Category: National Issues

How Jeff Sessions Helped Kill Equitable School Funding in Alabama

The following article by Ryan Gabrielson was posted on the ProPublica website January 30, 2017:

A lawsuit in the 1990s had Alabama poised to fund poor black school districts as fairly as wealthy white schools. As state attorney general, Sessions fought the effort passionately.

In the early 1990s, children across Alabama’s large rural stretches still attended faltering public schools, some with exposed wiring and rainwater leaking into classrooms. The education was in disrepair, too. Teachers couldn’t assign homework for lack of textbooks. A steel mill announced it would no longer hire local high school graduates because most tested below the eighth grade level. In short, Alabama’s most economically disadvantaged students, primarily black children and those with disabilities, were missing out on a basic education.

Then, for a moment, change seemed possible. A civil-rights lawsuit challenging the system for funding Alabama’s schools succeeded, and the state’s courts in 1993 declared the conditions in the poor schools a violation of Alabama’s Constitution. Gov. Guy Hunt, who had battled the litigation, accepted defeat, and vowed to work with the courts to negotiate a solution for equitably funding all of Alabama’s schools. Continue reading “How Jeff Sessions Helped Kill Equitable School Funding in Alabama”

13 Facts that Set the Record Straight on DeVos

The following article by Stephanie Johnson and Coleton Whitaker was posted on the Center for American Progress website January 31, 2017:

AP/Carolyn Kaster
Secretary of education nominee Betsy DeVos testifies at her confirmation hearing in Washington on January 17, 2017.

Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, sat before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on January 17, 2017, for her confirmation hearing. During that hearing, DeVos made a series of statements that avoided straightforward answers, conflicted with her record on various subjects, and expressed confusion about the basic issues affecting students in public schools across America. Spokespeople from President Trump’s transition team and others have similarly made statements about DeVos that diverge from what her record shows.

This column presents 13 facts that set the record straight. These facts debunk DeVos’ “alternative facts” with actual facts and evidence regarding her history as a career megadonor and political influencer. Continue reading “13 Facts that Set the Record Straight on DeVos”

Obama rejects comparison between Trump’s immigration policy and his own, encourages protests

The following article by Juliet Ellperin was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2017:

Then-President Barack Obama holds a year-end news conference in Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2016. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Trump has said that his move to ban the entry of migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries into the United States, and to suspend temporarily the admission of refugees, was based in part on a decision in 2011 by then-President Obama to ban the admission of Iraqis to the country after evidence surfaced that two Iraqis seeking resettlement had been linked to terrorist activity in their homeland. The Obama and Trump administrations also identified the same seven countries as harboring terrorism threats. Continue reading “Obama rejects comparison between Trump’s immigration policy and his own, encourages protests”

Fear of authoritarianism pervades Koch network seminar, as billionaire donors grapple with Trump

The following article by James Hohmann and Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2017:

Mark Holden, general counsel for Koch Industries, chats with his boss Charles Koch. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

THE BIG IDEA:

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—Charles Murray, the political scientist best known for his book “The Bell Curve,” spoke Sunday afternoon to 550 donors who have each agreed to give at least $100,000 a year to finance the conservative Koch network. He painted a pessimistic picture of decaying institutions, growing dependency on government assistance and the increasing isolation of the rich from the rest of society. Continue reading “Fear of authoritarianism pervades Koch network seminar, as billionaire donors grapple with Trump”

Fact-checking Trump’s rhetoric on crime and the ‘American carnage’

The following article by Michelle Ye Hee Lee was posted on the Washington Post website January 30, 2017:

AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais —
President Donald Trump speaks at the House and Senate GOP lawmakers’ annual policy retreat in Philadelphia, January 26, 2017.

“Right now, too many families don’t feel secure. Just look at the 30 largest cities. In the last year alone, the murder rate has increased by an estimated 14 percent. Here in Philadelphia, the murder rate has been steady — I mean just terribly increasing. And then you look at Chicago, what’s going on in Chicago? I said the other day, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
— President Trump, remarks at Republican retreat, Jan. 26

“When President Obama was there [Chicago] two weeks ago making a speech, very nice speech. Two people were shot and killed during his speech.”
— Trump, interview with ABC News, Jan. 25
 Continue reading “Fact-checking Trump’s rhetoric on crime and the ‘American carnage’”

GOP-led Congress starting to worry about its role in the Trump era

The following article by Lisa Mascaro was posted on the L.A> Times website January 30, 2017:

President Trump speaks as Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listens at a Republican retreat on Thursday in Philadelphia. (Pool)

It’s what congressional Republicans had long dreamed about: a majority in both chambers to advance conservative policies and a president from the same party to sign them into law.

But the Trump White House isn’t turning out exactly the way they envisioned.

The GOP establishment is experiencing whiplash after a week of President Trump bulldozing through the norms of policy and protocol — dashing off executive orders without warning, escalating a diplomatic crisis with the country’s closest southern neighbor, triggering global confusion with a new refugee policy and generally hijacking party leaders’ agenda and replacing it with his own.  Continue reading “GOP-led Congress starting to worry about its role in the Trump era”

5 Reasons It’s So Hard Not To Help Donald Trump

The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website January 30, 2017:

You probably hate using the words “President Trump” as much as I do.

Even if you do not invest the office of the presidency with mystical properties, you still recognize its extraordinary power to do good, or to strand thousands of people who are in the process of becoming permanent residents of the United States in countries and airports around the world.

“I am the President of the United States, clothed with immense power!” Tony Kushner has Abraham Lincoln say in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Continue reading “5 Reasons It’s So Hard Not To Help Donald Trump”

We Conservatives Warned You, Trump Will Not Get Better. Here’s What You Can Do.

The following article by Elliot A. Cohen of the Atlantic was posted on the DefenseOne.com website January 29, 2017:

President Trump, accompanied by Vice President Pence, center, shakes hands with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday at a Republican congressional retreat. (Matt Rourke/AP)

To my friends thinking of serving this administration, either you stand up for your principles and decent behavior, or you go down as a coward or opportunist.

I am not surprised by President Donald Trump’s antics this week. Not by the big splashy pronouncements such as announcing a wall that he would force Mexico to pay for, even as the Mexican foreign minister held talks with American officials in Washington. Not by the quiet, but no less dangerous bureaucratic orders, such as kicking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of meetings of the Principals’ Committee, the senior foreign-policy decision-making group below the president, while inserting his chief ideologist, Steve Bannon, into them. Many conservative foreign-policy and national-security experts saw the dangers last spring and summer, which is why we signed letters denouncing not Trump’s policies but his temperament; not his program but his character. Continue reading “We Conservatives Warned You, Trump Will Not Get Better. Here’s What You Can Do.”

Durbin Accuses Republicans of Trying to Keep Election Hacking Investigation Secret

The following article by Joseph Marks was posted on the NextGov.com website January 24, 2017:

Senate Republicans want to keep an investigation into Russian tampering in the 2016 election under tight wraps for fear of embarrassing the new President Donald Trump or the Republican party, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat charged Tuesday.

That accusation, leveled on Trump’s fourth full day in office, helps ensure cybersecurity and Russia’s role in the election will remain highly charged and highly partisan this year.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., described Russian government-backed hacks of Democratic political organizations as an “act of cyberwar” and “a day that will live in cyber infamy,” during an address at the Center for American Progress, echoing President Franklin Roosevelt’s description of Pearl Harbor. Continue reading “Durbin Accuses Republicans of Trying to Keep Election Hacking Investigation Secret”

Border Officers: Real Security is More Complicated than Building a Wall

The following article by Patrick Tucker was posted on the NextGov.com website January 26, 2017:

U.S. Border Wall Already in Place

President Donald Trump’s new executive orders to extend walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and deport undocumented individuals may have a popular appeal, but achieving real border security will likely take longer than many Trump supporters hope.

“We’re not ready to do it yet,” said one U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told Defense One on condition of anonymity at the 11th annual Biometrics for Government and Law Enforcement Summitt in Arlington, Virginia. “I think it will take years.”

Even CBP officials who spoke on the record said challenges to fully securing the border and identifying undocumented aliens will extend well beyond the construction of a wall, Right now, CBP catches 85 to 95 percent of undocumented people crossing the border, according to Antonio Trindad, CBP’s director of enforcement systems. Continue reading “Border Officers: Real Security is More Complicated than Building a Wall”