[mpen-dayton] FW: "A Trump nominee for 40 years (or more?!)" & "Fired Without Cause" & "Trump's Presidency Is Stalled And Sputtering" and more

FYI.  Best, Munsup

P.S. Please reply back to me with 'unsubscribe' added to the subject line if you no longer want to receive my e-Newsletters. The convenient link to unsubscribe is no longer available due to security reasons to protect my email servers.

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• FW: Information provided by the Governor's office on actions take regarding the opiate issues facing the State
• FW: A Trump nominee for 40 years (or more?!)
• FW: Presidential Checklist
• FW: Forget Fascism. It's Anarchy We Have to Worry About
• FW: KitchenAid is sponsoring WHAT?!
• FW: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Still Benefiting From Business Empire, Filings Show
• FW: Fired Without Cause
• FW: ACA Round Up - 3/31
• FW: Five Questions for Flynn
• FW: "Trump's Presidency Is Stalled And Sputtering"  &  "Our Dishonest President"  &  "Prepare yourselves for Pres. Pence"
• FW: Detroit Free Press: Face it: Trump presidency not normal
• FW: Fukushima nuclear radiation poisoning world's water, including fish from Oregon and British Columbia

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From: David K. Greer
Subject: FW: Information provided by the Governor's office on actions take regarding the opiate issues facing the State

 

 

 

From: Robert Reich
Subject: A Trump nominee for 40 years (or more?!)

"When pigs fly."

That's my answer to anyone who asks me whether or not Donald Trump deserves to pick the next Supreme Court justice.

So you can imagine my utter delight in news that a growing number of Senate Democrats—likely fortified by last week's amazing people-powered health care victory—are now vowing to filibuster Trump's ultra-right-wing Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, and block him from a lifetime seat on our nation's most powerful court.

But conservative donors are outspending us 20-to-1, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just said that he'd try to force a vote on Gorsuch as soon as Friday.^1,2

So once again, I turn to MoveOn for its strategy and leadership. MoveOn members just fought and helped win the battle to save health care for 24 million Americans (at least for now), a fight MoveOn presciently picked in early December, when most pundits thought the Affordable Care Act was a lost cause. Today, I'm asking MoveOn to help save the Supreme Court.

Let me level with you: MoveOn's team has been working around the clock since Trump's election (and I know this because they email me at all hours!). Sustaining such relentless work requires serious resources. That's why I'm asking you to join me in becoming a resistance sustainer by chipping in each month. Will you join me?  Make a gift

You and I have experienced just over two months of Trump's wreckage. A Gorsuch appointment could extend this horror show for a full 40 years ... or more.

With your support, MoveOn won't let that happen. Here's the winning plan in two parts:
   

• Support Senate Democrats willing to go to the mat and filibuster Gorsuch. MoveOn's superpower is its ability to mobilize a massively effective Democratic base. When Senate Democrats unite—thanks to the unparalleled efforts of MoveOn and its members—Democrats will have the power to deny Gorsuch the 60 votes needed for confirmation.

• Wedge open and expose the complete illegitimacy of Trump's tanking presidency to weaken GOP resolve. MoveOn's team is exploiting every weakness in Trump's house of cards to drive down the wherewithal of GOP senators to press for a so-called nuclear option to force Gorsuch through. Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon, Devin Nunes ... you name 'em. MoveOn's team is looking under every proverbial rock for wrongdoing and sounding the alarm, creating pressure for Republican senators to distance themselves from this administration.

None of us could have imagined the utter crush of these past few months.

Here's what's true, however: We've moved from crisis mode to playing offense. And that's because of you and millions of MoveOn members like you who are determined to deny Trump any significant legislative victory.

We're gaining ground. And tomorrow will be better than today. Because of you. Because of MoveOn. You have my heartfelt thanks even as I ask that we keep pushing forward to save the Supreme Court.

MoveOn needs to hear from us right now. Please become a monthly sustainer of the resistance.

Donate: $5 monthly  OR  Donate: $15 monthly  OR  Donate: $50 monthly  OR Donate another amount monthly

Or make a one-time gift

Sources:

1. "Senate Democrats vastly outspent by right in Gorsuch fight," The Washington Post, March 18, 2017
   https://act.moveon.org/go/9195?t=6&akid=180696.1195276.rXDbq0
2. "McConnell: Full Senate vote on Gorsuch on April 7," CNN, March 28, 2017
   http://act.moveon.org/go/9202?t=8&akid=180696.1195276.rXDbq0

Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?

Because you've saved your payment information with MoveOn, your donation will go straight through.

Donate: $5 monthly  OR  Donate: $15 monthly  OR  Donate: $50 monthly  OR Donate another amount monthly

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Contributions to MoveOn.org Civic Action are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. \

 

 

From: Eric Kramer
Subject: Presidential Checklist

Ain't THIS the truth!!!  -

 

 

From: Judy Burnette
Subject: FW: Forget Fascism. It's Anarchy We Have to Worry About

Forget Fascism. It's Anarchy We Have to Worry About.

by Neal Gabler on Mar 30 2017
— from Moyers & Company [1]



Hitler was able to parlay his minority into implacable power because he organized a rigid, disciplined crew of sociopaths on a mission; Trump has the gang that couldn't shoot straight, writes Neal Gabler. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

So many of us were wrong, myself included, about Donald Trump. We saw in the jut-jawed, brow-furrowed Mussolini-like posturing, in the blatant narcissism, in the reckless disregard for truth, the anger and incitement to hatred, the declamations that he would fix everything single-handedly on Day One of his presidency, his disdain for democracy and hints that he would lock up his opponents — we saw in all of these things incipient fascism.

After the inauguration, I began reading Victor Klemperer's chilling diaries on the rise of Nazism, I Will Bear Witness, and Sebastian Haffner's memoir of the early days of Hitler, Defying Hitler. The analogies were all too close. Others on these pages have made similar observations. We were on the verge of something unprecedented, something horrifying. We were on the verge of authoritarian government headed by an ignoramus and possible psychopath. We were on the verge of the end of democracy.

And then, last Friday, with the demise of the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare and replace it with… well, with a massive tax giveaway to the rich, we discovered — I discovered — that I was fearing the wrong thing. It's not Trump's ability to marshal the forces of repression that should terrify us. It's his inability to marshal forces to conduct even the most basic governance. Trump really is a presidential Joker. He knows how to wreak havoc, but he doesn't seem to know how to do, or seem to want to do, much else.

This isn't to discount the fascistic dangers inherent in Trump. We all know that he has an authoritarian temperament. He likes the binary and berates the latter in the pairs: winners and losers, majorities and minorities (never mind that he won a minority of the popular vote), rich and poor, powerful men and feckless women, bullying America and every other country. He prefers muscle to negotiation, despite his much vaunted, and now much tarnished, skill at dealmaking. He loves strongmen and considers himself one of them.

His desire, doubtless, was to Putinize this country with the help of his Republican lackeys. Or perhaps the better analogy is that he wanted to turn the country into one giant episode of The Apprentice, in which everyone vied for his favor. With seigniorial hauteur, he, King Donald, would point thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

So here is the good news. Whatever his dreams of dominance and his possible aspirations to one-man rule, he simply does not have the aptitude or the discipline to realize them. We saw that last week. He thought he could bully, charm, finesse, arm-twist and threaten his way to victory, but no one was buying it — in part, I think, because he tried to make it all about his power, not the power of Congress, and he was already on such thin ice before the Obamacare debacle that he didn't have much suasion with them.

Why abet him, those Republican misanthropes may have thought, when at some point, they knew they might have to distance themselves from him? In any case, some of those legislators realized that Trump and his aides were way out of their depth. Hitler was able to parlay his minority into implacable power because he organized a rigid, disciplined crew of sociopaths on a mission. Trump has the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

So that's the good news — sort of. To have an authoritarian state, you have to possess not just the impulse to authoritarianism but the talent for it, which is more than saying, "It's going to be great," or "Believe me," or telling opponents how "sick" and "sad" they are.

Now for the bad news. Two diametrically opposed impulses seem to have been warring in Trump for quite a while — that authoritarian tendency to rule, and a tendency to create misrule. If Trump isn't a fascist, or at least a successful one, he is something nearly as bad: Donald Trump is a solipsistic anarchist.

Of course he wants to accrue power, which may be what misled us into thinking he was a potential fascist. It's just that he doesn't seem to know how to do anything with it other than to promote himself and puff his ego, which means that everything crumbles around him. And of course, like most strongmen, he wants to do harm to the less powerful — to wit, immigrants and the poor — but it may be no accident that even his attempts at strong-arming turn out to have the opposite effect: chaos.

The truth may be that chaos is more his métier than tyranny. As much as he says he hates losing, we may have actually caught a glimpse of the real Trump, the one sitting at his desk, smug and seemingly self-satisfied after his terrible defeat on Friday. This Trump may have thought he won by losing. No, he hadn't won the congressional vote. But he had sown disarray, certainly within his own party and gradually throughout the health care system, especially once he joins judicial challenges to curb Medicaid expansion, as he undoubtedly will. The anarchistic tendency prevailed over the authoritarian one. Things fell apart. He wasn't necessarily an unhappy Joker.

This is what many of the pundits, myself included, may have missed in the whole Obamacare repeal-and-replace saga. We thought there was some ideological obsession on the right with repealing Obamacare because it was a government program, because it helped people whom Republicans believed undeserving (the poor), and because it was a signal achievement of the Obama administration: not necessarily good reasons but at least reasons. And we thought Trump, who seemed to have no ideological commitment to anything, wanted to repeal it because it would be a demonstration of his muscle as well as a way to unman Obama. And we may have thought that after repeal, Republicans wanted a new plan that would basically defund Medicaid to injure the poor and further enrich the wealthy with the billions of dollars in proceeds. In short, we may have thought there was some vaguely coherent direction to the anti-Obamacare enterprise.

They couldn't have done more to sabotage their bill if they had tried, and I have a sneaking suspicion that is exactly what they were doing, some subconsciously, others quite consciously.

What we didn't realize going in is that not only was Trump totally clueless about the substance of the bill, apparently looking only for a victory, any victory, to claim, but also that Republicans, for all their professions of having been hatching a conservative alternative to Obamacare for seven years, had no plan at all — and, I would submit, no real desire for one.

They couldn't have done more to sabotage their bill if they had tried, and I have a sneaking suspicion that is exactly what they were doing, some subconsciously, others quite consciously. Repeal? Absolutely. Replace? Not so much. The attempted Trump/Republican alliance, then, was a case of one anarchist making common cause with a whole gaggle of anarchists, neither of whom had the slightest interest in reforming health care, only in creating disorder and then hoping to benefit from it, both politically and financially. It shouldn't have come as any surprise what the outcome would be. Anarchists don't work well together.

Just think about it for a moment. The Republican replacement was really a non-insurance bill, by which I mean it flew in the face of the most fundamental principle of insurance — the healthy pay for those who aren't. It is the sort of community of interest that is anathema to conservatives who believe it is every man for himself.

The upshot is that you cannot have "conservative" insurance. It isn't tenable. When you have freedom of choice with every person getting to choose whether to be insured or not, and with those who are insured getting to choose what they want to have covered, you do not have a viable insurance system. You have anarchy. Anarchy was built right into the Republican plan.

And that is the other thing I think a lot of pundits and political observers missed over the past eight years and even longer. Republicans never had a viable plan, not just about health care, but about anything, be it tax reform or energy or education. That is why their only remedies are less regulation and more tax cuts.

There is a good reason for this, and it isn't incompetence, though there is plenty of that, too. Republicans may talk tough. They may tout the idea of conservative, market-driven solutions to our problems, but somehow, serious solutions never get presented because, frankly, Republicans don't have any interest in them.

When you come down to it, Republicans are really anarchists dedicated to undermining government in the furtherance of an economic state of nature where the rich rule. What we saw these past few weeks was not the failure of Republicanism, as so many pronounced on Friday, but its logical and inevitable conclusion. Republicans are great at opposing things, destroying things, obstructing things, undoing things. They are really, really terrible at creating things because they have no desire to do so.

And now they have an anarchist-in-chief, someone who shares their government phobia, if not their conviction, and whose real crime in Republicans' eyes wasn't that he couldn't secure the passage of a bill, but that he managed to reveal their mess in full public view. As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in an open letter to Trump this past Sunday, "It took W. years to smash everything. You're way ahead of schedule."

There is, however, a method to this madness. Anarchism isn't nihilism. By undoing government, anarchism undoes the only protection most Americans have against the depredations of the Trumps of this world and against the often cruel vicissitudes of life, like health crises. Take away government, and you strip away those protections. But take away government, and you also enable Trump and his fellow plutocrats to further enrich themselves because there would no mechanism to stop them. This has long been the Republican way: greed disguised as a fear of government overreach. Joker Trump and his Republican cronies are bent on deconstructing government to leave the rest of us defenseless against them.

Where that leaves us is a coming flurry of legislative activity that will almost certainly amount to nothing. And it won't be because of some civil war within the GOP. It will be because the GOP, our very own anarchist party, really doesn't want anything to happen.

Again, Republicans and their presidential anarchist ally can undo things, as they have done with environmental protection. And that is surely no small matter. But tax reform? Forget it. No reform, just huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Infrastructure spending? Not a chance. Another go at health care reform? Yeah, sure. No action, no sweat. Anarchy is their policy.

So, no, we are not barreling toward fascism. Fascism requires a program and unity of purpose. We are instead careening toward the first industrialized state of anarchy. Trump promised to blow things up; now he has. The question is whether anyone can put America back together after he and the Republicans are finished with it.

 

 

From: Nita and Shaunna, UltraViolet
Subject: KitchenAid is sponsoring WHAT?!

The biggest tournament in women's golf is set to happen on Donald Trump's golf course--earning him millions of dollars and invaluable branding, while forcing women players to support a racist, sexist predator.¹ And KitchenAid, a brand that depends on women customers, is giving business to one of Trump's golf courses.²

But the good news is that the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) and the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) have been feeling the heat after a series of bad press and protests over their support of Trump have plagued their events.³ If we all speak out against KitchenAid for sponsoring a tournament, the press will notice, and KitchenAid will be forced to decide: are they going to stand with Trump and his hateful agenda, or will they stand with women and dump the USGA, LPGA, and Trump?

Tell KitchenAid: Dump Trump! Refuse to sponsor future USGA and LPGA tournaments until they move the 2017 Women's Open from Donald Trump's golf course.

Sign the petition

KitchenAid, a staple in American kitchens, is sponsoring a major golf tournament at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C. But that was before 100,000 UltraViolet members spoke out against the USGA and LPGA for hosting a major women's golf tournament on a Trump golf course. Since then, the golf world has been under a lot of pressure to dump Trump. If sponsors start to join the protests, it will push the USGA and LPGA to finally cut ties with Trump.

Golf has a notorious history of racism, sexism, and discrimination against people.⁴ But its leaders have worked hard to move away from that reputation to make it a more inclusive sport. If the USGA and LPGA dump Trump, it will be a clear and powerful rejection of bigotry in the public's eye.

KitchenAid executives don't want their brand associated with Trump's racist, sexist reputation. And with protests erupting and heavy scrutiny from sports media, KitchenAid's withdrawal of its support will push the USGA and LPGA over the edge, sending a message through the sports world and beyond: the endorsement of Trump's racist, sexist agenda is unacceptable.

Will you sign the petition to KitchenAid now?

Sources:

1. The L.P.G.A. Tour and Donald Trump: It's Complicated, New York Times, March 28, 2017
2. 2017 Senior PGA Championship: Dates, TV times, tee times, course information and everything else you need to know, Professional Golf Association, May 19, 2016
3. The L.P.G.A. Tour and Donald Trump: It's Complicated, New York Times, March 28, 2017
4. PGA Group Abolishes 'Caucasian', Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 10, 1961
   This time around, few would deny Casey Martin a ride at the Open, Golf Magazine, June 12, 2012

Want to support our work? UltraViolet is funded by members like you, and our tiny staff ensures small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

 

 

From:
Subject: Today's Headline: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Still Benefiting From Business Empire, Filings Show

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Still Benefiting From Business Empire, Filings Show

By JESSE DRUCKER, ERIC LIPTON and MAGGIE HABERMAN

The White House released ethics filings from President Trump's daughter and son-in-law and released details of a plan devised to avoid conflicts of interest.

 

From: Robin Meade; Fellow educator In solidarity with AAUP
Subject: Fired Without Cause

The college police chief handed me the envelope.  I was stunned. Inside was a memo firing me from my job as an adjunct professor at Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC). My offense? Criticizing the administration of MVCC for treating adjunct faculty as a disposable resource, which resulted in a chilling effect on adjuncts who lack job security.

Fast forward nearly four years. I've recently won a $125,000 settlement and unconditional reinstatement to my teaching position. The fact that I won in court should provide everyone with hope and embolden those in the struggle to continue to fight. The AAUP Foundation has my eternal gratitude for providing me with support through a grant from its Legal Defense Fund.

Make a donation to the AAUP Foundation now and support its vital work protecting faculty whose rights are under attack.

I was an adjunct professor of business at MVCC and president of the adjunct faculty union. The college asked me to write a letter of support for their re-application to the League for Innovation. After doing some research with other union members, I wrote a letter of dissent, highlighting the issues adjunct faculty at the school faced.

Before sending the letter, I repeatedly tried to engage the administration regarding the issues the adjuncts raised. These efforts at collaboration received no response. I sent the letter of dissent to this League for Innovation and was fired two days later. I was not given the opportunity to meet and discuss my dismissal with representation from the union.

My dismissal resulted in two legal cases. One was with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, which ruled that MVCC must offer me full and unconditional reinstatement of my position without prejudice. Another, filed with the federal district court over freedom of speech, resulted in a summary judgment, meaning that the college had no defense valid enough to even warrant going to trial. The federal court required us to engage in settlement discussions, which resulted in the recent settlement.

The legal fight was long but worthwhile. I am happy to be vindicated, but regardless of my winning this battle with the college, the war for the adjunct instructors at Moraine continues. The fourteen-year-old adjunct union has been fighting to improve its eight page contract. The adjuncts have been without a contract since June of 2016. I look forward to being reinstated at the college and continuing the fight for the adjuncts there and with the AAUP across the country.

You can help in this fight-- donate to the AAUP Foundation now so it can continue to support faculty like myself in our efforts to ensure that adjunct faculty are protected, valued, and treated as full members of the academic community.

P.S. The AAUP Foundation welcomes grant applications from faculty impacted by the Trump Administration's travel ban or by other threats to academic freedom. The 2017 quarterly application deadlines are March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31. Click here to learn more.

 

 

From: Shalini Pammal, Doctors for America
Subject: ACA Round Up - 3/31

Doctors for America is circulating a news round-up to help keep your membership updated on the latest in health reform and ACA repeal activities in the United States. For more information on how to take action, please visit the DFA ACA resource page.

Best wishes,   - Shalini Pammal

ACA Round Up - March 31, 2017

TAKE ACTION

• Register for the 2017 National Leadership Conference and book your hotel room before the April 6th cut-off date to receive the room block rate.

WEEK-AT-A-GLANCE

Following the House failure to garner enough support for a vote on the American Health Care Act last Friday, it seemed that political leadership would move forward with other administrative priorities, conceding that Obamacare would remain in place after the massive effort to repeal-and-replace the Affordable Care Act. However, some Republican leaders are now suggesting that a new vote will take place next week, though there are few details on a definitive timeline to revisit the GOP healthcare overhaul. Furthermore, this legislative undertaking exposed deep divisions within the Republican party, particularly between the centrist Tuesday Group and the more conservative House Freedom Caucus, with some reports that growing intraparty tensions are threatening progress on healthcare. Some GOP lawmakers have since expressed interest in working with Democrats to reform the law, rather than finding votes from hard-line conservatives, including a recent affirmation to fund cost-sharing reductions which reimburse insurers for providing discounted deductibles for low-income Obamacare enrollees. This move toward bipartisan reform comes alongside a renewed left-wing enthusiasm for single-payer healthcare. Despite the percolating push toward bipartisanship, House Speaker Paul Ryan has reiterated that he does not want to work with Democrats on healthcare.

Meanwhile, GOP legislatures are facing increasing pressure to expand Medicaid. Lawmakers in Kansas have voted to approve Medicaid expansion, suggesting that the nineteen other states that have yet to expand might also reconsider. Governor Sam Brownback vetoed the bill yesterday; however, supporters in the Kansas House and Senate are still hoping to raise public support to gather the additional votes necessary to override the veto. Lawmakers also voted yesterday to keep Arkansas' hybrid Medicaid expansion for another year, which supports more than 300,000 people in the state. Though the Republican push to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, certain aspects of the law remain vulnerable, including the Cadillac tax and other Obamacare taxes that could be tackled in the upcoming Republican tax reform drive.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has also defended proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health, citing that its budget is rife with unnecessary expenses. The administration has proposed an additional $1.2B cut to the NIH for its current fiscal year, on top of a suggested $5.8B cut for 2018. This has spurred fierce nonpartisan opposition, including from Ann Romney, wife of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who affirmed that NIH funding is critical to medical innovation and scientific progress.

And in the midst of pervasive health law uncertainty, insurers are still struggling to chart their path forward in the individual markets next year, seeking more clarity from the Trump administration as the deadline for submitting 2018 plans and rate requests looms. Anthem has signaled that they are likely to exit Obamacare's individual insurance markets, leaving consumers in parts of Colorado, Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio at risk of having no Obamacare insurers for next year. The Justice Department has also joined a whistleblower lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group, claiming that the company committed fraud in its popular Medicare Advantage plans, and has also stated that it will investigate risk-score payments to other Medicare Advantage insurers.

MEMBERS IN ACTION

Tell us about what you are up to! Email your updates and photos to DFAHQ@drsforamerica.org.

CONNECTICUT

Eamon Duffy, Connecticut State Director and MD-MBA candidate, recently testified in favor of several laws under consideration in Connecticut to curb predatory drug pricing. He worked with Drug Pricing, Value, and Affordability Campaign leaders Bruce Rector and Justin Lowenthal on his materials and testimony, which aimed to provide a medical student perspective to the issue of drug pricing.

PENNSYLVANIA Dr. Chris Hughes, Pennsylvania State Director, convened health care providers for a house meeting on Sunday, March 26th.

 

 

From: Thomas Scott
Subject: Five Questions for Flynn

Five questions investigators want to ask Michael Flynn

 

 

From: Eric Kramer
Subject: FW: "Trump's Presidency Is Stalled And Sputtering"  &  "Our Dishonest President"  &  "Prepare yourselves for Pres. Pence"

Trump's Presidency Is Stalled And Sputtering"

http://www.npr.org/2017/04/01/522232180/a-presidency-stalled-and-sputtering?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170401

Trump's Presidency Is Stalled And Sputtering"

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/

"Prepare yourselves for Pres. Pence"

The following was just posted by a Facebook friend of mine, and it sounds quite plausible...    - 🤔 Eric

My College Park/DC friends and colleagues tell me that the RNC is paranoid now and that we should prepare for theocrat extremist, Pence.  It's all so horrible.  Here's a paragraph from a Faw article for Daily Kos:  "Watergate got interesting when John Dean showed up in the guise of the fall guy.  In the Trump administration the Dean role will be enacted by either Reince Priebus or Paul Ryan, because neither one of them is exactly noted for their loyalty to Trump. My instincts tell me that Priebus is the more likely candidate and the fact that his deputy, Katie Walsh, just resigned under circumstances which are less than convincing (to join a non-profit?) may point to Priebus' ascension to scapegoat in the very near future. One can only generalize when making Watergate analogies for the simple fact that Nixon had people in his camp like Hunt and Colson, who went to prison for him, and Haldemann stuck it out with Nixon for a very long time. The Nixon team had been in place for quite a while before Watergate. Trump, on the other hand, being a mere figurehead for the devices of others who are in fact seasoned politicians, does not have the backfield of loyal minions that Nixon had. Trump, truth be known, doesn't even have any friends."

 

 

From: Andrew Tierman
Subject: Detroit Free Press: Face it: Trump presidency not normal

Face it: Trump presidency not normal

http://on.freep.com/2nBOY7i

What are we doing?The FBI and American intelligence agencies are investigating ties between the Trump administration and Russia.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., canceled a hearing on Russia where former acting Attorney General Sally Yates might have testified about her concerns about then-national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador. Flynn resigned, but has since allowed Trump to say he fired him.Oh, and there's this: More than half of Americans age 18 to 30 consider Donald Trump's presidency "illegitimate," according to a new GenForward poll conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with help from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll of 1,833 Americans found that only 22% of all young adults approve of his job performance and 74% of black respondents, 60% of Asian-American respondents and 71% of Latino respondents believe his presidency is "illegitimate."

 

 

From: Legitgov
Subject: Fukushima nuclear radiation poisoning world's water, including fish from Oregon and British Columbia

News Updates from CLG on 29 March 2017 (http://www.legitgov.org/)
All links are here: http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Fukushima nuclear radiation POISONING world's water, including fish from Oregon and British Columbia --Brits could be eating salmon and tuna containing nuclear radiation from the Fukushima disaster, according to a study. | 27 March 2017 | Salmon caught in the Pacific Ocean, which are imported [in the UK], were found to contain worrying amounts of radiation. Highly toxic Cesium-134, the nuclear fallout from Fukushima, was recently found in Tillamook Bay and Gold Beach, in the US state of Oregon. The terrifying discovery was reported by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Cesium-134 was also detected in 2015 in Canada when a salmon pulled from a river in British Columbia was found to contain radiation.
 
Japanese court rules for utility and lets nuclear reactors restart | 28 March 2017 | A Japan appeals court overturned a ruling that barred the operation of two nuclear reactors, a win for the atomic operators and government amid public opposition to the technology following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The Osaka High Court ruling removes an injunction in place since March 2016 preventing Kansai Electric Power Co. from running the No. 3 and 4 nuclear reactors at its Takahama facility, the company said on Tuesday. The decision is at least the third time a high court has ruled in favor of utilities seeking to restart reactors.
 
Negotiations to ban nuclear weapons begin, but Australia joins US boycott | 27 March 2017 | Negotiations on a treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons have begun in New York, but have been publicly condemned by the United States, which is leading a coalition of more than 40 countries -including Australia - boycotting the talks. At least 113 countries are part of the negotiations which have begun at UN headquarters in New York this week, aiming to negotiate a "legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination". But, Nikki Haley, appointed as the United States' ambassador to the UN by Donald Trump in January, spoke outside the meeting saying the world was too unsafe for the US not to have nuclear weapons.
 
US sending around 200 more troops to Mosul to 'advise and assist' - official | 27 March 2017 | Two companies from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division are being deployed to the Mosul to bolster security in Iraq at the request of the top American commander in Baghdad [allegedly] fighting ISIS, a U.S. defense official with knowledge of the order told Fox News. A U.S. defense official told Fox News the 200 additional troops from the 82nd Airborne Division are going to Mosul--"to provide additional 'advise and assist' support to our Iraq Partners as they liberate Mosul," according to the official. In another sign the Pentagon is ramping up the fight against ISIS, jets from the aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush began striking ISIS targets on Friday, days after arriving in the Persian Gulf.
 
At least 400,000 civilians trapped in Mosul with no food or electricity - UN | 24 March 2017 | Some 400,000 civilians stuck in Mosul's Old City, held by Islamic State militants, are dealing with food and electricity shortages, making the UN High Commissioner for Refugees believe that "the worst is yet to come" in the humanitarian crisis in northern Iraq. "The worst is yet to come, if I can put it this way. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions," said Bruno Geddo, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iraq, according to Reuters.
 
Iraqi military says 61 bodies found in Mosul district more than week after U.S.-led strike | 26 March 2017 | Iraq's military said on Sunday that 61 bodies were recovered from a collapsed building that Islamic State had booby-trapped in west Mosul, but there was no sign the building had been hit by a coalition air strike. The military statement differed from reports by witnesses and local officials that said as many as 200 bodies were pulled from the building after a coalition strike last week [allegedly] targeted IS militants and equipment in the Jadida district.
 
Pro-Houthi court sentences Yemen president to death for treason | 25 March 2017 | A Yemeni court in territory controlled by the armed Houthi movement sentenced the group's enemy in a two-year-old civil war President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and six other top officials in his government to death for "high treason" on Saturday. The decision by a court in the capital Sanaa, reported by the state news agency Saba, which is run by the Houthis, may render more remote the resumption of stalled peace talks to end the conflict which has killed at least 10,000 people. Saudi Arabia and a mostly Gulf Arab military coalition [of sociopaths, terrorists, and war criminals] have launched thousands of air strikes and a small number of ground troops to try to dislodge the Houthis and restore Hadi to power.
 
Article 50: UK set to formally trigger Brexit process | 29 March 2017 | Theresa May has signed the letter that will formally begin the UK's departure from the European Union. Giving official notice under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, it will be delivered to European Council president Donald Tusk later. In a statement in the Commons, the prime minister will then tell MPs this marks "the moment for the country to come together". It follows June's referendum which resulted in a vote to leave the EU.
 
Donald Trump printed out made-up 300bn pound Nato invoice and handed it to Angela Merkel --President estimated Germany's underspend on alliance over the past 12 years, then added interest | 26 March 2017 | Angela Merkel will reportedly ignore Donald Trump's attempts to extricate 300bn pounds from Germany for what he deems to be owed contributions to Nato. The US President is said to have had an "invoice" printed out outlining the sum estimated by his aides as covering Germany's unpaid contributions for defence...Mr Trump reportedly instructed aides to calculate how much German spending fell below two per cent over the past 12 years, then added interest. [That is great.]
 
Driver attempts to ram police cruiser on Capitol Hill grounds, officials say; shots fired | 29 March 2017 | A person tried to ram a police cruiser on the U.S. Capitol grounds Wednesday morning and shots were fired during the incident, police said. They said one person is in custody. The incident started at 9:30 a.m. when calls came in for shots fired outside the Rayburn building. A D.C. Police spokesperson said someone in a vehicle tried to ram a U.S. Capitol Police cruiser and tried to run over several other officers. U.S. Capitol police officers pursued the person on foot.
 
Man in custody after bringing suspicious package near White House | 28 March 2017 | Tours were suspended at the White House on Tuesday and the Secret Service established a "security perimeter" after a man with a suspicious package approached a Secret Service officer near the presidential mansion, a spokeswoman said. The unidentified man was taken into custody and explosive disposal teams were on the scene, Secret Service spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan told reporters in the White House briefing room.
 
Iowa man accused of throwing tomatoes at Trump fined $65 | 28 March 2017 | A man accused of throwing tomatoes at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has pleaded guilty and will pay a 65 fine. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports 28-year-old Andrew Alemao pleaded guilty Monday to disorderly conduct in a plea agreement with prosecutors. University of Iowa police and U.S. Secret Service officers arrested Alemao in January during Trump's rally at the University of Iowa.
 
London attacker was British man with a criminal history, previously investigated by MI5 | 24 March 2017 | Police have identified the London attacker as a 52-year old British man who was born in Kent - Khalid Masood. Masood was previously investigated by MI5 and had a criminal conviction but the Prime Minister Theresa May says there was no prior intelligence about his murderous intent. [Yeah, right. He was probably 'on the clock.'] Home Secretary Amber Rudd says there was no failure of intelligence but the reality that there can be no "24 hour cover."
 
Man drives car at Antwerp shoppers day after London attacks --Updated: Man held after car speeds into Antwerp shopping street | 23 March 2017 | A man drove a car at speed into a pedestrianised street in Antwerp on Thursday, forcing people to jump out of its path, a day after an assailant rammed a vehicle into crowds in central London, police said. The car sped away leaving no one injured, but prosecutors said police later arrested a man suspected of being the driver, naming him as Mohamed R., a 39-year-old French national of North African origin and living in France. Officers found knives in the vehicle and a canister containing an unknown substance that bomb disposal officers were currently checking, the federal prosecutors' office said in a statement.
 
Woman who had terror conviction in Israel to be deported in plea deal | 23 March 2017 | Rasmieh Odeh, a former Michigan resident whose case was fiercely contested by both sides of the Arab-Israeli dispute, will be deported back to Jordan but spared jail time under a plea deal struck today, her attorney said.
 
Trump calls for investigation of the Clintons' Russian ties | 28 March 2017 | President Trump said late Monday that the House Intelligence Committee is looking into the wrong 2016 presidential candidate's Russia connections. While he didn't call for her to be locked up, Trump accused Hillary Clinton -- and former president Bill Clinton -- of allowing "big Uranium to go to Russia." He made the comments in a series of tweets. Trump appeared to imply that m-ney Bill Clinton received for a speech in Russia and "the Hillary Russian 'reset'" were somehow connected to the uranium deal.
 
Dermokratiya, USA --With rampant talk of Russian interference, it's worth recounting Washington's role in undermining Russia's 1996 election. | 13 March 2017 | In January, the CIA, FBI, and NSA released their much-anticipated report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. It states that Putin had a "clear preference" for Trump and personally ordered operations designed to get him elected. Russia's intervention, the report goes on, was the "boldest" in its "longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order." The outcry over Russian machinations comes with a heavy dose of irony considering that, twenty years ago, the United States launched an even bolder interference campaign to ensure Boris Yeltsin's reelection...Throughout the 1990s, the IMF, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and other American and European sources poured tens of billions of dollars into Russia. USAID had funneled over 40.4 million in noncompetitive grants through Harvard University's Institute for International Development (HIID) by June 1996, the majority of which went to "assist private sector development" with only a sliver for "democracy assistance." Nevertheless, this sliver directly intervened in Russian social and political life. HIID created and financed NGOs that led seminars and distributed materials on how to run Western-style campaigns and elections.
 
House Intelligence Postpones Closed Session With FBI, NSA | 27 March 2017 | The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee will not hold on Tuesday a closed briefing with the directors of the FBI and National Security Agency, a spokesman for the committee's Republican chairman said on Monday. Representative Devin Nunes, the committee's chairman, last week said he canceled a public hearing on the committee's investigation of Russian influence on the 2016 election because it was necessary to hold the closed session with Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers.
 
U.S. attorney general escalates pressure on 'sanctuary' cities | 27 March 2017 | Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened on Monday to cut off U.S. Justice Department grants to cities that fail to assist federal immigration authorities, moving the Trump administration closer to a potential clash with leaders of America's largest urban centers. Sessions's statements were aimed at a dozens of cities and other local governments, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, that have joined a growing "sanctuary" movement aimed at shielding illegal immigrants from stepped-up deportation efforts. Police agencies in those jurisdictions have barred their officers from routinely checking on immigration status when making arrests or traffic stops. And they have refused to lock up individuals longer than otherwise warranted at the request of federal agents seeking to deport them.
 
Report: Sanctuary Cities Targeted With Enhanced Raids | 24 March 2017 | Immigration and Customs Enforcement is stepping up enforcement operations in so-called "sanctuary cities" in an effort to convince these jurisdictions to better cooperate with federal efforts, a CNN report says Friday.
 
Federal judge sides with Trump administration in travel ban case | 24 March 2017 | A federal judge in Virginia ruled in favor of the Trump administration Friday, declining to join other federal courts that halted the President's revised travel ban last week. Two federal judges -- one in Maryland and one in Hawaii -- have blocked implementation of the core provisions of the travel ban, and it remains on hold nationwide.
 
Trump signs order sweeping away Obama-era climate policies | 28 March 2017 | President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to undo Obama-era regulations to [allegedly] curb climate change, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry while calling into question U.S. support for an international deal to fight global warming [while Obama gave $8 bn in corporate welfare to the nuclear industry]. Flanked by coal miners, Trump enacted his "Energy Independence" executive order at the Environmental Protection Agency. A coalition of 23 states and local governments vowed to fight the order in court. The order's main target is former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a key factor in the United States' ability to meet its commitments under a climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.
 
Trump administration grants approval for Keystone XL pipeline | 24 March 2017 | President Trump announced Friday morning the granting of a permit for construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, calling it "the first of many infrastructure projects" that he would approve in order to put more Americans to work. The 8 billion project would span 1,200 miles, connecting Alberta's massive tar sands crude with pipelines and refineries on the Texas gulf coast...TransCanada, the Calgary-based firm that has been trying to win approval for the pipeline for nearly 10 years, announced earlier Friday morning that the State Department has signed and issued a construction permit for the project.
 
Bill Killed: Popular Roar Forces House GOP to Withdraw TrumpCare Vote | 24 March 2017 | Update: News outlets are reporting at 3:35pm that House Republicans pulled their healthcare bill just before the vote was to take place.
 
House steers toward climactic vote on GOP health care bill | 24 March 2017 | Republicans muscled their capstone health care overhaul past an initial barrier and toward a climactic roll call Friday, plunging ahead despite uncertainty over whether they had the votes to prevail in what loomed as a monumental gamble for President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in Congress. With Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney and other White House officials heading toward the Capitol to lobby wavering lawmakers, Friday's showdown was occurring after the president warned that he was through negotiating with holdouts. In a message delivered to rank-and-file Republicans at the Capitol late Thursday, top Trump aides said if the measure failed he would move on to the rest of his agenda.
 
Trump team wants more NAFTA access for U.S. goods, services - lawmakers | 28 March 2017 | Trump administration trade officials want a revamped North American Free Trade [sic] Agreement to improve access for U.S. farm products, manufactured goods and services in Canada and Mexico, said lawmakers who met with them on Tuesday. Members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee met with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and acting U.S. Trade Representative Stephen Vaughn to discuss the administration's plans for renegotiating the 23-year-old trade deal. Representative Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat, said Ross told lawmakers in the closed-door session that the administration was still aiming to complete NAFTA renegotiations by the end of 2017.
 
House of Commons passes blasphemy motion M-103 | 23 March 2017 | The House of Commons has passed a Liberal backbencher's motion calling on federal politicians to condemn Islamophobia. The motion, known as M-103, became a matter of acrimonious debate, with opponents painting it as a slippery slope towards limiting freedom of speech and even bringing in Sharia law. MPs adopted the motion by a margin of 201-91.
 
Is political correctness harming the nation? | 28 March 2017 | 'The O'Reilly Factor' assesses the impact of culture wars. Michael Rectenwald, CLG Chair, guest.
 
'Religious left' emerging as U.S. political force in Trump era | 27 March 2017 | Since President Donald Trump's election, monthly lectures on social justice at the 600-seat Gothic chapel of New York's Union Theological Seminary have been filled to capacity with crowds three times what they usually draw. In January, the 181-year-old Upper Manhattan graduate school, whose architecture evokes London's Westminster Abbey, turned away about 1,000 people from a lecture on mass incarceration. In the nine years that Reverend Serene Jones has served as its president, she has never seen such crowds. "The election of Trump has been a clarion call to progressives in the Protestant and Catholic churches in America to move out of a place of primarily professing progressive policies to really taking action," she said.
 
High-school principal accused of keeping Catholic-school kids off admission list | 26 March 2017 | A Queens public high-school principal [Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir] excluded 500 Catholic-school kids from a list of 4,000 students applying to get into his school, raising cries from furious parents of foul play "It was almost like they knew who would be accepted," said Middle Village resident Jimmy Guarneri, 47, of the lottery system that was supposed to fairly choose students to get into popular Maspeth High School. "We're very angry."
 
Two activists who filmed undercover videos of Planned Parenthood charged with 15 felonies | 29 March 2017 | The two antiabortion activists who mounted a hidden-camera investigation against Planned Parenthood officials have been charged with 15 felony counts of violating the privacy of health-care providers by recording confidential information without their consent. In announcing the charges against David Robert Daleiden and Sandra Merritt on Tuesday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the duo used manufactured identities and a fictitious bioresearch company to meet medical officials and covertly record the private discussions they initiated.
 
Ex-Penn State president guilty after failing to report suspected Sandusky abuse | 24 March 2017 | Former Penn State president Graham Spanier was convicted Friday of hushing up suspected child sex abuse by Jerry Sandusky in 2001. Jurors found Spanier guilty of one count of child endangerment over his handling of a complaint against the retired assistant football coach but found him not guilty of conspiracy and a second child endangerment count. Spanier showed no emotion after the verdict was read after 13 hours of deliberations.

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