Monday, February 06, 2017
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Saturday, February 04, 2017
Donald Trump is not the cyberpunk future. He is a dystopian nightmare.
Donald Trump's African-American agenda In Donald Trump’s draft executive order barring any immigrants who might need public assistance, there is a line on how the money saved from blocking the immigrants could be invested in “inner-city communities” and “disadvantaged youth.” The AM Joy panel discusses Donald Trump’s African-American agenda. - AM Joy on MSNBC
G.O.P. Hurries to Slash Oil and Gas Rules, Ending Industries’ 8-Year Wait - The New York Times
"WASHINGTON — The document carried the title “A Roadmap to Repeal,” a concise list of Obama administration environmental regulations that a Koch brothers-backed group was pressing President Trump and Congress to quickly reverse after Inauguration Day.
It was a tally of rules that energy industry executives and lobbyists had waged a futile fight against for eight years, donating millions of dollars to lawmakers who vowed to help block them, filing lawsuits to try to overturn them and hiring experts to generate reports that questioned the need for them.
But in a flurry of activity this past week, Congress did what Charles G. and David H. Koch — who own a conglomerate that sells hundreds of products, including gasoline, jet fuel and coal — and other industry leaders had been asking for.
Using a rarely invoked law, the Republican-controlled Congress nullified a measure intended to curb the venting of gas wells on federal lands, and began the process of rolling back other regulations, including one enacted to limit damage that coal mines cause to streams — each items on the “Roadmap to Repeal.”
On Friday, with his own executive orders, Mr. Trump took up two more items on the list, including a call to rewrite major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, legislation crafted by the Obama administration and passed by Congress in response to the 2008 financial meltdown.
Not since the Reagan administration has Washington moved so quickly to roll back or nullify so many federal regulations, one of the clearest signs of an abrupt shift of power in a government now under one-party control that has flipped the script of winners and losers.
“It is a big, fat victory, after all this time,” said Luke Popovich, a vice president at the National Mining Association, an industry trade group."
G.O.P. Hurries to Slash Oil and Gas Rules, Ending Industries’ 8-Year Wait - The New York Times
Friday, February 03, 2017
Robert De Niro Still Wants to Punch Donald Trump in the Face - The Daily Beast
"Robert De Niro has not taken the rise of President Donald Trump well.Last summer, after Trump had accepted the Republican nomination, the actor called him “totally nuts,” adding “God help us.” Two months later, in a leaked “Get Out the Vote” campaign video, he added, “He talks how he’d like to punch people in the face? Well, I’d like to punch him in the face.”The day after the election, De Niro admitted that he probably would not get the opportunity to sock Trump in the mouth, but his ire towards the 45th president of the United States has barely subsided since then. And it was on full display when he visited The View on Friday morning to promote his new film, The Comedian.Asked by host Joy Behar about his threat of violence towards then-candidate Trump, De Niro explained, “I said that because he said that about somebody, that he would like to punch them in the face. How dare he say that to the crowd? How dare he say the things he does? Of course I want to punch him in the face.”“It was only a symbolic thing, anyway. It wasn't like I was going to go find him and punch him in the face,” the actor clarified. “But he’s got to hear it. He’s got to hear that, you know, that’s how he makes people feel. It’s not good to feel that way. It’s not good to start that stuff up, but at the same time sometimes when people are bullies like that, that’s what you have to do to shut them up. Bully them back.”
Robert De Niro Still Wants to Punch Donald Trump in the Face - The Daily Beast: ""
(Via.)
Trump’s Muslim ban and the long history of American nativism. The United States is neither a land of nativists nor a haven for immigrants. Our xenophobic impulses and loftiest ideals have been in conflict since the founding.
"The Statue of Liberty’s long career as a beacon to the oppressed began in 1882 with refugees whose religion some Americans feared. The czar was cracking down on Jews, and tens of thousands of people fled across Europe, many reaching the East Coast of the United States. Jewish American organizations rushed to aid them, as commentators debated what the sudden influx meant. What, if anything, did America owe these impoverished strangers, with their non-Christian faith? In a booming industrial society hungry for workers but fearful of beggars and bomb-throwers, were they a benefit or a danger?
It was at this moment that a Jewish American poet in New York, Emma Lazarus, made her way to the depot on Wards Island, where the refugees were being housed. Moved by their suffering, she taught classes and pressed for better shelter, food, and sanitation. Later, Lazarus was asked to contribute a poem for an auction to raise funds for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, and here she did something strange.
Until then, the icon had symbolized Franco-American friendship and trans-Atlantic republicanism. But in her sonnet, Lazarus recast it as a welcome signal to the poor and threatened, a “Mother of Exiles” calling out to the world to give over its “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Lazarus’ statue was not asking: “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me”; it commanded. The poem wore its ambivalence about immigrants on its sleeve—“wretched refuse,” it called them—but it also expressed the idea of the United States as a haven for outcasts in bold new ways, ways that would face repeated onslaughts in the coming decades.
Last week, Donald Trump launched the latest of these attacks, issuing an executive order that suspends the entrance of all refugees for 120 days, prohibits the entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries for at least 90 days, and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely. Given the racist, anti-immigrant nationalism at the center of Trump’s presidential campaign, his action came as no surprise. For his supporters, it represented a blow against menacing Islam and an assertion of white, Protestant identity as the genuine core of what it means to be American. For Trump’s many critics, it represented an outrageous affront to the United States’ deepest values as a beckoning “nation of immigrants,” the tradition that Lazarus championed.
Trump’s Muslim ban and the long history of American nativism.: ""
Trump has a history of violating Court orders to stop acting in a discriminatory manner. United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management, Inc. - Motion for Supplemental Relief
in this action, alleging violations of the Fair Housing
Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. 3601
et and prayed that the Court enter an Order enjoining the
defendant from future violations of Title VIII, and directing
it to take such affirmative steps as might be necessary to correct
the effects of its past discriminatory practices.
2. On June 10, 1975, this Court entered an Order, by
consent of the parties, permanently enjoining Trump and those
in privity with it from engaging in any discriminatory practices
prohibited by the Fair Housing Act. The defendant was also
ordered to implement an affirmative program to promote equal
housing opportunity. The principal officers of Trump Management,
Inc. were ordered to acquaint themselves personally and in
detail with Trump's obligations under the Order and the various
fair housing laws, and to assure themselves that their subordinates
similarly understood their responsibilities. "
United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management, Inc. - Motion for Supplemental Relief
United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management, Inc. | Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse
The Trumps retained Roy Cohn, former aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy, to defend them; they counter-claimed against the government, seeking $100 million in damages for defamation.
The case was assigned to District Judge Edward R. Neaher. He dismissed the counterclaim and allowed the Fair Housing Act suit to proceed.
After two years, the matter settled with a consent decree, signed June 10, 1975. It included the ordinary disclaimer of liability (the settlement was “in no way an admission” of a violation"), but prohibited the Trumps from "discriminating against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling." Fred and Donald Trump were ordered to "thoroughly acquaint themselves personally on a detailed basis" with the Fair Housing Act. The agreement also required the Trumps to place ads informing minorities they had an equal opportunity to seek housing at their properties. According to a contemporary article in the New York Times, Trump Management was required to furnish the New York Urban League with a weekly list of all apartment vacancies, for two years; the League would get three days to provide qualified applicants for every fifth vacancy in Trump buildings where fewer than 10 percent of the tenants were black.
The Justice Department called the decree “one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated.” Newspaper headlines echoed that assessment. The New York Amsterdam News, for example, titled its article “Minorities win housing suit,” and told readers that “qualified Blacks and Puerto Ricans now have the opportunity to rent apartments owned by Trump Management.”
United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management, Inc. | Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse
Lyft, HP won't advertise on Breitbart. Uber, Amazon remain - CNET
Sleeping Giants' main target has been Breitbart News, which made headlines Wednesday after students at University of California at Berkeley protested an appearance by one of its columnists. The right-wing news and opinion site, formerly run by senior Trump aide Steve Bannon, has been criticized as a platform for conspiracy theories and racism. Bannon himself called Breitbart "the platform of the 'alt-right,'" a loose, online movement of people promoting the notion of "white identity," including white supremacists and those advocating for a separate white homeland.
Sleeping Giants decided to get companies to block their ads from appearing on the site. And in doing so it learned that because of the way online ads are sold, few advertisers know where their ads appear.
So far about 820 companies have blocked their ads on Breitbart, according to Sleeping Giants. They include big consumer brands like Kellogg's, BMW and Visa, as well as dozens of tech companies, including Autodesk, Lenovo, HP, Okta, Vimeo and T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom. Ride-hailing company Lyft also decided to block its ads on Breitbart. Uber, which has been called out by Sleeping Giants for its ads on the site, didn't respond to request for comment."
Lyft, HP won't advertise on Breitbart. Uber, Amazon remain - CNET
Clueless Kellyanne Conway Admits ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ Error - The New York Times
"Kellyanne Conway, the adviser to President Trump who coined the phrase “alternative facts,” is facing another round of criticism and fact-checking after she falsely spoke of a “Bowling Green massacre” by Iraqi refugees. She acknowledged and corrected her mistake Friday morning on Twitter.
Ms. Conway made the comment during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Thursday night as she discussed with the host, Chris Matthews, the executive order by Mr. Trump that suspended immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.
I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered."
Kellyanne Conway Admits ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ Error - The New York Times: ""
(Via.)