassment that should disgust and astound any reasonable person — could have been allowed to continue."

Blumenthal told NBC News that Trump's overturning the Fair Pay order sends women's rights in the workplace back "to a time best left to 'Mad Men.'"

"These coverup clauses render people voiceless — forcing them to suffer in silence, suppressing justice, and allowing others to fall victim in the future," said Blumenthal. "At a time when the fight for equal pay continues, Trump also moved to eliminate paycheck transparency and leave workers to negotiate in the dark."

The other result of Trump's executive order on federal contractors was lifting a mandate on paycheck transparency, or requiring employers to detail earnings, pay scales, salaries, and other details. The Fair Pay order Trump overturned was one of the few ways to ensure companies were paying women workers equally to their male colleagues.

According to the Economic Policy Institute's 2016 analysis of federal labor statistics, the median wage for U.S. women is about 16.8 percent less than the median for men — with women making about 83 cents to a man's dollar. According to economist Elise Gould, that's a gap that only increases as women become more educated and climb the corporate ladder.

"At the bottom, there's just so far down women's wages can go. They are protected by some degree by the minimum wage," said Gould. "But as you move up, women are not occupying places at the top the way men are. The wage gap at the top is much larger."

Wal-Mart is one example of how the wage gap works like an inverted pyramid. According to statistical data provided in Farrell's class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart, women in lower-paying hourly jobs at the company made $1,100 less per year than men in the same jobs. But women with salaried positions were paid $14,500 less per year than their male coworkers.

The Fair Pay order made employers submit salary details to the government that would show massive wage gaps like Wal-Mart's. It also made employers show overtime and deductions on paychecks so workers could make sure they were being paid exactly as they were supposed to.

The original class action case against Wal-Mart was dismissed by the Supreme Court. But Farrell told NBC News that Dukes v. Wal-Mart was a victory in its own right.

"The very public nature of that case prompted many changes by Wal-Mart including its pay and equity policies," said Farrell of the law firm Equal Rights Advocates.

"No one, including workers at Wal-Mart, would have understood the issues in that case had there been forced arbitration clauses," Farrell added, "Which would have kept all of those claims in secret."

For the majority of workers, especially at low-wages, there isn't an option to work around an arbitration clause the way that Carlson did with Fox News and Ailes.

"Unless you're suing a deep-pocketed CEO, suing an individual for sexual harassment is not going to be the same as putting the employer on the hook for liability," said Farrell. "You usually don't get the same damages or results."


SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...en-workers/ar-BBzink0?ocid=spartanntp#image=1


.
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Trump’s Policies Are Already Making Workplaces More Toxic
The Trump administration’s policies already adversely affect workers’ health by undermining occupational illness prevention.

By Elizabeth Grossman | April 14, 2017


GettyImages-480685119-1280x720.jpg
Firefighter boots line the stairs inside San Francisco City Hall during a remembrance ceremony held for San Francisco firefighters who have died of cancer on March 26, 2014. According to a study published by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, (NIOSH) findings indicate a direct correlation between exposure to carcinogens like flame retardants and higher rate of cancer among firefighters. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images


This post originally appeared at In These Times.

The “well-being of America and the American worker is my North Star,” President Donald Trump trumpeted at a recent White House event.

But the Trump administration’s policies are already adversely affecting workers’ health by undermining occupational illness prevention — including for cancers, musculoskeletal disorders and respiratory diseases that afflict hundreds of thousands of US workers.

“It couldn’t get much worse in terms of the federal government’s role in preventing the number of occupational illnesses and diseases,” said Charlotte Brody, vice president of health initiatives at BlueGreen Alliance, an alliance of labor unions and environmental organizations.

Or, as Sidney Shapiro, a professor at Wake Forest’s law school, put it, “We weren’t doing this terribly well under a reasonably friendly administration so all bets are it’s now going to fall completely apart.”


Deaths from occupational diseases

Occupational fatalities remain a grave problem in the United States. In 2015, 4,836 people died on the job. Yet the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that approximately 10 times more Americans die per year from occupational diseases. Of the 2,905,900 nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) catalogued in 2015, about 187,900 were job-related illnesses.

This number, like all official records of occupational illness, is considered a significant undercount. Among other omissions, including very small workplaces and self-employed workers, these numbers don’t include work-related illnesses diagnosed after someone left a job or fully account for chronic conditions.

“Combine that with people who are immigrant workers with limited English, who are not organized and low-income, who are vulnerable to exploitation because they’ll do anything to get a job — and they’re less likely to object to unsafe working conditions, less likely to seek help or speak up,” says Michael Wilson, director of the occupational and environmental health program at BlueGreen Alliance.

The most frequently reported US work-related health problems include respiratory and skin diseases along with musculoskeletal disorders. Musculoskeletal problems account for about one-third of all reported workplace illnesses and injuries and affect workers in industries ranging from meatpacking to nursing, shipyards, cleaning services, manufacturing and retail grocery stores.

Cancer is one of the hardest occupational diseases to account for given the typically long time between exposure and diagnosis. But the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate is that past exposure in the workplace caused between 45,872 and 91,745 new cancer cases. That estimate, which the CDC said is likely an underestimate, was for a single year.


Delays cost lives

Connecting workplace exposure and disease diagnosis precisely can be complicated. But the links between occupational exposure to silica and beryllium dust and lung disease are well documented. Cases of these occupational diseases may well increase under Trump.

This month, OSHA delayed by three months the date on which its new silica exposure safety standard for the construction industry will take effect. This is the first update of the standard in more than 40 years and will reduce by half the silica dust level to which most workers can be exposed and prevent about 900 new silicosis cases each year.

OSHA says the delay will allow it to “conduct additional outreach and provide educational materials and guidance for employers.” But the rule “has been decades in the making” and “will save more 600 lives each year,” according to Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

Major industry trade associations, including in construction, oil and gas extraction, have long opposed the new standard.

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor (DOL) has twice postponed implementation of its rule updating standards for workers’ protection from carcinogenic beryllium dust. Like silica, exposure to beryllium, used in construction, shipyards, foundries and industries that use the metal to make electronics, aerospace, defense and other components, causes incurable lung disease and lung cancer.

“OSHA estimates that when fully implemented it [the rule] will save 94 lives a year. Every four days of delay in the implementation dates costs the life of one American worker,” wrote Michael Wright, director of health, safety and environment at United Steelworkers, in comments submitted to the DOL.

Republicans want the regulation delayed indefinitely and are calling it a “midnight” rule, implying the Obama administration rushed it through. In fact, the rule results from a process that began in 2002.

Also delayed are Environmental Protection Agency rules to prevent emissions of formaldehyde, a carcinogen and serious respiratory hazard, from manufactured wood products, to increase safety at industrial plants that use and store highly hazardous chemicals and to increase protections for pesticide applicators.

Tracking occupational illness

Trump has now signed two bills that will make it harder to track occupational illness. One undoes a rule requiring federal contractors to fully report all labor law violations. The other undoes a rule to strengthen employers’ workplace illness and injury record-keeping requirements. Both were nullified with Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions that prevent an agency from ever issuing a comparable regulation. At an April 5 briefing for reporters, White House director of legislative affairs Marc Short called passage of these bills “a huge accomplishment.”

“Recordkeeping is so important because it allows OSHA to research what’s really putting workers at risk and to target the most serious hazards affecting workers,” says Emily Gardner, Public Citizen worker health and safety advocate.

And, says Wilson, “Who’s bearing the disproportionate burden of exposure to substances like silica and asbestos gets submerged if we don’t know it’s happening.” Without this evidence, managing the problem becomes harder.


Trump budget threatens safety training and enforcement

The White House “budget blueprint” proposes eliminating OSHA’s Susan B. Harwood training grants. “The Harwood grants include very important training programs to reduce occupational illnesses, like grants that go out to train workers in nail salons and beauty parlors,” on exposure to hazardous chemicals, explained David Michaels, George Washington University professor of environmental and occupational health and Obama administration Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA.

These grants, which cost the federal government about $11 million annually, are probably the biggest source of worker “training about rights and procedures” on “preventing and reporting occupational illness,” said Craig Slatin, University of Massachusetts Lowell professor of health education and policy.

Proposed DOL funding cuts will also likely reduce OSHA’s already constrained enforcement budget. “OSHA is primarily an enforcement agency,” said Center for Progressive Reform executive director Matthew Shudtz. OSHA’s budget determines what the agency “can do to fight occupational illness,” he explained.

For example, OSHA funding will help determine what the agency can do to update its limited and outdated chemical safety standards, said Shudtz. These resources will also influence how OSHA uses what’s called the general duty clause. This sounds obscure but it’s key tool for the agency’s enforcement of workplace health and safety. It allows OSHA to enforce a general standard of safety “even when rules are outdated,” Shudtz explained. “This is really important in the illness context,” he said, particularly where specific safety standards are outdated or non-existent. The Obama administration pursued such cases but it seems unlikely that the Trump administration will do likewise.

So far, the Trump administration’s decisions impacting occupational health “are profoundly political, not scientific,” said Brody.

“How someone gets sick is always complicated,” she said. “And as long as there’s doubt and industry can pay for that doubt to be generated, we don’t move ahead on protecting workers.”


http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-policies-already-making-workplaces-toxic/
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Woman Who Brought Bill Clinton's Accusers To
Presidential Debate Is Now In Charge Of Civil Rights





clwdob1lnzxx3cxvgtku.jpg

Mike Wintroath/AP Images


While Trump was chilling at Mar-a-Lago eating chocolate cake out of that nasty-ass kitchen, listening to The Gap Band’s “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” on an endless loop, Betsy Devos put an anti-affirmative action, feminist-hating troll who once claimed reverse racism in charge of Civil Rights in your children’s schools.

DeVos, the Becky who bought herself a cabinet position as Secretary of Education, has named Candice Jackson the new acting head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The Office for Civil Rights, under the Education Department is supposed to, “ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights.”

To achieve these goals, the Trump administration gave the position to Candice Jackson, whose name is the only black-friendly thing about her. In 2005, Jackson wrote the book Their Lives: The Women Targeted By The Clinton Machine and teamed up with Trump supporter Roger Stone to bring the women to the Clinton/Trump debate. “I talked with Roger all summer about this project,” Jackson told New York Magazine. “We strategized about how we could strategically bring their message out.”

But that might be the least offensive thing from Jackson’s past. According to ProPublica, the lawyer who hails from a family of country music singers has a troubling civil rights-averse resume that includes:

  • As a student at Stanford, Jackson said section of a calculus class that helped minority students was one of the college’s “discriminatory programs.”
  • She seems to be a fan of Murray N. Rothbard, an economist who advocated against compulsory public education and called the 1964 Civil Rights act “monstrous.”
  • Although she is a lawyer, she has little to no experience in either education or civil rights.

  • She has repeatedly written against affirmative action, once writing, “No one, least of all the minority student, is well served by receiving special treatment based on race or ethnicity.”
  • She is vocally anti-feminist. “In today’s society, women have the same opportunities as men to advance their careers, raise families, and pursue their personal goals,” she wrote in the Stanford Review. “College women who insist on banding together by gender to fight for their rights are moving backwards, not forwards.”

Jackson’s new position does not require a Senate confirmation, but places her in charge of 550 workers responsible for investigating thousands of civil rights complaints. Under Obama, the Department of Education’s civil rights division pressed colleges to investigate cases of rape and sexual misconduct, and stressed minority enrollment to educational institutions.


http://www.theroot.com/woman-who-brought-bill-clintons-accusers-to-presidentia-1794385358
 

Mrfreddygoodbud

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Yo

Trump said Pavarotti is his good friend

IS his good friend but Pavarotti has been dead

For almost a decade:roflmao:

Pavarottis widow is pissed she asked trumps people to stop using his music

And they are like whaaaa huh we can't hear you.... Pavarotti is playing loudly

They have no respect
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
“No administration has accomplished more
in the first 90 days — that includes on military,
on the border, on trade, on regulation, on law
enforcement — we love our law enforcement —
and on government reform,”

- Donald Trump


 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
German crowd boos Ivanka Trump for
calling her father a ‘champion’ for families






A German crowd booed Ivanka Trump on Tuesday after she called her father a “a tremendous champion of supporting families.”

Trump was taking her first crack at diplomacy abroad in her new role as assistant to the president, vowing at an economic conference in Berlin to create “positive change” for women in the United States.

“He encouraged me and enabled me to thrive,” she said on a panel with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I grew up in a house where there was no barrier to what I could accomplish beyond my own perseverance and my own tenacity.”

Miriam Meckel, editor of the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche, noted the audience’s response of groaning and hissing and asked Ivanka Trump whether her father is actually an “empowerer” of women.

"I've certainly heard the criticism from the media and that's been perpetuated,” Ivanka Trump said on the panel, “but I know from personal experience, and I think the thousands of women who have worked with and for my father for decades when he was in the private sector are a testament to his belief and solid conviction in the potential of women.”

President Trump was caught on tape in 2005 talking about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission and, in a 2004 interview, called pregnancy an “inconvenience” to employers.

Germany, in contrast, offers one of the world’s most generous maternity leave policies: Mothers are entitled to take six weeks of paid time-off before the birth of a child and eight weeks after an infant arrives. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not offer any paid leave to new parents.

Ivanka Trump, who moved into her own West Wing office last month, advocated for gender equality during the campaign and is now working to reform the nation’s child-care system. Her Germany appearance comes a week before the release of her advice book, “Women Who Work.”

Candidate Trump named her the mastermind behind his paid maternity leave proposal, unveiled last September, but the White House has made no moves on the family leave front since Trump took office.

On Tuesday, Ivanka Trump was scheduled to speak about boosting women who start businesses. Female entrepreneurs in the United States, however, say the White House is making their jobs even harder.

Businesses owned by women tend to face a disadvantage when it comes to expanding into foreign markets — and experts say Trump's talk on trade and immigration has made it harder for them to pursue international opportunities.

The president has threatened, for example, to slap steep tariffs on goods from China and Mexico. He has asked for a review of the high-skilled worker visa, which tech companies rely on for talent. His travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim nations risked straining relations with Middle Eastern countries and America’s democratic allies.

All of this can impede an entrepreneur’s step into internationalization, or the act of growing beyond the American border, said Nathalie Molina Niño, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Brava, a holding company that bankrolls start-ups that benefit women.


SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ing-their-work-harder/?utm_term=.52eec89e87a7


.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator

How Trump’s first 100 days compares to past presidencies





President Trump came to office intent on shaking up Washington. While he's run into
obstacles in Congress and the courts, there have been clear victories. John Yang offers
a recap of the president’s domestic moves, and presidential historian Michael Beschloss
and Barbara Perry of the University of Virginia Miller Center sit down with Judy
Woodruff to discuss how he compares to his predecessors.
 
Top