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December 4, 2018
From Laura Loomer to Ivanka Trump, Amber Ruffin had no shortage of things to say “what!?” about.
Amber Says What: President T, The National Dog Show
From Laura Loomer to Ivanka Trump, Amber Ruffin had no shortage of things to say “what!?” about.
Posted by Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday, December 4, 2018
December 4, 2018
Not only are greedy fossil fuel companies destroying our planet and buying politicians in Congress, they are completely ignoring the rights of indigenous peoples and destroying sacred land and wildlife. We must stop new fossil fuel infrastructure, protect indigenous communities and rapidly transition to renewable energy.
Indigenous Rights Are Under Attack
Not only are greedy fossil fuel companies destroying our planet and buying politicians in Congress, they are completely ignoring the rights of indigenous peoples and destroying sacred land and wildlife. We must stop new fossil fuel infrastructure, protect indeginous communities and rapidly transition to renewable energy.
Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Wisconsin Republicans can’t accept that Scott Walker lost an election.
Wisconsin Republicans Are Trying to Strip Power From Newly Elected Democrats
Wisconsin Republicans can’t accept that Scott Walker lost an election.
Posted by VICE News on Thursday, December 6, 2018
State Sen. Tim Carpenter Carpenter, a Democrat from Milwaukee, speaks during a special session on Dec. 4, 2018, at the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.Steve Apps / Wisconsin State Journal via AP
Hours after Republicans pushed through bills curbing the powers of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general, Wisconsin Democrats charged Wednesday that it was nothing but a naked partisan power grab denying the will of the voters and would lead to gridlock and lawsuits.
“Certainly, physically I’m tired, but I’m sort of demoralized by what took place,” state Rep. Gordon Hintz, the Assembly Democratic leader, told NBC News. “It was a bad day for democracy.”
The legislation weakens the governor’s authority, limits early voting and dilutes the attorney general’s power by requiring a legislative committee to sign off on withdrawing from federal lawsuits. Gov.-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul campaigned on withdrawing Wisconsin from a multi-state lawsuit that seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Evers called the bills a “hot mess” on Wednesday, and said he’d personally call on Walker to veto the legislation. He also encouraged Wisconsin voters to pressure Walker not to sign the bills into law.
“Power-hungry politicians rushed through sweeping changes to our laws to expand their own power and override the will of the people of Wisconsin who asked for change on Nov. 6th,” Evers said in a statement earlier Wednesday.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat who served as the state’s attorney general as well, said the legislature’s move “lacked class.”
Doyle remarked that while former President George H.W. Bush was being praised for gracefully losing an election — famously wishing successor and rival President Bill Clinton well in a letter — the state’s Republicans were engaging partisan ploys.
“In Wisconsin, you’ve seen the Republicans go the opposite way: We’re mad, we lost, and we’re going to try and change the rules,” he told NBC News.
He said the legislation’s restrictions on the governor’s ability to staff the state jobs agency until September will make the governor’s work more challenging.
Hintz said he fears the bills will lead to gridlock because of court challenges and unintended consequences.
“Rushing through legislation on three days notice, in an all night session, always leads to unintended consequences and outcomes that you ultimately have to go back and fix. It’s a very bad way to do business,” Hintz said.
Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, said that Republican legislative efforts in Wisconsin as well as in Michigan are “a dangerous assault on our democracy.”
“Changing the rules when you don’t like the outcome is a move befitting a playground bully, not elected leaders in the world’s greatest democracy. Yet unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re seeing lame-duck Republicans attempt in Wisconsin and Michigan,” she said.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who lost his re-election effort last month to Evers, was booed and heckled at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Tuesday for his support of the bills; the legislation will go into effect upon his signature.
Democrats won every statewide election including governor and attorney general and 205,000 more votes than Republicans according to Washington Post election data, but Republicans maintained a 27-seat majority in the legislature.
Hintz said the legislation — and GOP control — is thanks to partisan redistricting done by Republicans, insulating them from facing blowback at the ballot box.
“This is the government you get when you get to pick your voters,” he told NBC News.
Doyle, who retired from politics in 2011, said the week’s events in Wisconsin were a good example of the nation’s political dysfunction.
“These districts are so divided, so safe Democrat or safe Republican,” he told NBC News. “That means that you have this phenomenon where the legislatures are playing to their bases and not to the middle. And I think everybody who looks at what’s happening with our current situation in legislatures — and in Congress — would say that’s the cause of the problem.”
Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate rushed to approve 82 of Gov. Scott Walker’s appointees, a month after voters chose not to reelect the Republican.
The GOP-controlled Legislature has been working with Walker to make sure that the incoming governor and attorney general, who are both Democrats, won’t have as much power as their Republican predecessors.
They’ve passed a series of bills in a lame-duck session that amount to nothing less than a brazen partisan power grab, taking responsibilities away from the governor and attorney general and giving them to the heavily gerrymandered Wisconsin Legislature. Walker is expected to sign them in the coming days.
On Tuesday, they also approved 82 Walker appointees to serve across the state government. That’s 82 confirmations in one day, just weeks before a new governor, of a different political party, is set to take office. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the full list of these appointees here.
The appointees include two members of the board that oversees the state’s public universities. One of those positions has been vacant for more than a year, but Walker just nominated his choice this week. He also made one of his top aides, Ellen Nowak, who is currently Department of Administration secretary, the new head of the state Public Service Commission.
In a letter to Walker on Tuesday, the incoming governor, Tony Evers, asked the governor to withdraw the names he submitted to the state Senate for approval.
“These appointments should be fully vetted in the next legislative biennium,” Evers wrote. “Many of them have had no public hearing and some have not filed a statement of economic interest. Given the rushed timing and the fact that many of these appointments have gone unfilled for extended periods of time, I must request that you withdraw this slate of names to allow ample time for full review, not only for the State Senate, but for the people of Wisconsin, too.”
Carrie Lynch, Evers’ spokeswoman, told the Wisconsin State Journal that more than 30 of the nominees have had no public hearing.
Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said 78 of the 82 appointments were sent to the Senate for confirmation “months ago.” Of the others, “3 of the 4 appointees sent to the Senate last week were due to vacancies created by recent resignations. The fourth, the student regent…was selected months ago but was not forwarded to the Senate for confirmation because it was in recess.”
Walker no doubt knows what he did is not a good look. In 2010, he urged outgoing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle not to “finalize any permanent civil service personnel” during his last two months in office.
“In the past, it has been common practice for political appointees to use this time to ‘bump down’ into permanent civil service positions,” Walker wrote. “I believe these appointees should be required to go through the same application process as any other civil servants and my Administration will review any new permanent hires during the next two months so they can be considered for termination during the probationary period.”
Walker also recently gave the outgoing attorney general a seat on a court in Waukesha County ― a position that doesn’t require state Senate approval.
“Wisconsin Republicans intent on invalidating the results of the 2018 election and undermining the orderly transfer of power rushed through a slate of political appointees to reward cronies with jobs and stop our incoming governor from being able to put his team in place, like Scott Walker was able to do,” said Mike Browne, the deputy director of the progressive advocacy group One Wisconsin Now.
This piece has been updated with comment from Walker’s office.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article attributed a quote about permanent civil service positions to Doyle. The quote is from Walker.
December 4, 2018
“Republicans have attempted to steal a Congressional election in North Carolina with the most brazen electoral fraud in a generation.”
"Republicans have attempted to steal a Congressional election in North Carolina with the most brazen electoral fraud in a generation."
Posted by MoveOn on Tuesday, December 4, 2018
December 5, 2018
Unless we take bold action to address climate change, Florida will literally be drowning at the end of the century.
Climate Change Is Drowning Florida
Unless we take bold action to address climate change, Florida will literally be drowning at the end of the century.
Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, December 5, 2018
December 5, 2018
Medicare for All: Better Care at a Lower Cost
Expanded and improved Medicare for All means lower costs and better care. For current Medicare beneficiaries, it would eliminate out of pocket costs and add dental, vision, hearing, and long term care coverage.
Posted by Social Security Works on Wednesday, December 5, 2018
December 5, 2018
BREAKING: Trump gets called out at President George HW Bush’s funeral by a Canadian former Prime Minister.
Canadian ex-Prime Minister shreds Trump at Bush's funeral
BREAKING: Trump gets called out at President George HW Bush's funeral by a Canadian former Prime Minister. Video by Occupy Democrats. Follow us for more!
Posted by Occupy Democrats on Wednesday, December 5, 2018
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump didn’t speak at the memorial service for former President George H.W. Bush on Wednesday, and the eulogists who did speak addressed the congregation with the understanding that they wouldn’t challenge the occupant of the Oval Office, seated in the front pew.
Even so, the contrast and the contradictions between the two were impossible to miss inside Washington National Cathedral, the inescapable subtext as one president was laid to rest and another headed into increasingly turbulent legal and political waters.
Intentionally or not, the words of praise for Bush resonated through the lens of the current president and the nation’s broken politics. Trump revels in provocative tweets, disparaging nicknames and a willingness to shatter political norms. Bush was remembered for personal characteristics of modesty, courtesy and restraint.
Historian Jon Meacham, author of the definitive Bush biography, “Destiny and Power,” praised Bush’s “life code” in his eulogy. He “called on us to choose right over the convenient, hope over fear, not our worst impulses but our best instincts.”
George W. Bush, the nation’s 43rd president, said his father “showed me what it means to be a president that leads with integrity.”
The 41st president and the 45th share some similarities: both Republicans, both born on the East Coast, both sons of privilege – one to a family with old money, one to a family with new. In almost every other way imaginable, they are a study in contrasts, from personal demeanor to global outlook.
George H.W. Bush, who generally held his tongue after he left the White House, was alarmed by Trump’s political rise. “A blowhard,” he told historian Mark Updegrove in May 2016. That November, for the first time, he cast his ballot not for the Republican presidential nominee but for the Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Still, it was Bush who decided Trump should be invited to his funeral, a sign of his respect for the office. (When his wife, Barbara, died in April, only first lady Melania Trump attended the funeral service in Houston.) Excluding Trump would have been a jarring break with precedent and the sort of public disrespect Bush steadfastly avoided.
Trump also followed the protocol of presidents by declaring Wednesday a national day of mourning, sending Air Force One to carry Bush’s family and his body from Texas to Washington and back and inviting the Bush family to stay in Blair House, the government guest house across from the White House.
More: George W. Bush’s full eulogy for George H.W. Bush
More: George H.W. Bush funeral: These are the moments you missed
More: Eulogist, former Sen. Alan Simpson said humor was at center of Bush’s life
The fact that Trump didn’t speak at the service was at odds with recent practice. President George W. Bush spoke at Ronald Reagan’s funeral. President Bill Clinton spoke at Richard Nixon’s, a moment of national healing. “May the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close,” Clinton said of the president forced from office amid scandal.
This time, even the body language among the exclusive club of presidents was decidedly chilly. When Trump arrived, he shook hands with the Obamas, but he didn’t acknowledge Bill or Hillary Clinton or Jimmy Carter. Hillary Clinton didn’t look his way, either; he labeled her “Crooked Hillary” at a hundred campaign rallies. Last week, Trump retweeted a fake photo that showed the Clintons and Barack Obama behind bars for “treason.”
2215002002Trump did less to attack George H.W. Bush with his rhetoric, but in fundamental ways, he has disrupted the legacy the elder Bush built. Trump transformed the Republican Party to reflect his combative populism – indeed, the GOP summarily dismissed Jeb Bush’s bid for the presidential nomination in 2016. Trump has largely rejected the sort of careful bipartisan compromise that marked George H.W. Bush’s negotiations that led to landmark domestic legislation, including the Clean Air Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Most of all, Trump frayed the global alliances and institutions that Bush and other Cold War presidents labored to forge. Bush led the West in managing the peaceful end of the Cold War. He negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement that President Clinton concluded. He laid the groundwork for the World Trade Organization.
Those are among the international institutions that Trump decries as an opportunity for foreign countries to take advantage of the United States. At the G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, he declared the death of NAFTA in favor of a renegotiated treaty. He insisted that the summit’s final communique criticize the WTO.
That approach to global affairs could hardly be more different from the one Bush followed.
Seated in the pews at Washington National Cathedral were past and present presidents, prime ministers, kings and queens, a reflection of the personal relationships Bush cultivated. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was there; she has praised Bush as “one of the fathers of the German unification.” Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Bush’s friend and confidante as the president built a multinational coalition to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, delivered one of the eulogies.
Mulroney and the other eulogists stood at a small podium set up in front of the pew where Trump was seated, almost face to face.
“Fifty or 100 years from now, as historians review the accomplishments and the context of all who have served as president … I believe it will be said that no occupant of the Oval Office was more courageous, more principled and more honorable than George Herbert Walker Bush,” the former Canadian prime minister said. He made a point of praising NAFTA, a frequent target of Trump.
More: Mulroney praises Bush as strong world leader
Trump’s name was never mentioned, nor his troubles – the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and the spectacle of his former national security adviser and his longtime personal lawyer scrambling to avoid jail time by cooperating with the inquiry into possible collusion with Moscow.
All that went unsaid.
“The most decent and honorable person I ever met,” former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson said in his eulogy. He added to laughter, “Those who travel the high road of humility in Washington, D.C., are not bothered by heavy traffic.”
