Category: National Issues

Constitutional crisis? What happens if Trump decides to ignore a judge’s ruling.

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website February 5, 2017:

President Trump has spent the better part of the past 24 hours bashing a U.S. district judge’s decision to temporarily halt his travel ban executive order.

First came a White House statement calling the ruling “outrageous” (the word was later taken out). Then came Trump’s many tweets, which were scattered throughout the day Saturday and actually seemed to question the judge’s authority. And then, in its appeal, the Trump administration said the lower-court judge shouldn’t be “second-guessing” the president. Continue reading “Constitutional crisis? What happens if Trump decides to ignore a judge’s ruling.”

A Catholic Nun Perfectly Explains the Hypocrisy of the “Pro-Life” Argument

This an oldie, but a goodie, with the original content coming from 2004.  However, with the misinformation, and “holier than thou” vibes coming from the mostly male authoritarians empowered by the Trump win, it’s well worth posting again.

The following article by Eleanor Sheehan was posted on the Popsugar website February 4, 2017:

A Catholic nun’s explanation of the term “pro-life” from 2004 is resurfacing after recent antiabortion events. On PBS’s Now With Bill Moyers, Sister Joan Chittister explained why being against abortion doesn’t mean you’re pro-life.

Here’s the full quote:

“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

Continue reading “A Catholic Nun Perfectly Explains the Hypocrisy of the “Pro-Life” Argument”

More companies back away from Donald Trump under pressure from customers

The following article by James Hohman with Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website February 3, 2017:

THE BIG IDEA: Companies are caught between a rock and a hard place, with President Trump on one side and their customers on the other.

President Trump and Vice President Pence meet with Harley Davidson executives on the South Lawn of the White House yesterday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick quit President Trump’s 15-member council of business leaders yesterday, and Disney CEO Bob Iger let it be known that he won’t attend a meeting at the White House today because of a scheduling conflict.

Nordstrom announced last night that it will stop selling Ivanka Trump’s name-branded line of clothing and shoes after an extended boycott by an anti-Trump activist group called “Grab Your Wallet.“

The retailer said the first daughter’s products are being dropped because of poor sales. In early December, Nordstrom had 71 Ivanka items for sale on its web site. Right now, just four are left. And they’re all being sold at a clearance discount. Continue reading “More companies back away from Donald Trump under pressure from customers”

USDA abruptly purges animal welfare information from its website

The following article by Karen Brulliard was posted on the Washington Post website February 3, 2017:

(Gerry Broome/AP)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday abruptly removed inspection reports and other information from its website about the treatment of animals at thousands of research laboratories, zoos, dog breeding operations and other facilities.

In a statement, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service cited court rulings and privacy laws for the decision, which it said was the result of a “comprehensive review” that took place over the past year. It said the removed documents, which also included records of enforcement actions against violators of the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act, would now be accessible only via Freedom of Information Act Requests. Those can take years to be approved. Continue reading “USDA abruptly purges animal welfare information from its website”

Documents confirm Trump still benefiting from his business

The following article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Drew Harwell was posted on the Washington Post website February 4, 2017:

Police stand guard outside the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Documentation involving the hotel discloses how President Trump is still benefiting from the hotel’s ownership. (John Minchillo/Associated Press)

Before taking office, President Trump promised to place his assets in a trust designed to erect a wall between him and the businesses that made him wealthy.

But newly released documents show that Trump himself is the sole beneficiary of the trust and that it is legally controlled by his oldest son and a longtime employee.

The documents, obtained through a public records request by the investigative news service ProPublica and first reported by the New York Times, also show that Trump retains the legal power to revoke the trust at any time.

The documents were filed to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board in Washington to alert the board that oversees liquor licenses at Trump’s D.C. hotel of the change in the business. Continue reading “Documents confirm Trump still benefiting from his business”

Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order

The following article by Josh Rogin was posted on the Washington Post website February 4, 2017:

Editor’s Note: Prior to publication of this column, The Post sought comment from the Department of Homeland Security but not from the White House. We should have done both. The article has been updated. – Fred Hiatt

UPDATE (Feb. 4, 6:13 p.m.): The article has been updated to reflect comments from White House press secretary Sean Spicer. The article previously stated that Stephen K. Bannon visited Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly’s office on Jan. 28. Spicer said Bannon did not make such a visit. He also said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Bannon did not participate in a 2 a.m. conference call on Jan. 29. The article also previously stated that President Trump approved a pause in executive orders pending new procedures. According to Spicer, it was White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, rather than the president, who approved the new procedures, but not a pause.

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly pauses while speaking at a news conference in Washington on Jan. 31. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)

Over the weekend of Jan. 28-29, as airport protests raged over President Trump’s executive order on immigration, the man charged with implementing the order, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, had a plan. He would issue a waiver for lawful permanent residents, a.k.a. green-card holders, from the seven majority-Muslim countries whose citizens had been banned from entering the United States.

White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon wanted to stop Kelly in his tracks and told him not to issue the order. Kelly, according to two administration officials familiar with the confrontation, refused to comply. That was the beginning of a weekend of negotiations among senior Trump administration staffers that led, on Sunday, Jan. 29, to a White House decision to change the process for the issuance of executive orders. Continue reading “Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order”

It’s Time to Take America’s Billionaire Class Head On

The following article by David Morris was posted on the AlterNet website February 2, 2017:

Combatting defeatism may be our single most important psychological objective in the wake of the election. We need to revive the spirit embodied in Barack Obama’s vague but hopeful campaign slogan in 2008, “Yes We Can.” At the federal level this is a time to expose, to educate and to resist. But at the state and local level we can act proactively to fashion strategies that both embrace progressive values and directly benefit those who mistakenly voted for Donald Trump as an economic savior. This is the first in a series of pieces focusing on what can be done.

The Giveaway

Over the next 6-12 months Congress will almost certainly give the richest 1 percent of the population an income tax gift totaling some $75-150 billion. The 1 percent, with annual incomes averaging $1.3 million, will capture 47 percent of the tax cuts for an average annual tax saving of $214,000 each, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates based on Trump’s proposal, which does not differ dramatically from that of the House Republicans. Continue reading “It’s Time to Take America’s Billionaire Class Head On”

This Der Spiegel Trump cover is stunning

The following article by Callum Borchers was posted on the Washington Post website February 3, 2017:

Edel Rodriguez came to the United States from Cuba as a political refugee in 1980. Like many immigrants, he was angered by President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning entry to the United States for travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world.

“I was 9 years old when I came here, so I remember it well, and I remember the feelings and how little kids feel when they are leaving their country,” Rodriguez said. “I remember all that, and so it bothers me a lot that little children are being kept from coming to this country.”

Unlike most immigrants, however, Rodriguez channeled his anger into a piece of art that is now on the cover of one of the world’s leading magazines.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel on Friday unveiled its latest issue, bearing Rodriguez’s striking work. In the illustration, Trump wields a bloody knife with which he has beheaded the Statue of Liberty. His orange face is featureless, except for a hollering mouth. Two words appear beside him: America First.

“It’s a beheading of democracy, a beheading of a sacred symbol,” Rodriguez said, noting that the Statue of Liberty represents the United States’ history of welcoming immigrants. “And clearly, lately, what’s associated with beheadings is ISIS, so there’s a comparison” between the Islamic State and Trump. “Both sides are extremists, so I’m just making a comparison between them.”

In December 2015, after Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” the New York Daily News pictured him beheading the Statue of Liberty.

nydn trump

The New Yorker on Friday revealed a new cover illustration called “Liberty’s Flameout,” in which the statue’s flame has been extinguished.

The New Yorker

✔@NewYorker

An early look at next week’s cover, “Liberty’s Flameout,” by John W. Tomac: http://nyer.cm/jZ9jWiu 

Rodriguez, a freelance artist, did not draw those covers, but you might remember two memorable illustrations he did for Time magazine during the presidential election.

Frank Thorp V

✔@frankthorp

New @TIME with illustration of a melting Donald Trump:

Meltdown.http://time.com/magazine/ 

· Florida, USA

Why does Rodriguez draw Trump with missing facial features?

“That’s the way I see him,” Rodriguez said. “I see him as someone that’s very angry, and it’s pretty much his mouth that’s moving all the time, so that’s how I tend to show him in some of my work.”

Rodriguez added that the Der Spiegel cover is a statement about the kind of country he wants to live in.

“I don’t want to live in a dictatorship,” he said. “If I wanted to live in a dictatorship, I’d live in Cuba, where it’s much warmer.”

View the original post here.

Rightward Turn By Supreme Court Will Greatly Affect Women

The following article by Cynthia Tucker Haynes was posted on the National Memo website February 3, 2017:

Activists hold signs as they rally in support of Planned Parenthood on “National Pink Out Day” on the steps of City Hall in Los Angeles, California September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

A new right-wing justice won’t change the Supreme Court. The confirmation of Neil Gorsuch — and he is quite likely to be confirmed — won’t alter its makeup. A committed ultraconservative, Gorsuch would take the place of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was also a committed (and combative) ultraconservative.

Still, President Donald Trump is likely to get the chance to change the court — and to abolish Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized reproductive rights. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing voter who has kept Roe alive, is 80 years old. The reliably liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83 and ailing. And liberal Justice Steven Breyer is 78. Their ages alone suggest relatively short service ahead.  Continue reading “Rightward Turn By Supreme Court Will Greatly Affect Women”

‘Populist’ Trump Punks His Credulous Fans (Again)

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website February 3, 2017:

After signing, President Donald Trump holds up an executive order rolling back regulations from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law on Wall Street reform at the White House, February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

There was never any reason to think that Donald Trump’s stump-speech assaults on Wall Street banks and hedge funds were even momentarily sincere — but millions of working and middle-class voters loved his ‘populist’ rhetoric.  

Emerging from that gold-plated jet, Trump would roar about cracking down on the financial vultures who had fattened while everyone else suffered, as his fans cheered.

 He wouldn’t let those paper-shuffling crooks escape their share of taxes any more. He was paying for the campaign from his own massive fortune, so he would owe allegiance to nobody but the American people. He excoriated Hillary Clinton, who had accepted tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, warning that the Democrat would dance to Wall Street’s tune.  He even aired a television commercial, late in the campaign, that vowed to free the country from the “globalist” designs of Goldman chair Lloyd Blankfein and investor George Soros. Continue reading “‘Populist’ Trump Punks His Credulous Fans (Again)”