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

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EPA to drop 3,000 jobs as Upper Midwest gets its reward for helping Trump

Under the administration’s plan, 3,000 EPA employees nationwide would lose their jobs. Closing the Chicago office, and eliminating its 1,000 positions, would help accomplish that goal.

Trump’s budget plan would slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by nearly a third, including reductions for the agency’s enforcement and compliance office and ending the $300 million-a-year Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, among other regional efforts.

Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said that decisions had been based on whether you could ask “a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs.” Apparently those single moms aren’t concerned about the health of their children.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/0...r-new-pew-poll

Mulvaney is one the nastiest of Trash's nasties.

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Energy Secretary Rick Perry orders study on electric grid, appoints known renewable-hating skeptic to write it

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has ordered a study of the US electric grid, complaining that it is “losing its diversity” even as it adds wind, solar, geothermal and fancy new batteries.

Even though this has created thousands of jobs in new industries, he says the opposite

"But excessive regulation isn't the only issue facing the grid," Fisher continued.

"Other policies undermine our electric system by subsidizing unreliable sources of power like wind and solar, which provided around 4 percent of our electricity generation last year.

Subsidizing unreliable generation while wiping out reliable sources is a huge gamble — a real-time experiment to see whether or not we can keep the lights on."

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/energy-secretary-rick-perry-orders-study-electric-grid-appoints-known-renewable-hating-skeptic-write-it.html

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As Congress Preps To Scrap Prepaid Card Protections, Lawsuit Seeks Release Of Emails Between Lawmakers & Lobbyists

Congress is set to consider a fast-tracked proposal that would nullify a slew of new protections for the millions of Americans who use prepaid debit cards.

With the clock ticking down to that vote, a lawsuit is trying to compel the release of any communications about these rules between industry lobbyists, lawmakers, and federal regulators.

https://consumerist.com/2017/04/18/as-congress-preps-to-scrap-prepaid-card-protections-lawsuit-seeks-release-of-emails-between-lawmakers-lobbyists/

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Another TURD floating around in the Repug cesspool trying to bully the media

‘Better watch your ass’: Twitter locks Roger Stone’s account for threatening Media Matters staffer

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/bett...tters-staffer/

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Everything Ajit Pai Has ed Up in the Last Three Months




The Federal Communications Commission voted today to eliminate price caps on broadband services for businesses, schools, libraries, and hospitals, known as Business Data Services (BDS).

Making it harder for the poor to get broadband

In March, Pai announced he would direct the FCC to eliminate the federal designation process for broadband providers under the LifeLine program, which provides subsidized phone and internet access for the poor. Doing so makes it incredibly hard for broadband providers to sign up for the program, which was only expanded to broadband last year; there are currently no states that actually have this approval process in place.

While his big secret plan to repeal net neutrality regulations is still a big secret, Pai has already acted to erode some net neutrality principles. In February, Pai dropped an investigation started by Obama’s FCC into “zero-rating” deals, where carriers don’t count certain content towards customers’ data caps.

Under Obama, the FCC had pushed prisons to lower the rates prisoners pay for phone calls. Pai reversed that policy, instructing the commission not to defend that policy, with the deputy general counsel saying the majority “does not believe that the agency has the authority to cap intrastate rates.”

he blocked the implementation of a rule that would have required internet service providers to take “reasonable measures” to secure customers’ data, part of the larger package of privacy rules that Congress voted to erase. Pai, finding the notion of reasonable measures unreasonable, blocked the rule.

The dingus tweeted about how much he loved Amazon Prime, possibly violating an ethics rule preventing government employees from promoting any product or service. What an idiot.

http://gizmodo.com/everything-ajit-p...+%28Gizmodo%29

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Prepaid Card Users in Every State Could Lose Protections

About 23 million Americans and 1 in 10 households use prepaid debit cards, and more than $270 billion in payments was made on them in 2015—yet this Congress may choose to gut protections for them.

Next on the potential chopping block in the House and Senate: a comprehensive rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB. Finalized last fall, this rule would govern all prepaid debit cards for the first time starting later this year.

In every state, thousands—or in some cases, millions—of households at all income levels manage their money on these cards.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s 2015 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, 11 percent of households earning less than $50,000 reported using these cards in the past year, but so did 8.5 percent of higher-income households.

For financially vulnerable Americans, these cards are even more popular: The survey found that 27 percent of households without bank accounts use these cards, and people dealing with volatile incomes or unemployment also use these cards more frequently.

most significantly, the rule addresses risky overdraft practices on cards that tack on fees and trap consumers in debt. It sets requirements for borrowing on prepaid cards that are similar to those for credit cards to make sure this is a meaningful choice, not a debt trap.

“The Bureau’s commitment to a well-tailored and effective regulation, and its extensive collaboration across the prepaid industry, will result in a framework for prepaid accounts that is both beneficial to consumers and practicable for providers.”

That’s why the attempt to kill the rule in Congress is so dangerous.

The Congressional Review Act does not just eliminate regulations. It also blocks government agencies from introducing any substantially similar rules in the future.

This means that the CFPB would not get another chance to write rules governing prepaid cards even as the market continues to grow.

https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...e-protections/

And Repug Bill Clinton, along with other VRWC he signed, signed the CRA in 1996.

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SCHOOLS NEED GODDAMN INTERNET

The tradition of depriving public schools of resources, one crumb at a time, continues under Trump’s FCC.

On Thursday morning, the FCC voted to deregulate the $45 billion Business Data Services market,

removing price caps on business-to-business broadband sales.

There had been a limit on what companies like Verizon and AT&T could charge for so-called “special access lines.”

The price caps were designed to keep phone and, later, broadband, access cheap for community ins utions like schools, hospitals, libraries, and small businesses.

Now, there will be no limit.

A spokesperson for the trade association Incompas, which advocates for compe ion among communications providers, told

The Outline that the

increase is expected to be at least 25 percent across the board.

https://theoutline.com/post/1419/schools-need-goddamn-internet

Repugs' deregulating is meant to expose taxpayers to MAXIMUM FLEECING by BigCorp.

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Justice Department targets 9 jurisdictions in escalating crackdown on 'sanctuary cities'




The Department of Justice on Friday sent letters to nine so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions, threatening to withhold grant funding unless they prove that they are complying with federal law.

Recipients must certify compliance before June 30 in order to receive certain grants for the fiscal year 2016,

Recipients of the letters reportedly included New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, the state of California, Miami-Dade County, and Cook County, Illinois.

"Many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime,"

Under a 1996 federal law, 8 USC Section 1373, jurisdictions cannot prohibit local officials from withholding that information from federal authorities.

Jurisdictions with "sanctuary" policies say they already follow that law, and the 2016 report did not find that any of the cities it reviewed had explicitly violated Section 1373.

http://www.businessinsider.com/doj-t...-cities-2017-4

Another BIG WIN for Trash and his RACIST AG / DoJ.

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After Leading the Nation in Renewable Energy, Rick Perry Targets Solar and Wind Power

Wind and solar have combined with natural gas to produce virtually all the nation’s major new electrical capacity; coal and nuclear are economically less compe ive

First, it is noteworthy that as governor, Perry supervised expansion of Texas’ wildly successful Compe ive Renewable Energy Zones. It was an initiative that spurred the construction of electric transmission lines to connect with renewable energy facilities.

That initiative took great advantage of wind and solar, and energy storage facilities as a preferred option for sustained power grid reliability; options

he now says “have destroyed jobs and economic growth, and threaten to undercut the performance of the grid.”
Perry’s sudden reversal is due to being tasked by Trump as Energy Secretary to start “prioritizing fossil fuels [coal] and nuclear energy over renewables.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/...iticus+USA+%29

Jimmy Ricky, just another ignorant off from TX working as a Useful Idiot .

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Rick Perry called out for ‘thinly disguised’ attempt to undermine renewable energy

Former Koch-funded think tank official selected to lead DOE study.

request for the grid reliability study

“a thinly disguised attempt to promote less economic electric generation technologies, such as coal and nuclear, at the expense of cost-compe ive wind and solar power.”

The study appears intended to

blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear generators and suggest that renewable energy resources threaten the reliability of the grid,

McCormack was vice president of political and external affairs at the Edison Electric Ins ute (EEI), a major trade group for investor-owned electric utilities.

In this position, McCormack worked with the states to change net metering policies and push for fixed charge increases on electric bills, “part of a larger effort by EEI to attack distributed renewable energy like rooftop solar power,”

The Energy Department selected Travis Fisher, a political appointee, to lead the grid study.

Fisher worked as an economist for the right-wing Ins ute for Energy Research (IER) for three years before joining DOE in March.

IER bills itself as as

a free-market group that fights regulations it sees distorting the energy market and restricting the use of coal, oil, and natural gas in favor of lower-emission wind and solar power.
The senators questioned why Fisher, “a former official with the Koch Brothers-funded Ins ute for Energy Research”

https://thinkprogress.org/senators-attack-doe-grid-study-6d09434fa84a

Repugs and unstoppable oligarchy ing America deeper into un ability.

[Spurminator]

Don't even know why I bother clicking...

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Trump Ministry of Environment Issues Climate Newspeak: ‘Content Related to Climate Is Under Review’

Washington Post: EPA Website Removes Climate Science Site From Public View After Two Decades

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday evening

that its website would be “undergoing changes” to better represent the new direction the agency is taking, triggering the

removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information.
One of the websites that appeared to be gone had been cited to challenge statements made by the EPA’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt. Another provided detailed information on the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, including fact sheets about greenhouse gas emissions on the state and local levels and how different demographic groups were affected by such emissions.

The changes came less than 24 hours before thousands of protesters were set to march in Washington and around the country in support of political action to push back against the Trump administration’s rollbacks of former president Barack Obama’s climate policies.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Trump-Ministry-of-Environment-Issues-Climate-Newspeak?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm _campaign=Feed%3A+GTM_Solar+%28GTM+Solar%29

Oligarchy's hatchet men chopping up govt

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Bible-humping Christian Sharia news

Trump’s Latest Health Pick Thinks IUDs Kill Babies

Mike Pence speaking at a pro-life rally, to Trump hiring a health policy aide who has argued that birth control can "break your uterus for good,"

latest appointee, a staunch anti-abortionist who thinks IUDs cause abortions, is perhaps the most concerning, because she'll be bringing her anti-science views to a position charged with providing health information to the public.

Meet Charmaine Yoest.

a career anti-abortion lobbyist,

Yoest has spent her career lobbying for abortion and birth control restrictions with anti-abortion groups such as the Family Research Council, Americans United for Life, and American Values (these groups also support anti-LGBT agendas, it's worth noting). On its website, Americans United for Life boasts that Yoest is

"public enemy number one to many in the pro-abortion community."

her personal belief about abortion, it's her anti-science, anti-evidence perspective.

Yoest has stated that she believes intrauterine devices—little t-shaped contraceptive devices that are inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy—have "life-ending properties."

Along with not being a medical term, this is straight-up incorrect: IUDs prevent a pregnancy from occurring in the first place,

she believes abortions cause breast cancer

She's clearly stated beliefs that disregard science and evidence.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/trumps-latest-health-pick-thinks-iuds-kill-babies

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Trump wants to kill the Energy Star program. Guess what his motive might be?

Trump's properties tend to receive low Energy Star ratings. The most recent scores from 2015 reveal that 11 of his 15 skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are less energy efficient than most comparable buildings.

On a scale of 1 to 100 for energy efficiency, Manhattan's old Mayfair Hotel, which Trump converted into condos, rated a 1.

But none of this could matter if the administration has its way.

It has proposed cutting all funding to the Energy Star Program, run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4...new-york-times

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After 100 days of Trump, middle America has suffered — bigly

With our democracy increasingly hijacked by big individual and corporate donors, our elections have become the mechanism in which the economically powerful convert their money into political power.

Neither party has been immune from the toxic pull of big money because this is now the system.

the assumption that our country is governed by a set of democratic principles in which our highest elected officials serve our public interest has been demonstrably and epically shattered.

unraveling Dodd-Frank rules designed to protect the American people from a repeat of the Great Recession;

repealing a host of EPA regulations designed to fight climate change and protect our air and water; and

repealing Internet privacy protections that Big Telecom clamored for.

Trump has also repealed rules designed to protect worker safety and

rescinded a rule that would have given 4 million workersaccess to overtime pay.

So far middle- and working-class Americans have lost — big-time.

In fact, it’s hard to find a day when the Trump administration wasn’t changing policy at the behest of corporate interests and billionaire big donors.

And what makes this plutocratic administration so mind-bendingly appalling is that

it was built around a great political con, in what is likely to be viewed by history as the nation’s greatest political heist.

Donald Trump campaigned against the very kind of leadership he has embodied since taking the oath of office.

He campaigned to serve the interests of “the forgotten men and women” of this country, then swiftly forgot them himself and

followed the lead of big business,

proposing tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy,

deregulation that enriches industries and harms ordinary people and

government spending cuts to a whole host of agencies and programs that actually serve the very people he claimed were forgotten by previous administrations.

Donald Trump is the product of a deeply unhealthy political system, created by decades of conservative jurisprudence by the Supreme Court that has slowly and steadily morphed our democracy into a plutocracy.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...a-has-suffered

America is ED and irreversibly UN ABLE

[spurraider21]

Don't even know why I bother clicking...

that's a move i've considered making

worthwhile?

[Spurminator]

that's a move i've considered making

worthwhile?

Totally. Only thing that sucks is you still get notifications if they reply to you, and "hidden" messages still take up space. But definitely an improvement.

[spurraider21]

Totally. Only thing that sucks is you still get notifications if they reply to you, and "hidden" messages still take up space. But definitely an improvement.

i already get that with UNT, and he is well aware of the fact that i ignore his comments

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Trump Takes Aim at School Lunch Guidelines and a Girls’ Education Program

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that school meals would no longer have to meet some requirements connected with Mrs. Obama’s initiative to combat childhood obesity by overhauling the nation’s school menus.

“Just because children would rather eat heavily salted, processed foods at school doesn’t mean they should,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.

“The president’s fondness for Big Macs and KFC is well known, but we shouldn’t let Colonel Sanders and McDonald’s run the school cafeteria.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/u...lle-obama.html

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Repugs noticed your $200M purchasing of their notice.

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Betsy DeVos To Give Graduation Speech At Historically Black University, Proving No One Has Yet Suffered Enough

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos

who would like all Americans to send their children to the school of their choice as long as it makes a buck for someone,

has been invited to give the commencement speech this year at Bethune-Cookman University,

the university explained how all this happened:

Much like Dr. Bethune, Founder of Bethune-Cookman University, Secretary DeVos deems the importance of opportunity and hope for students to receive an exceptional education experience.

Her mission to empower parents and students

resonates with the history and legacy of Dr. Bethune. B-CU President, Dr. Edison O. Jackson expressed, “Bethune-Cookman University is a school built on the legacy and the transformation of students.

Dr. Bethune’s love for students started with five little girls and grew to over 250 students during her time as university president.”

“The legacy of Dr. Bethune is that she was not constrained by political ideology, but worked across all parties to support B-CU,” he explained.

https://wonkette.com/616522/betsy-de...uffered-enough

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Here's protectionist Trash trashing Dem California

U.S. ends ban on importing Argentine lemons, angering California citrus growers

California produces more than 90% of the lemons grown in the U.S. — 1.5 billion pounds last year — and competes with imports from Chile and Mexico, according to the USDA.

Chile and Mexico account for about 94% of lemon imports to the U.S., which have more than doubled in dollar value in the last five years, according to the USDA.

The USDA has predicted that Argentina probably would knock Chile out of compe ion for market share in the U.S., but

Nelsen predicted a long price war that would cost California growers hundreds of millions of dollars.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...502-story.html

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Ivanka Trump’s New Book Exploits and Cheapens Feminism

In her world, the possibilities for working women are endless—so long as they have full-time household help.

It’s a sign of how perilous and debased American life has become that people are putting faith in Ivanka Trump, creator of a line of mediocre synthetic workwear, to head off fascism.

It’s tempting to hope that she’s secretly appalled by her father’s reactionary politics, since before his catastrophic rise, she seemed a standard Manhattan liberal.

it’s a mistake to imagine too much daylight between her and her father

they’re on the same side, engaged in the same project of self-glorification and personal enrichment. Both exploit and cheapen what they touch. In his case, America. In hers, feminism.

a celebration of the unlimited possibilities open to working women when they have full-time household help.

“I had already taken a first step towards reimagining the options available to modern, self-purchasing WTF? women when in 2007 I launched my fine jewelry collection.”

Beneath the inspirational quotes from Oprah and the Dalai Lama and the you-go-girl cheerleading,

the message of Women Who Work is that people get what they deserve.

Her worldview, it turns out, is not so different from her father’s. Both see society through the lens of quasi-mystical corporate self-help, the sort pioneered by Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking and a major influence on Donald Trump.

In their schema, success is proof of virtue and people are to blame for their own misfortune.

Some women who worked for Ivanka were surprised to see her present herself as a crusader for women’s work-life integration. In October, Marissa Velez Kraxberger, former creative director at Ivanka Trump’s company, wrote on Facebook about how she and her team

had to fight “long and hard” to get Ivanka to agree to grant eight weeks of maternity leave.

The day before Women Who Work was published, Donald Trump appointed an anti-abortion activist who has said “contraception doesn’t work” to oversee the country’s only federal family planning program.

If anything proves that Ivanka Trump is her father’s daughter, it is that she has the audacity to present herself as a champion of women’s ambition and equality while serving in his administration.

Her refusal to acknowledge any contradiction between her feminism, however superficial it is, and her father’s reactionary politics almost feels like gaslighting.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2017/05/ivanka_trump_s_new_book_women_who_work_exploits_an d_cheapens_feminism.html

The Trashy nut falls directly under the Trashy tree.

[Chucho]

Ivanka Trump’s New Book Exploits and Cheapens Feminism

In her world, the possibilities for working women are endless—so long as they have full-time household help.

It’s a sign of how perilous and debased American life has become that people are putting faith in Ivanka Trump, creator of a line of mediocre synthetic workwear, to head off fascism.

It’s tempting to hope that she’s secretly appalled by her father’s reactionary politics, since before his catastrophic rise, she seemed a standard Manhattan liberal.

it’s a mistake to imagine too much daylight between her and her father

they’re on the same side, engaged in the same project of self-glorification and personal enrichment. Both exploit and cheapen what they touch. In his case, America. In hers, feminism.

a celebration of the unlimited possibilities open to working women when they have full-time household help.

“I had already taken a first step towards reimagining the options available to modern, self-purchasing WTF? women when in 2007 I launched my fine jewelry collection.”

Beneath the inspirational quotes from Oprah and the Dalai Lama and the you-go-girl cheerleading,

the message of Women Who Work is that people get what they deserve.

Her worldview, it turns out, is not so different from her father’s. Both see society through the lens of quasi-mystical corporate self-help, the sort pioneered by Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking and a major influence on Donald Trump.

In their schema, success is proof of virtue and people are to blame for their own misfortune.

Some women who worked for Ivanka were surprised to see her present herself as a crusader for women’s work-life integration. In October, Marissa Velez Kraxberger, former creative director at Ivanka Trump’s company, wrote on Facebook about how she and her team

had to fight “long and hard” to get Ivanka to agree to grant eight weeks of maternity leave.

The day before Women Who Work was published, Donald Trump appointed an anti-abortion activist who has said “contraception doesn’t work” to oversee the country’s only federal family planning program.

If anything proves that Ivanka Trump is her father’s daughter, it is that she has the audacity to present herself as a champion of women’s ambition and equality while serving in his administration.

Her refusal to acknowledge any contradiction between her feminism, however superficial it is, and her father’s reactionary politics almost feels like gaslighting.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2017/05/ivanka_trump_s_new_book_women_who_work_exploits_an d_cheapens_feminism.html

The Trashy nut falls directly under the Trashy tree.

LOL, modern day Facism parading around bat crazy women is NOT feminism. NO WAY in to "cheapen" that ing circus when Lena Dunham is a face of that "movement". Nothing more than typical Liberal Facsim.

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When a Dem and knitter retires, THEN the corrupt, -out Repugs want to block speechifying

Wall Street-Owned GOP Threatening To Take Obama’s Retirement Money Because Of $400K Speech

Even when Barack Obama isn't in the White House, Republicans in Congress are trying to bring him down.

Last year, then-president Barack Obama vetoed a bill that would have curbed the pensions of former presidents if they took outside income of $400,000 or more.

So now that former president Barack Obama has decided to accept $400,000 for an upcoming Wall Street speech, the sponsors of that bill say they’ll reintroduce that bill in hopes that President Trump will sign it.“

The Obama hypocrisy on this issue is revealing,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and sponsor of the 2016 bill.

“His veto was very self-serving.”Chaffetz and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the sponsor of the companion Senate bill, say they will re-introduce the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act this month.

Like just about every other president in modern history, Obama plans to give paid speeches after he’s out of office.

His upcoming speech to Wall Street likely won’t be the last in what will probably be a long list of post-presidency speeches to various organizations.

Why do Republicans suddenly feel that presidents should now be punished for delivering paid speeches just because it’s Obama who’s doing it?

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/...iticus+USA+%29

But Repugs will exclude any limits on their pensions when they retire and make $Ms lobbying?

or are the racist Repug only attacking knitters?