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The World According to Trump

by AnibalBiddle921 Posted on November 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here is the version of reality that Donald Trump and the Trump team have been spreading around since the election:

Trump’s victory was one of the biggest in recent history.
Trump kept a Ford plant from moving to Mexico.
Snobby New York theater elites were rude to VP-elect Mike Pence on Friday.
The demonstrations and marches following the election were the work of “professional protesters.”
The New York Times apologized for its anti-Trump coverage during the campaign.
Trump won the debates handily.
He totally could have won the Trump University lawsuit, but chose to settle for the good of the country.

It’s only been ten days so far. Can he keep this up for four years?

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The World According to Trump

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White Nationalists Celebrate Trump’s Victory and Early Appointments

by ElveraDelee369 Posted on November 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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White nationalists gathered in downtown Washington, DC, on Saturday to celebrate the election of Donald Trump as a victory for their movement. As protesters outside carried signs decrying racism, the mood among the approximately 250 white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building was jubilant.

“The alt-right is here, the alt-right is not going anywhere, and the alt-right is going to change the world,” Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the ascendant right-wing movement centered on xenophobia and often racism and white supremacy, told reporters at a press conference during an all-day conference hosted by his group, the National Policy Institute. “And you all need to pay attention to this.”

White nationalists and white supremacists have cheered Trump’s election and rejoiced in the appointments he has made so far in his administration, including former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon as chief strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general. Spencer called Bannon’s appointment a “wonderful thing.” In July, Bannon, who was still running Breitbart, bragged to Mother Jones that his website had become the “platform for the alt-right.” Spencer said he largely agreed with that statement. “It’s clearly moved away from the conservative movement, it was pro-Trump, and it was also a site that tons of people on the alt-right liked, they get their news from, they share.”

Spencer also spoke approvingly of Sessions, who made a name for himself as the top foe of immigration in Congress. Sessions is also known for allegations that he made racist comments when he was an attorney in Alabama—charges that derailed his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship and will come up again in his confirmation hearings to become attorney general. When Mother Jones asked at the press conference whether Spencer agreed with the neo-Nazi writer Andrew Anglin, who on Friday said that the appointments of Sessions and Bannon meant that he was getting everything he wanted from Trump, the crowd at the conference began to cheer at the mention of Sessions. “It’s getting what is realistically possible,” said Spencer. “Jeff Sessions, again, is someone who is not alt-right but who seems to see eye to eye with us on the immigration question. I think Jeff Sessions might very well resonate with something like a long-term dramatic slowdown of immigration.”

Spencer said Sessions would roll back the Obama administration’s enforcement of civil rights laws as the head of the Justice Department. “The fact that he is going to be at such a high level, I think, is a wonderful thing,” he said. “What he is not going to do in terms of federally prosecuting diversity and fair housing and so on I think is just as powerful as what he might do. So it’s about Jeff Sessions setting a new tone in Washington. I think that’s a good thing.”

Spencer’s top priority for the Trump administration is to change the country’s immigration laws to stop not just undocumented immigration but also legal immigration, with the goal of making sure the United States remains a majority-white country. “I think a goal would be net-neutral immigration with a primary emphasis on Europeans who want to immigrate to the country,” he said. Peter Brimelow of the anti-immigrant website VDARE.com later explained that the policy would mean removing immigrants currently in the country and allowing Europeans to take their place. Spencer said he believed passing such a policy through Congress would be easier than the press might think.

When a reporter asked what the movement’s top priority for Trump was, the room began to chant “build the wall.” Spencer agreed that immigration should be Trump’s “primary objective.”

“This is why he was elected,” Spencer said, “because he was the identity president.”

Controversial media personality Tila Tequila, who has identified with Nazis, tweeted from inside the conference.

An estimated 200 to 300 protesters gathered outside the conference, organized by a group called the DC Anti-Fascist Coalition. At around 1 p.m., a conference attendee who exited the conference got into a violent confrontation with protesters.

On Friday night in DC, protesters followed Spencer, and one sprayed him with a foul-smelling liquid as he dined with supporters at a restaurant.

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White Nationalists Celebrate Trump’s Victory and Early Appointments

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Trump’s Top Food Guy Just Abruptly Quit

by Lanny96N47 Posted on November 19, 2016

Mother Jones

To manage the transition of the US Department of Agriculture, President-elect Donald Trump settled on a lobbyist who represents Big Soda, Big Pizza, and Big Ag. On Wednesday, in a classic Trumpian lurch, the incoming chief executive announced a ban…on lobbyists serving in the transition.

And so the ag lobbyist, Michael Torrey, had to choose between maintaining his business or his position on the transition team. In a Friday press release, Torrey revealed his choice:

When asked recently to terminate lobbying registration for clients whom I serve in order to continue my role with the transition, I respectfully resigned from my role.

The Trump team has not announced a replacement or responded to my request for comment. One place to look for Torrey’s successor might be the motley crew of right-wing pols and agribiz execs who made up the Trump campaign’s Agricultural Advisory Committee.

Its chair, Charles Herbster, is a Trump loyalist who runs a multilevel marketing firm. One of the committee’s most high-profile members, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, is on the short list to be named USDA chief, according to the New York Times. Miller is most famous for trying to bill Texas taxpayers for a trip to Oklahoma to receive a medical procedure known as “the Jesus shot,” administered by a convicted felon known as Dr. Mike, and for calling Hillary Clinton a “cunt” in a tweet he has since deleted. He has also handed plum state jobs to campaign contributors, compared Syrian refugees to rattlesnakes, and suggested nuclear bombs be dropped on Muslim countries.

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Trump’s Top Food Guy Just Abruptly Quit

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Look at All the Climate Change Deniers Vying for Jobs in the Trump Administration

by Donnie6686 Posted on November 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is a global warming denier. He wants to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement and repeal the Clean Power Plan—the twin pillars of President Barack Obama’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. He’s even promised to revive the coal industry, against all odds.

But Trump won’t be able to do these things all by himself. To fulfill his campaign promise and reverse the steps of his predecessor in the fight against warming, he’s going to need an entire administration of like-minded people. Environmental officials who reject climate science. National security officials who dismiss concerns that climate change will destabilize the world. Diplomats who oppose international climate agreements. Department heads who want to drill, baby, drill.

Here’s a list of Trump appointees and possible appointees (drawn for the New York Times, Politico, E&E, and elsewhere) who deny climate change or who oppose or want to roll back efforts to deal with it. We’ll update the list as the Trump transition continues. Be afraid.

Donald Trump

Position: President

Views on climate change:

We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the US rule.
We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by Hillary Clinton’s extremist agenda.
I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.
We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas
We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.
We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programs. Trump campaign website, accessed 11/16/16

Mike Pence

Position: Vice president

Views on climate change: “Donald Trump and I have a plan to get this economy moving again…by lowering taxes across the board for working families, small businesses and family farms, ending the war on coal that is hurting jobs and hurting this economy even here in Virginia, repealing Obamacare lock, stock, and barrel, and repealing all of the executive orders that Barack Obama has signed that are stifling economic growth in this economy.” Vice Presidential debate, 10/5/16

Reince Priebus

Position: Chief of staff

Views on climate change: “Democrats tell us they understand the world, but then they call climate change, not radical Islamic terrorism, the greatest threat to national security. Look, I think we all care about our planet, but melting icebergs aren’t beheading Christians in the Middle East.” CPAC speech, 2/27/15

Stephen Bannon

Position: Chief strategist and senior counselor

Views on climate change: “Do you agree with the pope and President Obama that climate change is absolutely a path to global suicide, if specific deals are not cut in Paris at the international climate negotiations, versus focusing on radical Islam?” Breitbart News Daily via the Washington Post, 12/1/15

“The pope…has kind of fallen into this hysteria…Here you have the pope saying the world’s near suicide if something doesn’t happen in Paris.” Breitbart News Daily via Media Matters for America, 12/2/15

Myron Ebell

Position: Head of EPA transition team—possible EPA administrator

Views on climate change: Ebell, a high-profile climate skeptic, is the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a DC think tank that promotes “limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty.” He has accused climate scientists of “manipulating and falsifying the data.” The New York Times describes Ebell as “one of the most vocal opponents” of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)

Position: Attorney general nominee

Views on climate change: “The balloon and satellite data track each other almost exactly, and it shows almost no warming. So what we’re talking about is: The predictions aren’t coming true.” Washington Watch via Right Wing Watch, 11/30/15

Ken Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state

Position: Head of transition team for domestic issues

Views on climate change: “Another false environmentalist narrative is the global warming hoax. A few decades back, environmentalist “scientists” started devising computer models that predicted man-made calamity—Manhattan submerged by rising Atlantic waters—within 10 or 15 years ago. It turns out the models were rigged, the data were falsified and, in fact, there has been no measurable warming for nearly 20 years. Most troubling of all, the lying scientists colluded to ruin the careers of honest scientists who tried to tell the truth.” Washington Times, 4/30/15

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.)

Position: CIA director nominee

Views on climate change: “President Obama has called climate change the biggest national security threat of our lifetime, but he is horribly wrong. His unwillingness to acknowledge the true threat posed by Islamic extremism will get Americans killed. His perverse fixation on achieving his economically harmful environmental agenda instead of defeating the true threats facing the world shows just how out of sync his priorities are with Kansans and the American people.” Pompeo press release, 11/30/15

John Bolton, former UN ambassador

Possible position: Secretary of State

Views on climate change: “Obama can achieve his climate change legacy only through delicate negotiations with Congress. His poor relations with the House and Senate, especially on foreign policy, appear to render success unlikely. Obama may rely on his unilateral authority to join a world climate pact in Paris, but without Congress his most important promises will be empty ones whose fate will be left to his successor.” Los Angeles Times, 12/1/15

Jan Brewer, former governor of Arizona

Possible positions: Secretary of Interior

Views on climate change: “Everybody has an opinion on climate change, you know, and I probably don’t believe that it’s man made. I believe that, you know, that weather and certain elements are controlled maybe by different things.” Think Progress, 12/3/13

Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas)

Possible positions: US Supreme Court justice

Views on climate change: “If you are a…liberal politician who wants government power, if that is your driving urge—government power over the American citizenry—then climate change is the perfect pseudoscientific theory. Why is that? Because it can never be disproven…The climate is always changing. It has been changing from the beginning of time.” Cruz campaign event via the Washington Post, 2/3/16

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.)

Possible position: National security adviser

Views on climate change: “And here we have the President of the United States up in Canada talking about climate change. I mean, God, we just had the largest attack…on our own soil in Orlando. Why aren’t we talking about that? Who is talking about that? I mean, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, Boston, people forget about 9/11!” Fox News, 6/29/16

Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house

Possible position: “I want to be the senior planner for the entire federal government, and I want a letter from you that says Newt Gingrich is authorized to go to any program in any department, examine it and report directly to the president.” Hill, 7/20/16

Views on climate change: Gingrich used to be in favor of taking action on climate change, even appearing in an ad on the subject with Nancy Pelosi and voicing support for a cap-and-trade carbon pricing system. He later called his participation in the ad “dumb” and opposed the cap-and-trade bill backed by Obama in 2009. Last year, Politico reported that Gingrich “said it should not be a given for politicians to assume that climate change is man-made. ‘I don’t think it should be a given. The truth is, I think we don’t know. There’s a difference between political science and science,’ he said.”

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor

Possible positions: Secretary of State, secretary of Homeland Security

Views on climate change: “The president’s wrong in linking somehow by fixing climate change if he’s gonna fix it, he’s gonna fix terrorism. That’s absurd. There’s no connection between the two things. Where it’s like two different things. It’s like saying I’m gonna fix terrorism by curing cancer.” Fox News via CNS News, 12/2/15

Gov. Nikki Haley (S.C.)

Possible positions: Secretary of State

Views on climate change: “‘The Clean Power Plan is exactly what we don’t need,’ the governor said after addressing a gathering of the SC Electric Cooperatives at Wild Dunes Resort on the Isle of Palms. ‘This is exactly what hurts us. You can’t mandate utility companies which, in turn, raises the cost of power. That’s what’s going to keep jobs away. That’s what’s going to keep companies away.’ She added that officials in Washington ‘stay out of the way.’…’We need to be able to do our jobs and continue to recruit companies and recruit jobs without additional mandates,’ Haley said.” The Post and Courier, 6/3/14

Harold Hamm, oil and gas executive

Possible positions: Secretary of Interior, secretary of Energy

Views on climate change: “Obama imposed punitive regulations to stop this oil and gas renaissance, and in his administration’s very own words, they want to crucify America’s oil and natural gas producers…President Trump will release America’s pent-up energy potential, get rid of foreign oil, trash punitive regulations, create millions of jobs, and develop our most strategic geopolitical weapon: crude oil…Every time we can’t drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded…Climate change isn’t our biggest problem; it’s Islamic terrorism. Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk.” Republican National Convention, 7/20/16

Bonus—Views on earthquake science: “Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state’s nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean’s e-mail recounting the conversation. Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the survey’s scientists. ‘I’m very approachable, and don’t think I’m intimidating,’ Hamm was quoted as saying in an interview with EnergyWire, an industry publication, that was published on May 11. ‘I don’t try to push anybody around.'” Bloomberg, 5/15/15

Jeffrey Holmstead, energy industry lobbyist

Possible position: EPA administrator

Views on climate change: Holmstead, an assistant EPA administrator under President George W. Bush, told a Senate committee in 2015: “Given the implementation schedule that EPA has proposed for the Clean Power Plan, it will be implemented almost entirely by the next administration. And when the next administration takes office in January 2017, it is virtually certain that the litigation over the legality of the CPP will still be going on, so that the new administration will need to decide whether to defend and implement the CPP as finalized under the Obama Administration…For legal, practical, and political reasons, it would be relatively easy for a new administration to modify or simply revoke the CPP altogether and start from scratch with a more legally defensive approach…The process that led to the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act is instructive. It shows what an administration can do—even when both Houses of Congress are controlled by the opposing party—to get legislation through Congress when such legislation is a priority for the President. In my view, it is a shame that the Obama Administration has not made this type of effort when it comes to climate change legislation and has instead pursued an ill-advised and almost certainly illegal regulatory approach.”

Laura Ingraham, radio host

Possible position: Press secretary

Views on climate change: “This entire effort the Paris climate negotiations is about setting up global rules of governance. Rules that will, if instituted—which we know they won’t be—but if ever instituted would mean that we have less control over our own destiny as a country than we do today. Because Congress will have limited ability to change any treaty. Again, I don’t think it’s going to happen. But if these rules should go into place, we should expect the same compliance from countries like China that we get from China in deals like the World Trade Organization and the World Trade Organization Treaty. So, if people want less sovereignty in the United States, less independence, less oversight, our congressional authority to be meaningful, then we should all be excited about what’s going on with 150 leaders in Paris. But this has nothing to do with terrorism. It has everything to do with bringing America’s economy down, hurting the fossil fuel industry, etc., etc.—one of the few sectors that’s actually growing jobs and still paying people decent wages in the United States. So forgive me if I’m not all hot and bothered by the Paris events.” Fox News via Media Matters, 12/1/15

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)

Possible position: Secretary of Homeland Security

Views on climate change: “‘Within the Department of Homeland Security, more money, in fact, millions of dollars, are dedicated to climate change rather than combating what I consider to be one of the biggest threats to the homeland, and that’s the violent extremists radicalizing Islamist terrorists radicalizing over the Internet in the United States of America,’ McCaul said.…That is a very narrow comparison. It concerns only the Homeland Security Department and only programs designed to prevent Islamic extremists’ use of the Internet. Within that limited frame, McCaul’s comparison holds up. However, any complete analysis would show that federal departments and agencies spend significantly more money targeting terrorists than they do targeting climate change.” Politifact, 5/14/15

Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia attorney general

Possible position: EPA administrator

Views on climate change: “Morrisey has become one of the leading Attorneys General in the fight against President Obama’s overreaching, illegal EPA regulations. In February 2016, under Morrisey’s leadership, the Supreme Court halted implementation of Obama’s signature climate change initiative, the Clean Power Plan, in an unprecedented win for AG Morrisey and the 28 other state Attorneys General.” Morrisey campaign website, accessed 11/16/16

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska

Possible positions: Secretary of Interior

Views on climate change: “I want people to be empowered to ask questions about what is being fed them from the scientific community, that something’s not making a whole lot of sense when it comes to inconsistent data that is being produced and being fed, especially to our children, when it comes to global warming or climate change—whatever they’re calling it today…It’s a problem right from the start when you’re led to believe that 97 percent of scientists all agree that there is a consensus on global warming.” Guardian, 4/15/16

Rick Perry, former governor of Texas

Possible positions: Secretary of Energy

Views on climate change: “I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think that there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change…The cost to the country and to the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions, if not trillions, of dollars at the end of the day. And I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and, from my perspective, is more and more being put into question.” Perry campaign speech via CBS News, 8/17/11

Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general

Possible position: EPA administrator, secretary of Interior

Views on climate change: “The EPA does not possess the authority under the Clean Air Act to accomplish what it proposes in the unlawful Clean Power Plan. The EPA is ignoring the authority granted by Congress to states to regulate power plant emissions at their source. The Clean Power Plan is an unlawful attempt to expand federal bureaucrats’ authority over states’ energy economies in order to shutter coal-fired power plants and eventually other sources of fossil-fuel generated electricity.” Pruitt press release, 7/1/15

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Look at All the Climate Change Deniers Vying for Jobs in the Trump Administration

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Banning Lobbyists Might Sound Like a Good Idea. But Here’s What Trump Is Missing.

by WilfordLockhart Posted on November 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s transition team announced one phase of the president-elect’s plan to “drain the swamp” of corruption—a prohibition on registered lobbyists serving in his administration and a five-year lobbying ban for Trump officials who return to the private sector. Trump’s plan effectively doubles down on a policy that the Obama administration already has in place—one that many good government groups and lobbyists alike believe may have created a new problem: un-lobbyists—that is, influence-peddlers who avoid registering as lobbyists to skirt the administration’s rules.

Obama, like Trump, campaigned on a platform of aggressively rooting out the influence of lobbyists. After taking office, he put in place several major good-government initiatives, including a ban on lobbyists serving in his administration and a two-year cooling-off period before ex-administration officials could register to lobby. Once Obama’s lobbying rules took effect, there was a sharp decline in the number of registered lobbyists. Industry insiders and watchdog groups that track the influence game noted that the decrease was not due to lobbyists hanging up their spurs as hired guns for corporations and special interests. Rather it appeared that lobbyists were finding creative ways to avoid officially registering as such. There was no less influence-peddling going on, but now there was less disclosure of the lobbying that was taking place.

The problem lies with the definition of who is a lobbyist. The federal government requires anyone who spends more than 20 percent of their time on behalf of a client while making “lobbying contacts”—an elaborate and specifically defined type of contact with certain types of federal officials—to register as a lobbyist and file quarterly paperwork disclosing their clients and the bills or agencies he or she sought to sway. But by avoiding too many official “lobbying contacts” and limiting how much income that kind of work accounts for, lobbyists can shed the scarlet L, describing themselves as government affairs consultants or experts in advocacy and public policy. In 2014, the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics examined the trend of the “un-lobbyist” and found that 45 percent of the lobbyists who had shed their designation in the previous year still worked for the same employer. In many cases, the lobbyists didn’t leave their jobs, CRP found, they just changed their titles.

The Trump plan, which just tacks three years on to the Obama administration’s existing ban, does stop short of the Obama rules in one area. Under Obama’s policy, people who had been registered lobbyists could not work for agencies they had previously lobbied, though he did offer “waivers” to certain officials. According to Trump aides, registered lobbyists will be eligible for administration jobs if they de-register as lobbyists. The Washington Post reports that Josh Pitcock, a close aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, took the step on Monday, sending the Senate Clerk’s office notice that he is no longer a lobbyist for the State of Indiana.

In the end, said Richard Painter, the chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, the Trump plan may only perpetuate the problem of un-lobbyists.

“People are going to react to the Trump thing in the same way,” Painter notes, “by saying, ‘I’ll figure out a way to not be a lobbyist.'”

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Banning Lobbyists Might Sound Like a Good Idea. But Here’s What Trump Is Missing.

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Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army

by MargoPinkney Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump’s favorite general, Michael Flynn, was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency a couple of years ago. The circumstances have long been a bit mysterious. On one side, the story is that he was pushed out due to a revolt of his senior staff over his abusive and chaotic management style. Flynn himself says it was because he was tough on Islamic terrorism, and the weenies in the White House didn’t like it.

In any case, Flynn has been “right wing nutty” ever since, in Colin Powell’s words, so naturally he’s now in line for a top position in the Trump administration. Possibly National Security Advisor. But whatever you think of Flynn, he was the head of an intelligence agency and therefore ought to have a pretty good BS detector. Apparently he doesn’t:

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Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army

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Um, where did all of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice just go?

by KatherineUbc Posted on November 17, 2016

Many have agreed that President-elect Donald Trump has some questionable ideas when it comes to climate policy. Today, we get to add anthropomorphized gym sock O’Reilly and known cup goblin Starbucks to that list!

On Wednesday’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor, he advised Trump on a number of items to consider as he prepares to take office. On this list:

“Finally, President-Elect Trump should accept the Paris treaty on climate to buy some goodwill overseas. It doesn’t really amount to much anyway, let it go.”

Well, the thing is, it does actually amount to a lot.

Here’s a confusing screenshot, because this action item appears under the heading “What President Obama Failed to Do,” when President Obama did, in fact, succeed in accepting the Paris Agreement.

On Thursday morning, a coalition of 365 major companies and investors submitted a plea to Trump to please, come on, just support the goddamn Paris Agreement, because to do otherwise would be a disastrous blow to the United States’ economic competitiveness. The list includes Starbucks (the nerve!!!!), eBay, Kellogg, and Virgin.

Anyway, Trump’s whole “refusing to acknowledge climate change” thing seems like a bad look.

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Um, where did all of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice just go?

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A woman who fought predatory oil and gas leasing on Native lands got the Presidential Medal of Honor.

by TrentSeeley753 Posted on November 17, 2016

Many have agreed that President-elect Donald Trump has some questionable ideas when it comes to climate policy. Today, we get to add anthropomorphized gym sock O’Reilly and known cup goblin Starbucks to that list!

On Wednesday’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor, he advised Trump on a number of items to consider as he prepares to take office. On this list:

“Finally, President-Elect Trump should accept the Paris treaty on climate to buy some goodwill overseas. It doesn’t really amount to much anyway, let it go.”

Well, the thing is, it does actually amount to a lot.

Here’s a confusing screenshot, because this action item appears under the heading “What President Obama Failed to Do,” when President Obama did, in fact, succeed in accepting the Paris Agreement.

On Thursday morning, a coalition of 365 major companies and investors submitted a plea to Trump to please, come on, just support the goddamn Paris Agreement, because to do otherwise would be a disastrous blow to the United States’ economic competitiveness. The list includes Starbucks (the nerve!!!!), eBay, Kellogg, and Virgin.

Anyway, Trump’s whole “refusing to acknowledge climate change” thing seems like a bad look.

Link:

A woman who fought predatory oil and gas leasing on Native lands got the Presidential Medal of Honor.

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The Apotheosis of Donald Trump Is Proceeding Apace

by IlaLibby00832 Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Corey Lewandowski was once Donald Trump’s campaign manager, then went to work for CNN as a Trump booster, and is now back in the Trump camp. So how did Trump make his big comeback?

“With eleven days to go, something amazing happened,” Mr Lewandowski said in a speech at the Oxford Union debating society on Wednesday evening. “The FBI’s director James Comey came out on a Friday and he said they may be reopening the investigation into Crooked Hillary’s emails.”

Yep, that was pretty amazing. I’m glad we all agree that this was a pivotal moment. So what happened next?

“In those last last eleven days Mr Trump was exceptionally disciplined. He used a teleprompter, and he did less media. The team used social media like no campaign in history….And then, Donald Trump won the election campaign by the largest majority since Ronald Reagan in 1984.“

Huh. The largest majority since 1984? Really? Let’s take a look:

There have been eight presidential elections since 1984. In popular vote margin, Trump is 8th out of 8. In the Electoral College vote, he’s 6th out of 8. This obviously wasn’t just a careless mistake on Lewandowski’s part.

The Trump team seems to be hellbent on propagating the myth that Trump won a world historical victory last week. Is this just to soothe Trump’s bottomless ego? Or is this part of a deliberate campaign to get his followers amped up into believing that Trump is a world historical figure? Is “Trump won big” the new “Iraq was behind 9/11”? You might recall that that one didn’t turn out so well.

Read article here: 

The Apotheosis of Donald Trump Is Proceeding Apace

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The NSA Chief Says Russia Hacked the 2016 Election. Congress Must Investigate.

by RBXFelisha Posted on November 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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Despite all the news being generated by the change of power underway in Washington, there is one story this week that deserves top priority: Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. On Tuesday, the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.” He added, “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily.”

This was a stunning statement that has echoed other remarks from senior US officials. He was saying that Russia directly intervened in the US election to obtain a desired end: presumably to undermine confidence in US elections or to elect Donald Trump—or both. Rogers was clearly accusing Vladimir Putin of meddling with American democracy. This is news worthy of bold and large front-page headlines—and investigation. Presumably intelligence and law enforcement agencies are robustly probing the hacking of political targets attributed to Russia. But there is another inquiry that is necessary: a full-fledged congressional investigation that holds public hearings and releases its findings to the citizenry.

If the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies are digging into the Russian effort to affect US politics, there is no guarantee that what they uncover will be shared with the public. Intelligence investigations often remain secret for the obvious reasons: they involve classified information. And law enforcement investigations—which focus on whether crimes have been committed—are supposed to remain secret until they produce indictments. (And then only information pertinent to the prosecution of a case is released, though the feds might have collected much more.) The investigative activities of these agencies are not designed for public enlightenment or assurance. That’s the job of Congress.

When traumatic events and scandals that threaten the nation or its government have occurred—Pearl Harbor, Watergate, the Iran-contra affair, 9/11—Congress has conducted investigations and held hearings. The goal has been to unearth what went wrong and to allow the government and the public to evaluate their leaders and consider safeguards to prevent future calamities and misconduct. That is what is required now. If a foreign government has mucked about and undercut a presidential election, how can Americans be secure about the foundation of the nation and trust their own government? They need to know specifically what intervention occurred, what was investigated (and whether those investigations were conducted well), and what steps are being taken to prevent further intrusions.

There already is much smoke in the public realm: the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Also, Russian hackers reportedly targeted state election systems in Arizona and Illinois. Coincidentally or not, the Russian deputy foreign minister said after the election that Russian government officials had conferred with members of Trump’s campaign squad. (A former senior counterintelligence officer for a Western service sent memos to the FBI claiming that he had found evidence of a Russian intelligence operation to coopt and cultivate Trump.) And the DNC found evidence suggesting its Washington headquarters had been bugged—but there was no indication of who was the culprit. In his recent book, The Plot to Hack America, national security expert Malcolm Nance wrote, “Russia has perfected political warfare by using cyber assets to personally attack and neutralize political opponents…At some point Russia apparently decided to apply these tactics against the United States and so American democracy itself was hacked.”

Several House Democrats, led by Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, have urged the FBI to investigate links between Trump’s team and Russia, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has done the same. According to various news reports, Russia-related probes have been started by the FBI targeting Americans associated with the Trump campaign. One reportedly was focused on Carter Page, a businessman whom the Trump campaign identified as a Trump adviser, and another was focused on Paul Manafort, who served for a time as Trump’s campaign manager. (Page and Manafort have denied any wrongdoing; Manafort said no investigation was happening.)

Yet there is a huge difference between an FBI inquiry that proceeds behind the scenes (and that may or may not yield public information) and a full-blown congressional inquiry that includes open hearings and ends with a public report. So far, the only Capitol Hill legislator who has publicly called for such an endeavor is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). On Tuesday, Graham, who was harshly critical of Trump during the campaign, proposed that Congress hold hearings on “Russia’s misadventures throughout the world,” including the DNC hack. “Were they involved in cyberattacks that had a political component to it in our elections?” Graham said. He pushed Congress to find out.

The possibility that a foreign government covertly interfered with US elections to achieve a particular outcome is staggering and raises the most profound concerns about governance within the United States. An investigation into this matter should not be relegated to the secret corners of the FBI or the CIA. The public has the right to know if Putin or anyone else corrupted the political mechanisms of the nation. There already is reason to be suspicious. Without a thorough examination, there will be more cause to question American democracy.

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The NSA Chief Says Russia Hacked the 2016 Election. Congress Must Investigate.

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