The official Thread for Trash/Repug CRAPICATION of America, the planet

[boutons_deux]

The White House Is Appointing Anti-Woman Judges

Counsel Don McGahn is giving a pass to nominees with terrible records on sexual violence and harassment.

Thus far in his administration, President Trump has nominated more than 50 people for federal judgeships.

An alarming number of them have expressed disdain for, or ignorance of, the realities that women face in confronting sexual violence, sexual harassment, obstacles to reproductive rights, and discrimination at work and in school.

Several have actively worked to make it harder for women to obtain redress when they are wronged.

Don Willett, appointed to a Fifth Circuit seat, formerly served on the Texas Supreme Court, where he ruled to limit the compensation that a victim of workplace sexual harassment can collect from an employer.

Another Fifth Circuit nominee, Kurt Engelhardt, currently serves as a judge on a Louisiana district court. There, he has established a pattern of preventing sexual-harassment claims from being heard by a jury, going out of his way to rule that allegations do not rise to the level of what is considered objectively hostile conduct.

A Seventh Circuit nominee, Michael Brennan, praised the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Morrison, which struck down significant portions of the Violence Against Women Act.

A Court of Federal Claims nominee, Damien Schiff, once brought a lawsuit challenging the application of federal le IX anti-sex discrimination rules to high-school sports, in which he made the astonishing claim that “Congress had absolutely no evidence before it enacted le IX that there was sexual discrimination going on in high schools.”

A Trump nominee now on the Sixth Circuit, John Bush, opposed women’s admission into the Virginia Military Academy. The military-style education at VMI, he wrote, “does not appear to be compatible with the somewhat different developmental needs of most young women.”

Oregon nominee Ryan Bounds once warned against overly zealous responses to campus rape allegations, thus: “Expelling students is probably not going to contribute a great deal toward a rape victim’s recovery; there is no moral imperative to risk egregious error in doing so.”

Meanwhile, some nominees have been dismissive when confronted with the issue of gender discrimination in employment.

Both Willett and Brennan have written skeptically about such discrimination, expressing disbelief that a “glass ceiling” exists.

On the reproductive-rights front, it is not surprising that many nominees have expressed staunch opposition to abortion.

This White House, including the top lawyer in charge of judicial nominations, hardly bats an eye when it comes to archaic or even hostile at udes toward the well-being of women.

That became painfully obvious when the Rob Porter mess bubbled to the surface, but Porter has left government service.

The federal judges who decide how the law will treat women if they are battered, abused, harassed, or discriminated against will be with us for decades

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-white-house-is-appointing-anti-woman-judges/

[boutons_deux]

Devos to states: Stop cracking down on predatory student loan companies

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is preparing to issue a declaration that

companies collecting federal student loans are off limits for state lawmakers and regulators.

The “notice of interpretation” argues that only the federal government, not the states, has the authority to oversee federal student loan servicers

That includes industry giants like Navient and Nelnet. [...]

But consumer advocates and nearly half of the nation’s attorneys general disagree, arguing that states have the right to oversee companies operating within their borders that collect loan payments from their residents.

The industry’s lobbying efforts last year drew criticism from a group of 25 state attorneys general, led by New York’s Eric Schneiderman.

In a letter, the attorneys general urged DeVos “to reject an ongoing campaign by student loan servicers and debt collectors to secure immunity for themselves from state-level oversight and enforcement.”

The Education Department “cannot sweep away state laws that apply to student loan servicers and debt collectors,” said the letter, which was also signed by a handful of GOP attorneys general, including Ken Paxton of Texas, Herbert Slatery of Tennessee and Cynthia Coffman of Colorado.

In other words, if it’s states and the little people on one side and giant loan companies on the other, the Trump Education Department, representing the supposedly populist president from the supposed party of states’ rights, is definitely supporting the giant loan companies.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...loan-companies

Christian extremist Devos is such a cheap to BigFinance

[boutons_deux]

Ending Rules to Curb 'Silent, Tasteless Killer,' Pruitt Makes It Easier for Polluters to Poison Nation's Water

Polluters wanted the Obama-era regulations weakend. Obsequious Pruitt just obliged.

The Environmental Protection Agency's industry-friendly proposal to roll back safeguards for the disposal of coal ash—a toxic by-product from coal plants that sits in pits at over 1,000 sites across the nation.

Thanks to industry pressure, the 2015 coal ash rule, which included increased inspections, monitoring, and stricter structural integrity standards for disposal sites, fell "woefully short of truly protecting the public from the dangers of coal ash,"

"Now, the Trump Administration is trying to pare back what already was the bare minimum."

Coal ash contains highly toxic contaminants like

mercury, cadmium, and arsenic,

and demands for stricter regulations of it followed large spills near Kingston, Tenn. and Eden, N.C.—spills the EPA acknowledged "caused widespread environmental and economic damage to nearby waterways and properties."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...lluters-poison

Hillary's EPA would have not have Pruitt as admin and wouldn't

Repugs = Dems ?

no, HUGE differences, Repugs being ing disastrous

[boutons_deux]

McDonald’s and cop just kicked out, made homeless man cry when he tried to eat meal

“I waved him down and said, ‘Hey, are you hungry?’

And he said, ‘Yes.’

So, I went in there with him and as soon as we went inside, the lady at the register says ‘You’re not getting food,” Gallo explained.

“He didn’t ask me for food. I saw him across the street and I brought him over here.”

Gallo’s excuse did nothing to moderate the disgusting treatment at the hands of the McDonald’s manager or

the officer, who wouldn’t even let the homeless man enjoy his meal in peace

(there's a video)

http://washingtonpress.com/2018/03/0...at-meal-watch/

[boutons_deux]

BEN CARSON, RETIRED BRAIN SURGEON, HAS LOBOTOMIZED HUD

After a year of overseeing the anti-poverty department, Carson is realizing he may be in over his head.

a president indifferent to both the mission of HUD and to the man he appointed to lead it, whom he reportedly considers a beta “winner,” not an aggressive “killer.”

The result, as the Times reports, is that Carson has been either unable or unwilling to secure the funds that HUD desperately needs to take care of the millions of low-income Americans who rely on public housing and other forms of assistance:

Mr. Carson, people close to him say, hates asking anybody for money — and has told advisers that

he feels acutely uncomfortable asking the president for anything that could be construed as a favor.

When the White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, proposed an 18 percent cut to HUD late last year, Mr. Carson reluctantly reached out to the president. Mr. Trump expressed sympathy.

Then he told him to “talk to Mick” about the details.

Carson eventually negotiated a 14 percent cut.

But “he often simply seems out of the loop—telling senior staff members at a gathering last spring that the

president had given him assurances that HUD’s budget would not be cut at all.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018...on-hobbled-hud

Repugs put this guy in HUD as an ignorant, incompetent, less placeholder as the Repugs up HUD

[boutons_deux]

Trump nominates Dow Chemical official to lead emergency response to toxic spills

Dow Chemical is linked to more than a hundred Superfund clean-up sites.

At Dow Chemical, Wright currently works as managing counsel for environmental health and safety.

Earlier in his career, Wright had jobs at several law firms as well as the agriculture giant Monsanto.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-nomi...-35dacf635af0/

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s Social Security budget offers more work, less staff, longer waits

President Trump’s proposed fiscal 2019 Social Security Administration (SSA) budget would cut staffing, a recipe for long waits in agency offices and on the telephone for those trying to navigate the often-difficult world of old-age, disability, survivor and Medicare benefits. Retirement and survivor benefits would not be hit.

under Trump, there would be fewer federal employees to deal with an increasing number of people of retirement age.

About 10,000 baby boomers hit retirement age every day.

The increase in workloads coupled with a decrease in staffing led to a

627-day wait for disability applicants’ hearings in 2017.

The three-minute telephone wait that callers had for

SSA’s 800 number in 2010 was six times longer last year.

Despite SSA attempts to direct traffic to its website, there were 2 million more field office visits in 2016 than 2015.

“More than 16,000 visitors were forced to wait more than hour for service each day in August 2017,”

“I accompany a 92-year-old neighbor to the Social Security,” Blair said. “He’s not computer literate … so I’m going with him. We had to go three times before he could get the service he needs because the lines were so long, and he’s disabled he can’t stand there all day. There was no seats for him.”

his daughter “almost gave up and cried because she just could not get the service in a timely manner” for her son’s survivor benefit after his father died.

“I have a brother that worked 34 years, became disabled,” Blair added.

“It took him two and a half years (to get a claim processed). What happens in that two and a half years? Savings gone, unemployment gone. So real people, this affects for real people.

“But it’s … more than just services.

To us, it’s a continued effort to dismantle Social Security.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.b8bfaccd0153

It's taken the oligarchy about 80 years to destroy SS, but they are getting very close.

Anything "common good" is being targeted for destruction by the oligarchy.

[boutons_deux]

After Calling Practice 'A Horror Show,' Trump Reverses Ban on Animal Trophy Imports

Breaking earlier promise, administration now says slaughtered elephants and other exotic animals will be allowed into U.S. on "case-by-case" basis



https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...trophy-imports

[boutons_deux]

Trash's Exec going full bore on Christian Sharia and Christian misogyny, esp hate for poor (black, brown) women

Abstinence-Only Advocate Assumes Control of Family Planning Funds Amid Latest Reproductive Health War

Congressional Republicans could further empower Trump official Valerie Huber to disregard the Obama-era emphasis on highly effective forms of contraception and turn the nation's affordable birth control program into a bastion of abstinence and natural family planning.



The Trump administration’s war on reproductive health care has expanded to include who controls the fate of his health department’s le X family planning grants,

Abstinence-only advocate Valerie Huber alone will determine which health-care providers will get awards from some $260 million in le X funds,

Before leading the le X office within President Trump’s virulently anti-choice U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),

Huber was “instrumental in attempts to remake ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage programs into poverty-reduction programs,”

The Trump-era le X grant criteria are notable for prioritizing federal le X dollars for providers that promote abstinence and natural family planning

HHS omitted any mention of “contraception” or “contraceptives,” in stark contrast to the Obama-era criteria.

https://rewire.news/article/2018/03/...ve-health-war/

[boutons_deux]

bag of hammers speaks

Energy Secretary Rick Perry says moving from fossil fuels to renewables is ‘immoral’

Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Wednesday that it was “immoral” to help poor nations shift off of fossil fuels.

“Look those people in the eyes that are starving and tell them you can’t have electricity,”

said Perry in remarks after his big speech to the oil and gas industry at the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

“Because as a society we decided fossil fuels were bad. I think that is immoral.”

Perry’s logic and morality are both blinkered. First, despite being in charge of a $2 billion clean energy program,

Perry seems completely unaware that solar and wind are now cheaper sources of electricity than fossil fuels.

https://thinkprogress.org/rick-perry...-58eca749f006/

As a Repug, Jimmy Ricky gives the tiniest about "morals"

[boutons_deux]

Trump HUD appointee spread conspiracy about Hillary Clinton’s satanic ritual



https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/tru...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

Anti-refugee White House aide given key refugee job at State Department

One former official said Veprek seemed "vindictive" about reducing the number of immigrants.

https://thinkprogress.org/anti-refug...-523f8f0f7d06/

[boutons_deux]

BULL from on the biggest crapifying corrupters

Charles Koch Complains About Corporate Influence In Politics

billionaire super-contributor Charles Koch complained Thursday in a newspaper opinion column about the unfair influence of corporations and the “privileged few” in political decisions.

“Our lawmakers must act on behalf of all Americans — not just the privileged few,”

“When large companies can pressure politicians to force everyday Americans to fork over unearned millions we should all question the fairness of the system,”

“Our entire economy is rife with cronyism.”

The Koch brothers, worth an estimated $100 billion together, have become

the gorillas of dark money contributions distorting American democracy

since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,

Koch insists he has used his financial clout only for the common good.

“We only support policies that are based on equality under the law and that help people improve their lives,”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...gEmail__030918

Just another corrupt oligarchy asshole insulting America's intelligence.

[boutons_deux]

Ben Carson Backpedals On Removing Anti-Discrimination Language From HUD Mission Statement

In a message to staff, Carson insisted the housing department would still ensure inclusivity in housing.

Secretary Ben Carson assured them he was committed to ensuring fair and discrimination-free housing ― despite his proposal to remove such language from the agency’s mission statement.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...gEmail__030918

[boutons_deux]

Here’s Jeff Sessions’ Draft Master Plan For The Justice Department

A draft strategic plan sidelines civil rights while emphasizing a crackdown on leaks and the MS-13 gang.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rapidly shifting the Justice Department’s focus from Obama-era goals such as civil rights enforcement and criminal justice reform to conservative priorities.

A draft version of the department’s five-year strategic plan obtained by HuffPost shows the Trump administration’s plans for the DOJ include cracking down on undo ented immigrants, aggressively prosecuting national security leaks, zeroing in on campus speech issues, targeting the MS-13 gang and restoring the “rule of law” throughout the country.


Sessions’ goals


The draft plan has four major strategic goals: counterterrorism; securing the borders and enhancing immigration enforcement; reducing violent crime; and promoting “integrity, good government and the rule of law.”

The draft plan also calls for immigration enforcement to be prioritized in every federal district across the country; to denaturalize those who obtained citizenship fraudulently; and to end “sanctuary” policies.


What’s not in the plan


the DOJ’s prior strategic plan emphasized civil rights enforcement and criminal justice reform, the draft version of the plan that HuffPost viewed does not.

Sessions has rolled back Obama-era sentencing reforms and publicly opposed a bipartisan sentencing reform bill,

Under Sessions, the Justice Department has retreated from police reform, which had become a top priority under the prior administration. Trump’s draft budget calls for the elimination of a historic office founded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that works to ease racial tensions.

Sessions has advanced an anti-civil rights agenda since the day he became the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

they don’t have the item that says ‘roll back civil rights progress’ on their strategic plan, which has been what they’ve been doing,” Gupta told HuffPost.

“Frankly they should’ve added that to the list.”



https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...gEmail__030918

The party of racism installed an intellectual runt and Alabama racist to run DoJ. No surprises

Listen to the little mother er talk for a few minutes to hear how ing ignorant, stupid, limited he is.

eg, JeBo says sanctuary cities are the same as Confederate secession

( as if he thought secession and the Confederacy were bad idea ).

[boutons_deux]

White House Officials Watched Betsy DeVos’ Disastrous Interviews ‘In Horror’

Trump Administration officials are extremely concerned with Betsy DeVos after how badly the Secretary of Education did in her recent media hits.

DeVos seemed unprepared to answer questions about what she’s done to improve national education.

Collins and Tapper both noted how DeVos has struggled with answering these types of questions before, and

Collins pointed out that DeVos was struggling to answer questions about the most fundamental aspects of her department.

“This is about exactly her purview here, and she couldn’t answer those basic questions and she also contradicted herself repeatedly,”

“Even people inside the White House watched in horror as those interviews were playing out.

It wasn’t just that interview last night,

it was also her two interviews this morning where

she couldn’t even defend the administration’s proposals on school safety.”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-kaitlan-collins-white-house-officials-watched-betsy-devos-disastrous-interviews-in-horror/

[boutons_deux]

Betsy DeVos Calls “60 Minutes” a Waste of a Half Hour





WASHINGTON — Furious about her treatment on the CBS news-magazine program on Sunday night, Betsy DeVos spoke to reporters on Monday, and called “60 Minutes” a “total waste of a half hour.”

“I had never watched ‘60 Minutes’ before, but I can tell you this, I will never watch it again,” the Education Secretary said.

“I have better things to do with a half hour of my time.”

Calling her interviewer, Lesley Stahl, a prac ioner of “gotcha journalism at its worst,”

DeVos said that it was “very unfair of her to ask me so many questions about education.”

“She asked me one thing about schools, and then another, and another,” she said.

“If I had to answer every question she had about schools, I would have had to bone up on education for a month.”

DeVos said that she was “frustrated” that Stahl neglected to ask her about any of

her “really good ideas” for the nation’s schools,

such as “purchasing guns for teachers

with money that is currently being wasted on books.”

“If a bear comes into your classroom, throwing a book at him will only stun him momentarily, at best,”

DeVos said.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/betsy-devos-calls-60-minutes-a-waste-of-a-half-hour

[boutons_deux]

Ditzy Devos kicks own goal

Betsy DeVos defends her terrible '60 Minutes' performance with an equally embarrassing tweet

So … Michigan used to be average or above average, and

now it’s below average, and

this shows that the problem is with schools nationwide?

That’s her defense?

For years, the Free Press has written extensively about how

Michigan’s performance on a national student assessment exam has declined dramatically

while other states have shown improvement.

A report released last week raised concerns about

large drops in student proficiency among third graders in the state and

found that Michigan had the biggest declines compared to 11 other states that use a similar exam.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre

Ditzy has basically, single-handedly (with her wealthy hubby), with her $Bs, screwed Michigan school system, meaning she's screwed Michigan students.

Repug kakistocracy

[boutons_deux]

ICE spokesman resigns, citing fabrications by agency chief, Sessions about California immigrant arrests

A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has resigned over what he described as

“false” and “misleading” statements made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ICE acting director Thomas D. Homan.

He said he had been told to “deflect” questions about the Oakland mayor’s interference with an ICE raid last month and

to refer reporters to statements from Sessions and Homan that suggested that hundreds of “criminals” (“criminal aliens,” Homan called them) escaped capture in Northern California

because the mayor tipped them off.

“I quit because I didn’t want to perpetuate misleading facts,”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.6dae3b5301f6

[boutons_deux]

Trump rolls back organic farm animal welfare rules so farm animals can be treated cruelly again

efforts to create a world where the worst impulses of humankind are rewarded.

The Hill reports that Trump’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will be rolling back an Obama-era rule that benefits one group of people over another.

The Trump administration has decided to withdraw an Obama-era rule that would have set new standards for the way animals should be treated if their meat is going to sold as “certified organic.”

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Monday that it is officially withdrawing the final rule it delayed for the third time in November.

The agency said the rule, which was set to take effect in May,

exceeded the department’s statutory authority and

could have had a negative effect on voluntary participation in the National Organic Program.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkreBigFarma makes govt policy for its own profits, just like all the oligarchy.

[boutons_deux]

Trump's CFPB looks at credit cards and, absurdly, sees 'a positive picture for consumers'

by Capital One, includes the benefit of being compensated "for losses you incur as a result of iden y fraud," which the agreement declares clearly and seemingly definitively.

But if you keep reading, you come to a lengthy series of exceptions that will not be covered. These include "indirect or direct damages or losses of any nature."

Waitaminnit. Losses you incur are covered, but not losses of any nature?

"It seems to me

they're saying that if they don't want to pay you, they don't have to," Hazelleaf said.

"That seems to make their iden y fraud reimbursement basically useless."

When the CFPB issued its first report on the effects of the Card Act in 2013, ...

The latest report — the first under Trump's watch — was released in December. It has no concerns about the credit card market.

Rather, it says "the market shows significant innovation" and, overall, there's "a positive picture for consumers in the credit card market."

Yes, kids: Banks are your friends!

This is, of course, foolish. While the Card Act has helped make the market for plastic more transparent, I can't imagine any consumer thinking there's no need for vigilance.

Since Mick Mulvaney, who also serves as White House budget director, took over in November as interim chief, the order of the day has been to

scale back regulatory oversight and enforcement as much as possible.

The White House also has called for

slashing the bureau's budget by 23% and eliminating rules "that unduly burden the financial industry."

total household debt is at a record $13.15 trillion

, according to the Federal Reserve.

Consumers were carrying a total of $834 billion in credit card balances as of the end of last year.

http://www.latimes.com/business/laza...s=mcnewsletter

Repugs fake being freaked out by national debt, but have no concern if citizens are debt-slaved to BigFinance

iow, like the USA, the economy is debt financed, with BigFinance pocketing $Ts in interest, fees, bank overdraft fleecings.

[boutons_deux]

Ditzy Devos, oligarchy royalty, the Christian supremacist idiot supreme



Here are 21 reasons Betsy DeVos is so widely disliked

Why People Hate Betsy DeVos:

1) She didn’t earn her position as Education Secretary. She bought it. And even then it took a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence to shove her down our throats.

2) She wants to spend tax dollars to boost privatized schools in which she has a financial stake.

3) She doesn’t mind taking funding away from public schools to do it.

4) She wants to destroy the entire system of public schools which enroll 90% of America’s children.

5) She doesn’t really know what public schools are, having never attended one or having never sent her children or grandchildren to one.

6) She wants to arm teachers not because it will protect kids from school shooters, but because that boosts her family’s investment portfolio (i.e., her brother’s mercenary army for hire, Blackwater).

7) She won’t make charter and voucher schools give the same services to special education kids as those provided by traditional public schools.

8) She’s getting rid of students’ civil rights protections while adding protections for nefarious student loan providers and fly-by-night online schools.

9) She’s rescinded rules that protected trans students.

10) She’s considering rescinding rules that protect minority students from being unfairly and disproportionately disciplined by schools.

11) She’s made it harder for victims of sexual assault and harassment to report abuse and easier for those accused to avoid prosecution.

12) She talks about state’s rights to determine their own education systems while using the power of the federal government to coerce them into doing things her way.

13) She wastes public tax dollars. She is the only Cabinet member protected by Federal Marshals, which costs us nearly $1 million a month. Whether this is necessary or not, as a billionaire she could save the taxpayers money by taking on this cost, herself.

14) She doesn’t care if the public doesn’t want her at their school or event. She goes anyway and then pretends to be angry that protestors showed up. She doesn’t seem to understand that as a public servant she should serve at our pleasure – not the other way around.

15) She uses tragedy as a photo-op – as she did when she visited the Parkland school to promote arming teachers. She didn’t meet significantly with students or staff. She didn’t listen to their concerns. She even bailed on her own press conference there when the queries weren’t to her liking.

16) She has no problem whitewashing black history as she did when she claimed historic black colleges were pioneers of school choice. In reality they had no choice. For many African Americans at the time, it was either create black colleges or forgo post-secondary education at all.

17) She is ignorant (purposefully or not) of the results of her own policies. Her advocacy of school choice in her home state of Michigan has weakened that state’s public schools, not strengthened them.

18) She’s out of touch with average Americans. She’s the richest member of Trump’s Cabinet and often travels in her own super-luxury yacht.

19) She’s rich not because she earned it, but because she was born into it and married into even more wealth. Moreover, much of her wealth is due to her family’s Amway fortune – basically it’s founded on rooking average people out of their hard earned money with what’s essentially a pyramid scheme.

20) She’s arrogant. She smiles vacantly at topics that don’t deserve a smile – they deserve serious regard.

21) She is extremely biased and partisan. She is supposed to serve the public interest, but her radical Christian Fundamentalism and anti-LGBT activism make her untrustworthy to serve in that capacity. Statements such as

“There is enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education… Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom,” do not help.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/21-reasons-betsy-devos-widely-disliked/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

Trump enters a manic phase, discovers presidential power: That’s not good

Trump ramps up the ugliness with the promotion of zealot Mike Pompeo and torturer Gina Haspel. What’s next?

President Trump had quite a day on Tuesday.

He fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in crude and cowardly fashion,

announced that he is moving the unqualified CIA director, Mike Pompeo, over to the ghostly halls of the nearly empty

State Department to do a job for which he also has no experience.

Then he nominated Gina Haspel, one of the most notorious CIA officers in American history,

a woman best known for enthusiastically torturing terrorist suspects and then destroying all the evidence of doing so, to run the agency.

Then the president took off for the California-Mexico border, where he

uttered some gibberish about "the wall" needing to be transparent,

after which he addressed some service members and announced his latest great idea:

"My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war fighting domain just like the land, air and sea,"

Trump said. He also entertains the idea of adding a new military branch, calling it the "Space Force."

something has changed in Trump.

I ascribed what I see as a new frenetic assuredness to his realization that the president has a tremendous amount of power and that there's little anyone can do to stop him from exercising it, particularly in certain areas.

More importantly,

he has seen that the Republicans in Congress are unwilling to take any steps to thwart him,

while the courts move at a glacial pace.

To a significant degree, he can do what he wants.

https://www.salon.com/2018/03/14/tru...hats-not-good/

[boutons_deux]

What's Next?

how about neocon, world-hating imperialist neocon Bolton as 100% politicized NSA?

Trump won’t force John Bolton to shave mustache as security adviser but it’s a ‘sensitive subject’

Trump may replace current National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster with Bolton.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/tru...ubject-report/

[boutons_deux]

Yet another so-called Bible-humpring Christian bag from hole TX

Texas Republican mocks Stephen Hawking after his death — and gets obliterated by his colleagues


far-right legislator in Texas is under firing for trolling renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who died at the age of 76 on Tuesday.

“Stephen Hawking now knows the truth about how the universe was actually made,”

Rep. Briscoe Cain tweeted.

“While many see him as one of the greatest public intellectuals of the last century, and no one disputes that he was brilliant, the fact remains that God exists,” Rep. Cain claimed.

“My tweet was to show the gravity of the Gospel and what happens when we die, namely, that we all will one day
meet the Creator of the universe face to face.”

The American-Statesman noted Cain had the most conservative voting record in the Texas House,

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/tex...e+Raw+Story%29