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Video by Sam Friedlander: https://www.facebook.com/sam.friedlander
Shared by Occupy Democrats.
We have found the CURE for Trump
Share the great news!Video by Sam Friedlander: https://www.facebook.com/sam.friedlanderShared by Occupy Democrats.
Posted by Occupy Democrats on Monday, March 13, 2017
John Hanno, www.tarbabys.com March 18, 2018
If anyone’s still hoping trump will somehow become “Presidential,” they’re as delusional as he exhibits daily.
If anything, he’s doubling down on pandemonium, by orchestrating chaotic episodes of the “Apprentice,” where at the end of the week, someone’s summarily canned and sent down the elevator to a waiting limo.
Unfortunately the impact of such fantasy playing out in the West Wing is not as benign as trump’s inconsequential reality show. Dedicated career employees like James Comey and Sally Yates, fired for refusing blind loyalty to king Donald, just fired Andrew McCabe, who backed up Comey’s narrative of his disputed encounters with trump, eminently respected business executive Rex Tillerson, unceremoniously fired by tweet after criticizing the Russians for dastardly deeds in Syria and in London last week, fired high level State Department official Steven Goldstein, who authored an official State Department statement that conflicted with White House accounts of how Mr. Tillerson was jettisoned, and countless additional federal career employees who’ve been fired, or have resigned like Gary Cohn, or retired in the face of trump administration discombobulation, are the intended consequences of trump’s scripted, bizarre notions of “Presidential” decorum.
trump’s done more damage to our institutions and governing infrastructure than any president in history and couldn’t care less about the human flotsam.
We’ve witnessed an unprecedented (40%) turnover in trump administration employees. Granted, many of these employees should never have been allowed near the West Wing or even through the front gate of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, considering dozens couldn’t qualify for security clearances, but this isn’t normal by anyone’s standards.
trump hired Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, even though Pruitt spent decades opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate to protect America’s air, water and land; hired Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education, even though she’s been described as the strongest opponent of public education; hired Rick Perry for Secretary of Energy, even though he hadn’t a clue of what that job entailed; hired Ben Carson for Secretary of HUD because he once lived in an apartment; hired Wilber Ross for Secretary of Commerce apparently because he’s an expert at laundering Oligarchs money, hired Steven Munchin for Secretary of Treasury because he made a fortune foreclosing on Veterans and middle class mortgagees in distress after the financial collapse, hired Mick Mulvaney because he routinely railed against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and middle class entitlement programs; hired Tom Price, a staunch opponent of Obamacare and social safety net programs, for Secretary of Health and Human Services, before he was fired for insider trading in health stocks and squandering taxpayers money on extravagant travel expenses; hired Ryan Zinke for Secretary of the Interior because he, like trump, is bound and determined to turn over America’s National Parks and public lands to fossil fuel and mining interests.
I could go on and on but the point is, trump’s idea of “Best and Brightest” is in stark contrast to the Obama administration, who actually hired experts qualified and eager to improve their departments, not destroy them.
With a few exceptions, like Gary Cohn and Rex Tillerson, and probably Generals Mattis and McMaster, would any respectable major corporation or organization hire for department level positions, any of the unqualified and flawed characters trump hired as his “best and brightest?”
We soon learned, trump’s main focus was not to find and assign the “Best People,” who might exhibit expertise for a particular position in his administration, but to appoint someone keen on undermining the basic institutions America relies on to effectively govern in a democratic society. Sadly, Democratic principles are foreign to trump’s business and ethical sensibilities.
Is it any wonder this cast of political misfits have run amuck. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show struggles to keep a running list of all the casualties of trump’s administration. The show had to reconfigure her set so that all three columns showing more than 50 names could fit in the screen.
Most of the people brought into trump world seem to have one thing in common. They’re either adept at sycophancy or are tarnished individuals previously engaged in all sorts of dubious or criminal conduct. Fraud, money laundering, insider trading, domestic abuse, tax fraud, gambling, unbound avarice, no holds barred self dealing, back stabbing, or any form of anti social behavior is a plus on their resumes.
In any other administration in America’s history, these tarnished miscreants would have never been considered, let alone employed. But trump views their moral character flaws as a badge of courage, examples of business genius and resourcefulness. Winning at all costs is integral to trumps idea of fairness and proof of a persons ideological bona fides.
Bad conduct seems a pre-requisite for entering trumps world, and unquestioned loyalty is required for staying there.
Once that loyalty fades for even a moment, the king issues the decree; “you’re fired!”
The list of casualties grows daily and is too numerous to mention here. But after the firing dust settles, trump moves people around like pieces on a chess board, not with any consideration of talent or fitness for the job but with the main goal of securing loyalty.
trump’s only left with rearranging the human deck chairs on the Titanic because most potential qualified applicants have enough sense to steer clear of this toxic environment.
No one’s surprised trump’s engulfed in the Stormy Daniels reality show scandal. No one’s surprised he cheated on his wife while she was carrying his child, or that he tried to cover it up. We’re no longer surprised when the daily calamity and sleaze oozes from the White House.
No one’s surprised trump’s looking for his 5th communications director. Lying to the public and the press is the primary prerequisite. No one’s surprised he fired Rex Tillerson with a Tweet, or that he lied to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then bragged about it during a campaign stop, or that he’s been trying to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions for months, or that he browbeat Sessions into firing Andrew McCabe a day before he was to retire and collect a pension, or that he’s chomping at the bit, to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Special Investigator Robert Mueller, National Security Advisor McMaster and probably at lease a half dozen other employees Fox News implores him to ditch and demean.
trump now claims “he’s almost got the cabinet he’s always wanted.” Wow! Wow!
trump is the ultimate tarbaby, the pre-eminent Brer Rabbit like trickster, who schemes and connives and creates havoc all along his gold plated career paths and in every situation he engages, but then wriggles free at the last minute by turning the tables on acquaintances, employees and business partners. He employs the Midas touch in reverse. Yet he seems to escape every self imposed calamity unscathed, while those who pledged their allegiance, believed in his shtick, who fell for his cons, have crashed and burned.
trump lives to denigrate anyone and everyone at one time or another, except for the Russians and Vladimir Putin, who if you watch late night talk show satire and Saturday Night Live skits, would be an easy target for trump’s particular form of belittlement.
But trump refuses to criticize the Russians and quickly fires anyone, including Tillerson and maybe soon McMasters, when they speak out publically about Russian transgressions. Why isn’t trump troubled by Russian threats to world stability, to our democratic institutions, our critical infrastructure and our national security? It begs the question, what are the Russians holding over our Demeaner in Chief?
Progressive Americans yearns for normal, for a social community where folks sit down together, using facts and principles, and applies logic and critical thinking to solve problems. We now realize that’s foreign to trump’s realm of thought. He disregards most expert advise, embraces wild conspiracy theorists, promotes controversy, exacerbates solvable problems and takes delight in White House employee infighting.
What would trump’s unflinching base of enablers say if President Obama had done a fraction of what trump calls winning? When will the Republi-con controlled congress decide they’ve had enough?
JohnHanno, www.tarbabys.com
IBEW shared a U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders video
Whether or not it’s talked about on the major networks, income and wealth inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. Please join me, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Moore, Darrick Hamilton and o
Tune in March 19th for the Inequality Town Hall
Whether or not it's talked about on the major networks, income and wealth inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. Please join me, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Moore, Darrick Hamilton and others on Facebook Monday, March 19 for an incredibly important discussion.
Posted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Thursday, March 15, 2018
March 13, 2018
22 years ago today, Britain had a school shooting that changed the country’s gun laws—this year, the families affected have a message of hope and solidarity for Parkland
Dunblane Tragedy Survivors Send Message to Parkland Community
22 years ago today, Britain had a school shooting that changed the country's gun laws—this year, the families affected have a message of hope and solidarity for Parkland
Posted by NowThis on Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Miami (AFP) – The world’s leading brands of bottled water are contaminated with tiny plastic particles that are likely seeping in during the packaging process, according to a major study across nine countries published Wednesday.
“Widespread contamination” with plastic was found in the study, led by microplastic researcher Sherri Mason of the State University of New York at Fredonia, according to a summary released by Orb Media, a US-based non-profit media collective.
Researchers tested 250 bottles of water in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Thailand and the United States.
Plastic was identified in 93 percent of the samples, which included major name brands such as Aqua, Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestle Pure Life and San Pellegrino.
The plastic debris included nylon, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene, which is used to make bottle caps.
“In this study, 65 percent of the particles we found were actually fragments and not fibers,” Mason told AFP.
“I think that most of the plastic that we are seeing is coming from the bottle itself. It is coming from the cap. It is coming from the industrial process of bottling the water.”
Particle concentration ranged from “zero to more than 10,000 likely plastic particles in a single bottle,” said the report.
On average, plastic particles in the 100 micron (0.10 millimeter) size range — considered “microplastics” — were found at an average rate of 10.4 plastic particles per liter.
Even smaller particles were more common — averaging about 325 per liter.
Other brands that were found to contain plastic contaminated included Bisleri, Epura, Gerolsteiner, Minalba and Wahaha.
Experts cautioned that the extent of the risk to human health posed by such contamination remains unclear.
“There are connections to increases in certain kinds of cancer to lower sperm count to increases in conditions like ADHD and autism,” said Mason.
“We know that they are connected to these synthetic chemicals in the environment and we know that plastics are providing kind of a means to get those chemicals into our bodies.”
– Time to ditch plastic? –
Previous research by Orb Media has found plastic particles in tap water, too, but on a smaller scale.
“Tap water, by and large, is much safer than bottled water,” said Mason.
The three-month study used a technique developed by the University of East Anglia’s School of Chemistry to “see” microplastic particles by staining them using fluorescent Nile Red dye, which makes plastic fluorescent when irradiated with blue light.
“We have been involved with independently reviewing the findings and methodology to ensure the study is robust and credible,” said lead researcher Andrew Mayes, from UEA’s School of Chemistry.
“The results stack up.”
However, representatives from the bottled water industry took issue with the findings, saying they were not peer-reviewed and “not based on sound science,” according to a statement from the International Bottled Water Association.
“A recent scientific study published in the peer-reviewed journal Water Research in February 2018 concluded that no statistically relevant amount of microplastic can be found in water in single-use plastic bottles,” it added.
“There is no scientific consensus on the potential health impacts of microplastic particles. The data on the topic is limited and conclusions differ dramatically from one study to another.”
Jacqueline Savitz, chief policy officer for North America at Oceana, a marine advocacy group that was not involved in the research, said the study provides more evidence that society must abandon the ubiquitous use of plastic water bottles.
“We know plastics are building up in marine animals, and this means we too are being exposed, some of us every day,” she said.
“It’s more urgent now than ever before to make plastic water bottles a thing of the past.”
By Anita Kumar March 13, 2018
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Moon Township, Pa., March 10, 2018. In a 75-minute performance in western Pennsylvania, it was vintage 2016 Trump: rambling and fiery, boastful and jocular — the part of being president that he loves perhaps the most. Tom Brenner NYT White House
Washington: The Trump administration has halted a new policy that would have required large companies to report what they pay their employees by race and gender. It has stopped a study of serious health risks for people who live near coal mine sites in Central Appalachia. And it has collected less crime data from across the nation than previous years.
In a new report to be released Tuesday, watchdog group Public Citizen outlined 25 ways President Donald Trump and federal agencies have conducted a so-called war on information over the last 14 months, largely eliminating data it finds inconvenient.
In most cases, the information already had been previously collected by the government. But in other cases, a plan was in place for the government to start collecting the information.
“A president who cares little about facts and has a dubious understanding of the concept of truthfulness sets the tone for his overall administration,” Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, told McClatchy. “But it’s not just that the administration is sloppy with the facts; it has engaged in a deliberate campaign to suppress information that contradicts its corporate and ideological extremist agenda.”
Public Citizen said the Trump administration is terminating studies that contradict its positions on big business priorities, manipulating data to promote an anti-immigrant agenda and failing to seek input from scientists and other experts. The study is not comprehensive but does show how the administration has denied facts, rejected expert advice and promoted falsehoods, its authors say.
In some cases, the administration has reversed course after being criticized, according to the report.
In one example, the report said the Department of Agriculture in February 2017 removed thousands of animal welfare documents from its website, including documents on the number of animals kept by research labs, circuses, companies and zoos. It began posting the information again later that month after animal rights groups complained, though it redacts some information citing “privacy” concerns.
In another instance, the report said, the Federal Emergency Management Agency deleted statistics in October 2017 on the percentage of Puerto Ricans with power and access to drinking water following Hurricane Maria. FEMA later began posting the information again that same month after the media reported it.
Even before Trump was sworn into office, he was accused of hiding information. Trump never released his tax returns, despite the common practice of presidents for four decades of releasing them and refused to post visitor logs for the White House until it settled a lawsuit that would reveal some details.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the Public Citizen report.
“These are not random suppressions of data and evidence, simply a byproduct of carelessness,” the report states. “The Trump administration-wide information suppression is a considered and concerted effort to serve corporate and extremist ideological interests.”
Other examples cited in the report:
Suspending a study to update an offshore oil and gas operations inspection program.
Scaling back research of the environmental impact of copper mining in a northern Minnesota wilderness area.
Removing information about climate change from websites.
Abandoning an international effort to require energy and mining firms to disclose payments given to governments.
Barring student loan services from responding to information requests from third parties, including state regulators.
No longer mandating contractors bidding on federal projects disclose all labor law violations for the past three years
Not requiring the Census Bureau to ask about sexual orientation or gender identity on its two biggest surveys.
Public Citizen also cited the example of a commission Trump created to look into voter fraud after he said millions of people voted illegally in 2016, though he provided no proof. The commission was later disbanded after states revolted.
“Members of the Trump administration seem eager to dish off the record about the daily drama of a dysfunctional White House,” said Alan Zibel, research director for Public Citizen’s Corporate Presidency Project and co-author of the report. “But they routinely suppress far more consequential information about how Trump’s dangerous worker safety, public health and environmental policies will impact Americans.”
Haunting.
Today, activists placed 7,000 pairs of children’s shoes in front of the Capitol—equalling the estimated number of kids killed by gun violence since Sandy Hook.
These Shoes Represent Kids Killed by Gun Violence
Haunting.Today, activists placed 7,000 pairs of children's shoes in front of the Capitol—equalling the estimated number of kids killed by gun violence since Sandy Hook.
Posted by Fusion on Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Great action by Avaaz.
Posted by The Other 98% on Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Emily Shapiro, Good Morning America March 14, 2018
Students to hold school walkout for gun control.
Thousands of students streamed out of schools around the country this morning to protest against gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people last month.
“I’m just mad there’s no action by our government representatives,” Daniel, a junior in Brooklyn, New York, said today.
“It’s all thoughts and prayers; it’s all talk,” he told ABC News. “After a gun violence tragedy there’s a speech talking about how we need change but there never is change.”
The event, which began at 10 a.m. across every time zone, was officially scheduled to last 17 minutes — one minute for each of the victims gunned down in the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. But many students are rallying for much longer.
To the students at Stoneman Douglas, Daniel’s message is, “Keep making your voices heard. While the politicians might stop talking about this, we’re not done.”
Over 3,000 walkout events are registered to take part in today’s call on Congress to pass tighter gun control laws, according to ENOUGH National School Walkout, the event organizers.
The walkouts are across the nation, from Maine to Maryland, from North Dakota to North Carolina, from the White House to Washington state, and even in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Remember why we are walking out,” Stoneman Douglas survivor Lauren Hogg wrote on Twitter today. “We are walking out for my friends that passed, all children that have been taken because of gun violence. We are walking out for the empty desks in my classes, and the unsaid goodbyes. This epidemic of School shootings must stop.”
In Washington, D.C., a huge crowd of chanting students gathered in front of the White House. Once the clock struck 10 a.m., the students silently sat down with their backs to the White House.
Even though most teenagers can’t vote, “we just want the White House to hear us,” Abby Silverman of Bethesda, Maryland, told ABC News outside the White House.
Kevin Butler told ABC News he came to the White House to “make sure there are stricter gun laws,” and even though the president wasn’t there during the sit-in, Kevin thinks their voices will be heard.
Everything to know about the National School Walkout
Middle school teacher encourages students to ‘walk up’ to others, not just walk out
From school shooting to a walkout, how the movement unfolded
Women’s March Youth Coordinator Tabitha St. Bernard Jacobs, one of the few adult allies guiding the students in the youth-led movement, told ABC News ahead of the event that while the walkout was sparked by the Florida school shooting, the event is about pressuring Congress to act against gun violence overall.
She said the walkout is a way to shed light on the type of gun violence that exists not just in schools, but everyday gun violence, like shootings that impact minority communities or devastate cities like Chicago.
How participants spend those 17 minutes of the walkout is up to them and what is best for their own environment, St. Bernard Jacobs said. Some people are doing a lie-in, while others are holding rallies, she said.
At Columbine High School in Colorado, where two students opened fire in April 1999, killing 12 of their fellow students and a teacher, student leaders said they plan to walk out at 10 a.m. local time.
The students said they’ll stay on school grounds and listening to student speakers at the Columbine shooting memorial on campus, according to the district. After 17 minutes, they’ll return to class; students who choose not to participate will remain in class during the walkout, according to the district.
Groups from around the world also signed up, including in Australia, Israel, Switzerland, Germany and Mexico.
Izzy Harris, a student at The American School in London, said students at her school, including herself, walked out “to demonstrate that the U.S. government needs to make changes to their gun laws.”
“Although we are not directly affected in the U.K., a number of us are American and have many connections to the U.S.,” she told ABC News via video.
While many school districts are supportive of the protests, some schools from Pennsylvania to Georgia have reportedly threatened to discipline students participating in walkouts.
In Plainfield, Illinois, where some students plan to walk out, doing so will come with a guideline.
Students who want to participate in the walkout also must attend an after-school discussion with state legislators to discuss issues that relate to school violence, like the political process, school safety, gun control and what influences politicians, Plainfield School District Superintendent Lane Abrell told ABC News.
A student who walks out but does not attend the discussion with state legislators will get a one-hour detention, Abrell said.
Abrell said the walkout “in my opinion … doesn’t really solve the issue,” and the meeting with local legislators is a way for students who genuinely are passionate about the cause to learn how school violence issues can be solved.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said schools can punish students for missing class for walkouts, but the punishment should only be because students are missing school and not as a harsher punishment because the students participated in a protest.
Dozens of colleges and universities have said they won’t penalize applicants who are peaceful student protesters.
ABC News’ Connor Burton, Rachel Katz, Doug Lantz, Andy Fies, Armando Garcia and Samantha Reilly contributed to this report.
By Andrew Freedman March 13, 2018
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A protest about climate change in New York City. Image: Lightrocket/Getty
Now, climate advocates may miss the ex-oil man, considering his replacement. On Tuesday, Trump fired Tillerson via twitter and announced the nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to lead the State Department in his place.
Pompeo has long-questioned the links between fossil fuel burning and climate change, which climate scientists regard as irrefutable.
In the scientific community, there’s virtually no debate about what is causing global warming based on multiple lines of observational evidence, as well as basic physics.
Next to the president and Environmental Protection Agency administrator, the Secretary of State is the U.S.’s most prominent official on climate change. The State Department is in charge of the nation’s role in international climate talks, including how to walk the delicate dance of working on the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement while also planning to withdraw from it in 2020, as Trump plans to.
The U.S. is the only country in the world to announce its withdrawal from this agreement, which seeks to keep global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming compared to preindustrial levels by the year 2100.
For his part, Pompeo is a former Republican congressman from Kansas and a member of the Tea Party movement.
He also has longstanding, close ties to Charles and David Koch, the billionaire conservatives who continue to fund efforts to discredit mainstream climate science and sow doubt among the public. In fact, he is the duo’s top funding recipient currently in the Trump administration, having taken in more than $1 million during his time in Congress.
Pompeo declined to state his views on climate change during confirmation hearings for the CIA post, arguing it was outside the scope of the position despite the fact that global warming poses an array of national security threats.
He has made past statements, though, that clearly indicate where he stands on this issue.
“Look, I think the science needs to continue to develop. I’m happy to continue to look at it,” he said on C-SPAN in 2013. “There are scientists who think lots of different things about climate change. There’s some who think we’re warming, there’s some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment.”
He has also revealed that he questions whether global temperatures are increasing, and if so, if human activities are the main cause.
Pompeo also criticized the Obama administration’s work on the Paris Agreement, calling it a “radical” treaty.
Once in office, Tillerson was seen as a comparatively moderate voice on climate change, advocating that the U.S. stay in the Paris Climate Agreement, for example.
However, under Tillerson, the U.S. had not yet issued a report on its climate actions due to the U.N. on March 1, prompting a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. That group, and others, reacted with alarm at the Pompeo appointment on Tuesday.
“If Tillerson was a speed bump for our international cooperation on climate, Pompeo could be a wrecking ball,” said Jean Su, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, in a statement.
May Boeve, the executive director of 350.org, also came out swinging against Pompeo.
“We’ve gone from Exxon’s CEO to the Koch Brothers’ most loyal lapdog,” she said in a statement. “Pompeo received over a million oil and gas dollars during his political career, has deep ties to the Kochs, and is a climate denier to the core. Trump’s State Department is a vehicle for big oil and billionaires, regardless of whether Tillerson or Pompeo are at the helm.”
It’s possible that Pompeo could yank the State Department out of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, under which these negotiations are held, which would truly make the U.S. a pariah state on this issue. He could also scuttle a separate agreement on so-called super-greenhouse gases, which Tillerson supported.
Or, perhaps he’ll follow the course that Tillerson set in motion, and simply ignore the climate issue entirely, choosing instead to focus on higher priorities, like the nuclear agreement with Iran and participating in the delicate talks with North Korea.
Pompeo must be confirmed by the Senate to take his post, and he will likely face climate policy questions from Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
