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Kansas Court Orders Governor to Fund Public Schools

by GenevaWooten14 Posted on March 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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The bad news keeps piling up for Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and his radical budget-cutting experiment. The state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Republican governor and state legislature had—yet again—failed to adequately fund public schools by hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The court ordered lawmakers to devise a plan that would meet constitutional standards by the end of June and mandated a new formula to increase government spending on the state’s public education system. The demand for extra education funding couldn’t come at a worse time for Brownback, as the governor and Republican-held state legislature are caught in a stalemate on whether Kansas should repeal Brownback’s landmark income-tax cuts in order to solve shortfalls that have plagued the state budget in recent years.

“We conclude the state’s public financing system, through its structure and implementation, is not reasonably calculated to have all Kansas public education students meet or exceed the minimum constitutional standards of adequacy,” the court wrote in an unsigned, unanimous opinion. By underfunding education, the judges said, the state system failed in one-fourth of all its public schools to appropriately educate students in basic reading and math skills and shortchanged half of the state’s black students and one-third of its Hispanic students.

John Robb, an attorney representing the school districts involved in the lawsuit, told the Wichita Eagle that the ruling represented “justice for kids,” noting that the state could be forced to spend anywhere from $431 million to $893 million per year in additional education funding, depending on how lawmakers decide to calculate per-pupil spending levels.

The state’s current legal trouble dates back to 2010, when four school districts sued the state, alleging that Kansas provided “inequitable” and “inadequate” funding to its public education system. The lawsuit attacked state funding from two angles. It alleged that the overall pool of money that the state devotes to education was far too low, violating the state’s constitutional guarantee of an adequate education. And as Kansas reduced overall school funding, the school districts behind the lawsuit noted that the state’s cuts were inequitably distributed. That distribution, they alleged, hurt the state’s poorest districts and discriminated “based upon district wealth.”

Those concerns have only intensified since the lawsuit was first filed, as Kansas has struggled to climb out of a fiscal disaster. After Brownback took over as governor in 2011, he passed historically large tax cuts, promising that lower income taxes would spur economic growth—a preview of what Donald Trump and fellow Republicans now want to do at the federal level. But those cuts have since been disastrous, leaving the state with a vast budget gap as tax revenue continually comes in below expected levels.

In 2013, a three-judge panel ruled against the state, ordering Kansas to provide an additional $400 million in education spending. “It seems completely illogical,” the court noted, “that the state can argue that a reduction in education funding was necessitated by the downturn in the economy and the state’s diminishing resources and at the same time cut taxes further.” Brownback slammed the ruling for increasing the tax burden on Kansas residents, adding that the legislature, not the court, should make school funding decisions.

In 2014, the state Supreme Court weighed in on the equitable funding side of the lawsuit, ruling that the state’s decades-old funding formula did not dedicate enough funds to low-income districts and violated the state constitution. At that time, the Supreme Court declined to rule on the question of whether the state’s total per-pupil spending was adequate and instead remanded that question back to the lower court. A year later, Brownback signed a law that replaced the state’s formula with a two-year block grant system intended as a stopgap until a permanent formula could be devised. But last February, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s block grant effort was inequitable. The court ordered lawmakers to increase funding for poor school districts or risk a statewide school shutdown. Six days before a June deadline, Kansas lawmakers passed an education funding measure that gave $38 million to poor districts and staved off a shutdown. Now, another shutdown looms if legislators fail to come up with another plan to change the state’s formula.

The decision marks a blow for Brownback and the Republican-led legislature tasked with drafting a funding plan by the court’s new June deadline. In early February, Republican state senators proposed a 5 percent cut to public education spending for the rest of the fiscal year—cutting $120 million in spending through June—and raising income taxes as part of a plan to close the state’s budget gap. That decision quickly fell apart after it drew the ire of educators and activists. Lawmakers eventually passed an increase to the state income tax, but Brownback vetoed it.

Read the court’s decision below:

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Kansas Supreme Court Ruling on Gannon Education Funding Case (PDF)

Kansas Supreme Court Ruling on Gannon Education Funding Case (Text)

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Kansas Court Orders Governor to Fund Public Schools

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Mississippi Still Won’t Make Domestic Abuse Grounds for Divorce

by SherryTKFuqf Posted on March 1, 2017

Mother Jones

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There are several grounds for divorce in Mississippi, including impotency, adultery, and even “habitual drunkenness.” But domestic violence is not one of them, and it won’t be anytime soon, after recent legislative efforts to add spousal abuse to Mississippi divorce law failed in a state House committee on Tuesday.

Battered spouses in Mississippi often argue that they have suffered “habitual cruel and inhuman treatment,” which qualify as grounds for divorce under state law. Domestic violence advocacy groups in the state say that the “habitual” standard requires a high burden of proof of recurring violence. But many cases of abuse, which often occur in private, are unable to meet this standard unless there is photographic evidence or a witness. Advocates also argue that the current law does not sufficiently cover spouses dealing with emotional or financial abuse.

In order to address these problems, Republican state Sen. Sally Doty introduced a bill earlier this year that would add domestic violence to the 12 grounds for divorce available in the state. The bill passed the Mississippi Senate by an overwhelming margin and seemed poised for an easy victory in the House. But when the bill arrived in Mississippi’s House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Andy Gipson, a Republican, quickly objected.

Gipson argued that the measure did not clearly define what constituted domestic spousal abuse and suggested the addition would lead to a sharp uptick in divorces in the state. “To me the way it’s worded could possibly be interpreted that if someone raised their voice at their spouse, is that domestic assault?” he asked, according to the Clarion-Ledger. “If that’s the case, then a lot of people would have a ground for divorce in Mississippi.”

According to local news outlet Mississippi Today, Gipson, who is also a Baptist pastor, said that at a time when “we need to be adopting policies that promote marriage and people sticking together, I have some serious concerns about opening the floodgates any more than they already are. I think the floodgates are already open and this just tears the dam down.”

Mississippi state law prefers that both parties agree to end a marriage, allowing couples with a mutual desire for a divorce to cite “irreconcilable differences” and move forward in the process. But when one party refuses to accept the divorce, things can become complicated. In those cases, the person seeking to end the marriage must reach an agreement with his or her spouse on the terms of the divorce or claim one of the grounds provided under state law. The final decision to grant the divorce is left to the courts.

This is the second time in two years that an effort to add domestic violence to Mississippi’s divorce laws has failed. Last year, a similar measure, also introduced by Doty, died in the state Senate after other new grounds for divorce were added to the bill.

Gipson has declined to consider at least one other divorce law proposed this year: He refused to advance a bill adding extended separation to the grounds for divorce. His actions suggest that few divorce proposals would ever win his support. “If there’s a case of abuse, that person needs to have a change of behavior and a serious change of heart,” Gipson said yesterday. “Hopefully even in those cases restoration can happen.”

Update, 8:52 p.m. EST: In a statement posted to Facebook, Gipson defended his decision to scuttle the domestic abuse bill, citing the “cruel and inhuman treatment” standard as sufficient protection for abused spouses. “The law already provides a clear way out of a marriage for victims of domestic abuse, without the need for another bill,” he wrote. “To deny this reality is to ignore the current state of Mississippi law.”

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Mississippi Still Won’t Make Domestic Abuse Grounds for Divorce

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Conservatives Can’t Figure Out Whether to Embrace or Denounce the Alt-Right

by RudolfDeRougemo Posted on February 23, 2017

Mother Jones

As they kick off their biggest conference of the year, leading conservatives from across the country can’t seem to figure out what to do about the alt-right, a movement with close ties to both white nationalists and the White House.

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference began Thursday morning outside Washington, DC, with a strange denunciation of the movement by the executive director of the organization behind the event. In a speech titled “The Alt Right Ain’t Right at All,” American Conservative Union executive director Dan Schneider said that the alt-right isn’t really a conservative movement at all. Instead, he said, “a hate-filled, left-wing fascist group hijacked the very term ‘alt-right.'” Schneider called the alt-right anti-Semitic, racist, and sexist.

“CPAC, we have been slapped in the face,” Schneider said. “There is a sinister organization trying to worm its way into our ranks. We must not be duped, we must not be deceived. This is serious business.”

It’s understandable why Schneider would want to distance CPAC from the alt-right. But his organization didn’t seem to mind associating itself with the movement when it created the schedule for this year’s conference. White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon is scheduled to speak early this afternoon, just a few hours after Schneider and on the same stage. During an interview with Mother Jones at the Republican National Convention last summer, Bannon proudly tied Breitbart, the media organization he was then running, to the movement Schneider called racist. “We’re the platform for the alt-right,” Bannon said.

One of this year’s keynote speakers at CPAC was supposed to be Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart writer who called himself a “fellow traveler” of the alt-right. That view didn’t seem to trouble the organizers of CPAC, who rescinded his invitation only after a video circulated online of Yiannopoulos saying he didn’t have a problem with pedophilia.

But CPAC still appears to be just fine with the media organization that serves as the “platform for the alt-right.” As he was denouncing the movement, Schneider spoke in front of a banner featuring the logos of the event sponsors—including Breitbart.

From: 

Conservatives Can’t Figure Out Whether to Embrace or Denounce the Alt-Right

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Reality Begins to Set in on Obamacare—For Both Sides

by zB7bB4yB6a Posted on February 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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Reality is setting in:

For seven years, few issues have animated conservative voters as much as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. But with President Barack Obama out of office, the debate over “Obamacare” is becoming less about “Obama” and more about “care” — greatly complicating the issue for Republican lawmakers.

….As liberals overwhelm congressional town hall-style meetings and deluge the Capitol phone system with pleas to protect the health law, there is no similar clamor for dismantling it, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment. From deeply conservative districts in the South and the West to the more moderate parts of the Northeast, Republicans in Congress say there is significantly less intensity among opponents of the law than when Mr. Obama was in office.

Intensity is the key word here, since actual opinions about Obamacare don’t seem to have changed more than a eyelash over the past seven years:

But the intensity of opinion has changed. With Obama out of office, the Republican base doesn’t care as much. Hating Obamacare was mostly just a way of hating Obama. Likewise, the Democratic base cares more. They spent the past seven years griping about how weak Obamacare was—no public option, too friendly to insurance companies, subsidies too low, blah blah blah—under the apparent assumption that it didn’t matter that practically no one was passionately defending the law. With Trump in office, Democrats have finally figured out that it matters, and congressional phones are now ringing off the hook.

So reality has set in for everyone. The Republican rank-and-file has finally figured out they never really cared all that much about taxing the rich an extra three points to provide health care for everyone. The Democratic rank-and-file has finally figured out that Obamacare is a pretty good program and it’s worth fighting for.

But did we really have to elect Donald Trump to figure this out?

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Reality Begins to Set in on Obamacare—For Both Sides

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Here Are Your Highlights of Today’s Trump Press Meltdown

by LuisMGITinfw Posted on February 16, 2017

Mother Jones

Donald Trump went full Sarah Palin today at his press conference. It was glorious. I think you have to watch it to really get the full effect, but here are a few highlights.

First off, the word of the day is mess:

To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess….I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess….ISIS has spread like cancer — another mess I inherited….And you look at Schumer and the mess that he’s got over there and they have nothing going.

Fact check: Delusional. Trump inherited an economy in pretty good shape. Crime has steadily decreased over the past decade. ISIS is losing ground and close to defeat. Illegal immigration has been stable for many years. Test scores for schoolkids are up. Fewer than a dozen American soldiers have died in combat in the past year. Obamacare has cut the number of people without health insurance almost in half. The budget deficit is down to 3 percent of GDP. After years of stagnation, wages are finally starting to go up. Unemployment and inflation are both low.

I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes….270 which you need, that was laughable. We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.

Fact check: Also delusionial. He got 304 electoral votes, and Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Obama all did better.

We’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare….I know you can say, oh, Obamacare. I mean, they fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there, but they are not the Republican people our that representatives are representing.

Fact check: Plausible! Trump and the Republicans in Congress probably do think they represent only Republicans.

The leaks are real. You’re the one that wrote about them and reported them, I mean the leaks are real. You know what they said, you saw it and the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake.

Fact check: Huh?

If the information coming from those leaks is real, then how can the stories be fake?

The reporting is fake. Look, look…You know what it is? Here’s the thing. The public isn’t — you know, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch. They don’t know if it’s true or false because they’re not involved. I’m involved. I’ve been involved with this stuff all my life. But I’m involved. So I know when you’re telling the truth or when you’re not. I just see many, many untruthful things.

Fact check: True. Trump almost certainly does see many, many untruthful things.

I mean, I watch CNN, it’s so much anger and hatred and just the hatred. I don’t watch it any more….Well, you look at your show that goes on at 10 o’clock in the evening. You just take a look at that show. That is a constant hit….Now, I will say this. I watch it. I see it. I’m amazed by it.

Fact check: Schrödinger’s cat. Trump both watches and doesn’t watch CNN.

We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.

Fact check: Half true. No, Hillary Clinton didn’t give Russia any uranium. (She was one of many who approved a deal for the Russian atomic energy agency to buy a Canadian company that controls 20 percent of the US uranium reserves. But none of it can exported outside the US.) However, it is true that bad things can be done with uranium.

QUESTION: Let’s talk about some serious issues that have come up in the last week that you have had to deal with as president of the United States. You mentioned the vessel — the spy vessel off the coast of the United States.

TRUMP: Not good.

QUESTION: There was a ballistic missile test that many interpret as a violation of an agreement between the two countries; and a Russian plane buzzed a U.S. destroyer.

TRUMP: Not good.

….QUESTION: So when you say they’re not good, do you mean that they are…

TRUMP: Who did I say is not good?

QUESTION: No, I read off the three things that have recently happened. Each one of them you said they’re not good.

TRUMP: No, it’s not good, but they happened.

QUESTION: But do they damage the relationship? Do they undermine…

TRUMP: They all happened recently.

Fact check: True. These are all things that happened recently.

JAKE TURX, A REPORTER FOR A SMALL ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWISH PUBLICATION: Despite what some of my colleagues may have been reporting, I haven’t seen anybody in my community accuse either yourself or anyone on your staff of being anti-Semitic. We understand that you have Jewish grandchildren. You are their zaidy. However, what we are concerned about, and what we haven’t really heard being addressed, is an uptick in anti-Semitism and how the government is planning to take care of it… There has been a report out that 48 bomb threats have been made against Jewish centers all across the country in the last couple of weeks. There are people who are committing anti-Semitic acts or threatening to…

TRUMP: he said he was gonna ask a very simple, easy question. And it’s not, its not, not — not a simple question, not a fair question. OK sit down, I understand the rest of your question.

So here’s the story, folks. Number one, I am the least anti- Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person….See, he lied about — he was gonna get up and ask a very straight, simple question, so you know, welcome to the world of the media. But let me just tell you something, that I hate the charge, I find it repulsive.

I hate even the question because people that know me and you heard the prime minister, you heard Ben Netanyahu yesterday, did you hear him, Bibi? He said, I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time and then he said, forget it. So you should take that instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question like that.

Fact check: Incoherent. Turx explicitly tried to assure Trump that nobody thought he was anti-Semitic, but Trump’s skin is so thin that he immediately decided Turx was calling him a racist and an anti-Semite. I wonder why?

By the way, the entire point of this press conference seemed to be directed at one thing: accusing the press of being horrible and dishonest. This came up in nearly every Trump answer. This is a great strategy for shoring up his base, of course. As near as I can tell, conservatives all thought this dumpster fire of a press conference was a terrific performance.

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Here Are Your Highlights of Today’s Trump Press Meltdown

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Trump’s New Labor Nominee Oversaw Politicized Hiring at Justice Department

by LienGalarza Posted on February 16, 2017

Mother Jones

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced Florida International University College of Law Dean R. Alexander Acosta as his next nominee to oversee the US Department of Labor. The decision comes after a slew of scandals and mounting pressure from Republicans derailed Trump’s previous pick, fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, who withdrew his name from contention on Wednesday, a day before his confirmation hearing was scheduled.

Trump lauded Acosta’s credentials as a Harvard Law School graduate, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board, emphasizing that Acosta had previously been confirmed by the Senate three times. “I’ve wished him the best,” Trump told reporters. “I think he’ll be a tremendous secretary of labor.” If confirmed, Acosta would be the only Latino in Trump’s Cabinet.

But Trump didn’t mention one of Acosta’s less admirable roles. Acosta served as assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from 2003 to 2005 under President George W. Bush—the first Latino in that role—and was at the center of a scandal over hiring practices. During Acosta’s tenure, Brad Schlozman, a deputy assistant attorney general, “improperly considered political and ideological affiliations” when he hired attorneys to work at the Civil Rights Division, according to a Justice Department inspector general report written in 2008. “Attorneys hired by Schlozman were more than twice as likely to be Republican or conservative than those attorneys Scholzman was not involved in hiring,” the report found. That consideration, the report concluded, violated the Civil Service Reform Act and department policy that bars discrimination in hiring based on political and ideological affiliations.

The agency concluded that Acosta and other Civil Rights Division managers failed to “exercise sufficient oversight to ensure that Schlozman did not engage in inappropriate hiring and personnel practices.” Specifically, Acosta and Deputy Attorney General Wan Kim “failed to ensure that Schlozman’s hiring and personnel decisions were based on proper considerations,” the report noted.

When Acosta first took over as law school dean in 2009, H. T. Smith, director of FIU’s trial advocacy program, told the Miami New Times that Acosta’s stint at the Civil Rights Division “caused a rift with the black community,” adding that the former Miami prosecutor needed to meet with faculty members to heal that divide. The NAACP’s Miami-Dade branch expressed concern, telling the Miami Herald at the time of Acosta’s hire that his “lack of diversity in hiring and promotion while serving as U.S. attorney gives cause for concern for his consideration as dean of FIU’s College of Law.”

Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, condemned the “egregious conduct” that played out during Acosta’s time at the Justice Department. “It is hard to believe that Mr. Acosta would now be nominated to lead a federal agency tasked with promoting lawful hiring practices and safe workplaces,” Clarke said in a statement released after Trump’s announcement.

Read the full 2008 inspector general report:

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Justice Department Inspector General Report Acosta Hiring Practices (PDF)

Justice Department Inspector General Report Acosta Hiring Practices (Text)

Link – 

Trump’s New Labor Nominee Oversaw Politicized Hiring at Justice Department

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Why Trump Can’t Come Clean on Russia

by BrettBible Posted on February 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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There is an old chestnut that gets tossed out whenever a scandal hits: It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. The saying traces back to Watergate. Sen. Howard Baker, the top Republican on the Senate Watergate committee, once noted, “It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.” This week, following the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn, NBC News’ Chuck Todd was one of many who quipped, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” And that was certainly a significant element of the Flynn imbroglio: Flynn had lied about his December conversation with the Russian ambassador, concealing the fact that they had discussed the sanctions President Barack Obama had just levied on Russia as punishment for its covert efforts to swing the 2016 election to Trump. But in this case the bigger scandal at hand is not a cover-up. It is the thing itself: the connections between the Trump camp and Moscow during the campaign, when Vladimir Putin was trying to subvert American democracy.

Certainly, the Trump campaign has strived mightily to smother this potentially explosive scandal. Here’s a partial account.

* Days after the election, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview that “there were contacts” between the Trump team and the Kremlin. He noted, “Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage.” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks immediately said the campaign had “no contact with Russian officials” before the election.

* At Trump’s January 11 press conference, a reporter asked him, “Can you stand here today, once and for all, and say that no one connected to you or your campaign had any contact with Russia leading up to or during the presidential campaign?” Trump did not reply. But after the press conference ended and Trump was leaving, he did answer that query with a firm “no.”

* On January 15, on Face the Nation, John Dickerson asked incoming Vice President Mike Pence, “Did any adviser or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?” Pence declared, “Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

* On February 14, at the daily White House briefing, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl asked press secretary Sean Spicer whether any Trump associates were in touch with the Russian government prior to the election. Spicer replied, “There’s nothing that would conclude me that anything different has changed with respect to that time period.” That contorted statement was clearly meant as a no.

The drift is clear. Whenever queried about this highly sensitive matter, Trump and his minions have said there were no contacts between anyone in his crew and the Putin regime during the 2016 campaign. This is a cover-up.

There is evidence that Trump associates did interact with Russian officials during the campaign. The Washington Post story that broke open the Flynn affair a few days ago also reported that the Russian ambassador had told the newspaper he had been communicating with Flynn during the campaign. At that point, Flynn was Trump’s senior national security adviser. (As such, Flynn attended in mid-August the first briefing Trump received as the GOP nominee from the US intelligence community, during which Trump and Flynn were told that US intelligence agencies had concluded Russia was behind the hacking and leaking that targeted Democrats.) And on Tuesday night, the New York Times reported that intelligence intercepts indicated that several Trump associates had “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

In late October, I reported that a former foreign counterintelligence officer had sent memos to the FBI indicating that the “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years” and that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” The memos also claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him,” and that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on “bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls.”

On Tuesday, I bumped into a prominent Republican consultant, and he said that Trump had to “get out in front of” the burgeoning scandal and disclose all the facts because “the cover-up is always worse.” The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza offered similar advice to the president on Wednesday morning: “What is really needed at this point is a full and complete debrief for the American people from Trump himself. Why was his campaign in ‘constant’ contact with Russian officials? Who in the campaign—or the broader Trump organization—was involved? Are they still with the campaign or the business? What was discussed on these calls?…Why is Trump so reluctant to condemn Russia and Vladimir Putin in particular?”

But the cover-up here may not be worse than the actions being covered up.

At a minimum, it seems that Trump associates—at least Flynn—were secretly interacting with the Putin regime as it was plotting to subvert American democracy to help Trump win the White House. A key question is obvious: What did they discuss? The darkest possibility is that they talked about the Kremlin assault on the US election. Short of that, might Flynn or others have encouraged Putin’s clandestine operation by signaling that Moscow would have an easier time with a Trump administration than with a Clinton administration? Were there any winks or nods? After all, in late July, Trump called on Russia to hack Clinton. Whatever was discussed, any Trump associate who spoke with Russian officials during the summer or fall of the campaign had reason to know that he or she was interacting with a member of a regime that was actively attempting to undermine the election in a manner beneficial to Trump.

How can Trump and his crew concede that they were hobnobbing with a foreign government that was waging political warfare against the United States? The “full and complete debrief” that Cillizza advocates would require Trump to acknowledge that he and his team have covered up these contacts and explain why. This “full and complete debrief” could well show that Trump’s camp cozied up to a repressive government that was seeking to destabilize US politics to help Trump. It could reveal that Trump associates directly or indirectly encouraged Putin’s attack on the 2016 election.

Trump would lose all legitimacy as president were he to admit that anything of this sort transpired. There are some deeds that cannot be acknowledged. Expecting Trump and his lieutenants to confess that his campaign or business associates were networking with the Kremlin or Russian intelligence is not realistic—especially after their months of denial. (Trump also for months refused to accept the US intelligence assessment that Russia was behind the hacking and leaking aimed at Democratic targets, and when he finally bent on this point, he downplayed Moscow’s meddling in the election.) Trump cannot continue to present himself as the triumphant winner of a fair election if it turns out his own people were palling around with Moscow.

Another famous line is this: You can’t handle the truth. Further revelations about contacts between the Trump camp and Russia could pose an existential threat to the Trump White House. The clear choice for him and his gang is to deny, to stonewall, to distract, to lie. Trump doesn’t explain the pre-election contacts; he complains about leaks. He casts all interest in this controversy as merely the revenge of the Clinton losers. He calls reporting on the Russia connection “fake news” and slams journalists pursuing the Flynn story as “fake media.” This is not shocking. He might not be able to survive a full accounting. The poison of the cover-up may be less deadly than the poison of the event itself. Only Trump and the people involved can know for sure. But investigations of the Russian contacts now being conducted by the FBI and the congressional intelligence committees—if they are mounted effectively and yield public results—may eventually allow us to see the full calculation. In the meantime, the public can justifiably conclude that when it comes to Trump-Russia connections during the campaign, the Trump team has been covering up for very good reasons.

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Why Trump Can’t Come Clean on Russia

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Kellyanne Conway’s White Nationalist Retweet Is No Mistake

by MadgeNew40940934 Posted on February 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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Late Monday, coming off a long evening of responding to Gen. Mike Flynn’s resignation as national security adviser, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway found solace in a tweet from a user named Lib Hypocrisy:

Conway not only retweeted the message but also wrote, “Love you back,” and wished her “Hapless Haters” a happy Valentine’s Day.

But there was just one problem: Lib Hypocrisy is an explicit promoter of white nationalism and other bigotry. This is evident from the account’s profile, which includes the hashtags “#WhiteIdentity” and “#Nationalist.” It features a cartoon image connoting Pepe the Frog, the adopted mascot of the racist “alt-right” movement, and a shout-out to Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch politician who wants to shut down mosques.

These are some of Lib Hypocrisy’s recent tweets and retweets:

Asked about her retweet of Lib Hypocisy by BuzzFeed on Tuesday, Conway implied that she hadn’t been in control of her account at the time. She said she “obviously” had no idea who Lib Hypocrisy was, adding, “I denounce whoever it is.” The tweets were soon deleted.

Conway’s move continues a long-standing pattern of Trump and his inner circle engaging with white nationalists and then claiming ignorance when confronted about it—as Mother Jones documented in multiple investigations since last summer. Other such “mistakes” include:

Trump failing to disavow support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke when asked about it repeatedly on CNN, and then blaming a “bad earpiece.”
Trump appointing a white nationalist leader as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and then blaming a “database error” for the move.
Trump tweeting an image of himself superimposed over a picture of WWII-era Waffen-SS soldiers, and then blaming a mistake by an intern.
Gen. Michael Flynn sharing a #NeverHillary tweet that said, “Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore,” and then claiming it was a mistake.

Those are just the cases in which Trump and his backers have backpedaled. There are many other similar instances in which they haven’t even bothered to explain or apologize:

Trump twice retweeting @WhiteGenocideTM
Trump retweeting @EustaceFash, whose header image at the time also included the term “White Genocide.”
Trump tweeting an image of himself as Pepe the frog
Trump tweeting an image of “Crooked Hillary” superimposed over a pile of cash and the Star of David
Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous Skittles tweet
Trump tweeting blatantly false and racially inflammatory crime statistics

The most charitable interpretation of this behavior is ineptitude. Regardless, the result is clear: According to one study of 10,000 Twitter accounts that followed Trump, more than a third also followed the account of at least one prominent booster of white nationalism—a movement now widely regarded as having a direct line into the Oval Office.

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Kellyanne Conway’s White Nationalist Retweet Is No Mistake

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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Biggest Scandal in Washington

by 2343b4u4u Posted on February 9, 2017

Mother Jones

The biggest election-related scandal since Watergate occurred last year, and it has largely disappeared from the political-media landscape of Washington.

According to the consensus assessment of US intelligence agencies, Russian intelligence, under the orders of Vladimir Putin, mounted an extensive operation to influence the 2016 campaign to benefit Donald Trump. This was a widespread covert campaign that included hacking Democratic targets and publishing swiped emails via WikiLeaks. And it achieved its objectives. But the nation’s capital remains under-outraged by this subversion. The congressional intelligence committees announced last month that they will investigate the Russian hacking and also examine whether there were any improper contacts between the Trump camp and Russia during the campaign. (A series of memos attributed to a former British counterintelligence officer included allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.) Yet these behind-closed-doors inquiries have generated minimum media notice, and, overall, there has not been much outcry.

Certainly, every once in a while, a Democratic legislator or one of the few Republican officials who have bothered to express any disgust at the Moscow meddling (namely Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio) will pipe up. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi days ago called on the FBI to investigate Trump’s “financial, personal and political connections to Russia” to determine “the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), responding to Trump’s comparison of the United States to Putin’s repressive regime, said on CNN, “What is this strange relationship between Putin and Trump? And is there something that the Russians have on him that is causing him to say these really bizarre things on an almost daily basis?” A few weeks ago, Graham told me he wanted an investigation of how the FBI has handled intelligence it supposedly has gathered on ties between Trump insiders and Russia. And last month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pushed FBI Director James Comey at a public hearing to release this information. Yet there has been no drumbeat of sound bites, tweets, or headlines. In recent days, the story has gone mostly dark.

Look at the White House daily press briefings. Since Trump entered office, there has been far more back-and-forth between reporters and Press Secretary Sean Spicer on the inauguration crowd size, Trump’s bathrobe, and Melissa McCarthy than the Russia scandal. Trump associates are perhaps being questioned by House and Senate intelligence committee investigators, and the FBI, which according to news reports has looked at possible ties between Trump advisers and Russia, might also still be on the case. Yet this has not been a top priority for White House reporters.

Here are two questions that could have been posed to Spicer at his first briefing:

* Have any past or present Trump associates, inside or outside his administration, been contacted or questioned by the intelligence committees, the FBI, or any other government body investigating the Russian hacking or interactions between Trump’s circle and Russia?

* During the presidential campaign, did Trump or any of his political or business associates have any interactions with Russian officials or Russian intermediaries?

That did not happen. At Spicer’s first briefing, Anita Kumar of McClatchy did ask, “Has the president spoken to any of the intelligence agencies about the investigation into the Russian connections? And will he allow that to go on?” Spicer replied, “I don’t believe he has spoken to anyone specifically about that and I don’t know that. He has not made any indication that he would stop an investigation of any sort.” This was an important question that warranted a response that was less equivocal—and reporters could have pointed that out.

At the next day’s briefing, on January 24, Margaret Talev of Bloomberg asked Spicer about reports that Comey was remaining in his post and whether Comey and Trump had discussed “the Russia investigation and the parameters of that.” Spicer responded, “I don’t have anything on that.” Spicer’s nonresponse didn’t prompt any news.

In the fortnight since, the key twin questions—what is Trump doing regarding the Russian hacking, and are Trump associates being investigated for interactions with Russia?—have not been regular items on the agenda during the White House briefings. When Trump spoke to Putin by phone on January 28, subsequent media reports noted that the call focused on how relations could be improved. There was no public indication that Trump had said anything to Putin about the Russian intervention in the US election. And in the following days, White House reporters did not ask Spicer about this apparent omission.

There have been plenty of significant topics for journalists to press Spicer and the administration on—the travel ban on refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Trump’s plan to dump Obamacare, various nominations and a Supreme Court pick, Trump’s fact-free charge of widespread voter fraud, Steve Bannon’s participation on the National Security Council, Trump’s contentious calls with foreign leaders, the president’s erratic behavior, and much more. But the lack of media attention to the Russia story, at the White House briefings and beyond, is curious. It is true that the intelligence committee probes are being conducted secretly, and there are no public hearings or actions to cover. (Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, hoping to confine this scandal, succeeded in preventing the creation of a special committee or an independent commission to probe this affair—either of which would have probably sparked more coverage than the highly secretive intelligence committees.) Still, in the past, pundits, politicians, and reporters in Washington have not been reluctant to go all-out in covering and commenting upon a controversy subjected to private investigation.

In this instance, the president’s own people may be under investigation, and Trump has demonstrated no interest in holding Putin accountable for messing with US elections in what may be considered an act of covert warfare. Still, there has been no loud demand from the DC media (or most of the GOP) for answers and explanations. This quietude is good news for Putin—and reason for him to think he could get away with such an operation again.

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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Biggest Scandal in Washington

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A South Dakota education bill has scientists wondering if we’re headed back to the Cretaceous.

by Tatiana48M Posted on February 6, 2017

The state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, had vetoed a bill that would require utilities to buy 25 percent of their electricity from wind, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources by 2020, but legislators voted to override his veto.

Now this new, stronger renewable energy standard replaces the previous one, which had called for utilities to be getting 20 percent of their power from clean sources by 2020.

Democrats argued the bill would create jobs, mitigate climate change, and clean up air pollution. Republicans said it would cost too much. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Nonpartisan legislative analysts estimated it might raise residential electricity bills by 48 cents to $1.45 per month.”

It’s easy to focus on the U.S. presidency — that’s the center of the national reality show. But much of the substantive policy in this country is made on the state and local levels, where people are often more practical than ideological — or, you could say, more likely to be tailored for reality, rather than for reality TV.

Link – 

A South Dakota education bill has scientists wondering if we’re headed back to the Cretaceous.

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