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

[boutons_deux]

Jeff Sessions and the Resurgence of Civil-Asset Forfeiture




Sessions has rewritten major criminal-justice norms in ways that diverge sharply from prevailing sentiments in America, and in much of his own party.

In his first six months in office, Sessions

has reversed one policy phasing out federal private prisons and

another seeking to combat draconian federal-prison sentences.

He’s called for an inquiry into the link between marijuana and violent crime, and

compared the drug’s “life-wrecking” harms to those of heroin.

And last month, falling further out of step with many Republicans’ slow retreat from the war on drugs,

Sessions reclaimed one of that war’s most disquieting weapons: civil-asset forfeiture.

"we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures,”

Since 2014, more than twenty states have passed civil-forfeiture reforms, with varying degrees of bite.

But Sessions’s order bucks this trend.

resuscitates a practice known as “federal adoption,”

which allows police and prosecutors to cir vent state restrictions on asset seizures by collaborating with federal authorities.

Through this partnership, state and local authorities turn their seizures over to federal colleagues, who “adopt” them for prosecution—ultimately returning up to eighty per cent of the assets to the originating cops or prosecutors to keep.

One result, often unaddressed in critiques of forfeiture, is the tacit encouragement of racial profiling and

targeting of property owners of color, who remain prime targets of the practice in much of the country.

I’ve examined at least three hundred civil-forfeiture cases over the last five years that involved no violent crime, and which did not implicate any alleged drug kingpins or sizable players in unlawful operations.

I’ve mostly found stories of small-fry folks accused, not convicted, of nonviolent offenses.

the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department uses civil forfeiture, finding that two-thirds of seizures were made in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

no right to a public defender.

the lack of due process inherent in civil forfeiture represents “the tyranny of what they’re doing to poor people.” “The people who are getting things taken from them, they’re low-wage people like me, and they can’t do anything about it,”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/jeff-sessions-and-the-resurgence-of-civil-asset-forfeiture?mbid=nl_TNY%20Template%20-%20With%20Photo%20(40)&CNDID=43758549&spMailingID= 11710467&spUserID=MTQzNTk4NzA3ODYzS0&spJobID=12214 58800&spReportId=MTIyMTQ1ODgwMAS2

racist kakistoscrat Sessions objective is to increase the targeting of knitters and Mexicans, and

preempt all states

that have tried to limit civil forfeitures

[boutons_deux]

‘He wants people to get fat’: Internet wonders why Trump nixed Obama-era WH bike share station




President Donald Trump’s administration has removed a nine-slot Bikeshare station at the White House, The Washington Postreports.

“It’s unclear why the White House wanted it removed,” The Post noted.

Capital Bikeshare users average saving $631 per year on personal travel cost, meaning the removal of the 9-slot station could cost White House staff $5,679 in increased transportation expenditures.

Bill McKibben
&#10004 BillMckibben

.Molly McKew
✔@MollyMcKew

If you have time to hate bikeshare, but not Nazis, you're doing it wrong


Leslie Burrell leslieBurrell75

Replying to @dcdutchiedude @bikeshare
Well.....cars are bad. But, there are some mighty fine cars out there. Bikes didn't have a permit.


Mitchy McConell MitchMcConell

Replying to @dcdutchiedude @bikeshare
No detail of @BarackObama 's accomplishments is too small for Trump to want to erase from history, including this one. Wow.


Samuel Claiborne SamuelClaiborne

Replying to BillMckibben realDonaldTrump
Predictable: if there's a move to be made, Churlish #ManBoy #Buffoon
Eric Gibbs Ericwgibbs

Replying to BillMckibben and 2 others
he doesn't mind confederate monuments and racists who revere them, but bike stations gotta go


Analogbear @Analogbear

I'm reminded of when Carter installed solar panels on the White House, and then Reagan promptly removed them...Pettiness for zero reason.


Stu Krupoff @stukrupoff

Replying to BillMckibben realDonaldTrump
He wants people to drive, pollute and get fat. So evil.


http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/he-w...e+Raw+Story%29

Greasebag Trash,

(where's Trash's traditional Presidential annual medical checkup. Just another YOU, AMERICA)

rides around the golf course in a cart, and waddles to/from his cart and ball.

Trash is the anti-role model for ethics, morals, emotions, maturity, health, intellect, articulation.

No doubt Ms of sheeple are acting, consciously or unconsciously, worse in those areas by emulating Trash.

[boutons_deux]

Trump revoked an Obama rule that protected against flooding

He signed an executive order that, among other things, rescinds flood protections for federally funded buildings and infrastructure.

First reported by E&E News, Trump’s order undoes an Obama-era executive order that required new public infrastructure projects — like subsidized housing, hospitals, and fire departments — to be built a few feet above the so-called “100-year floodplain,” or the height at which there is a 1 percent chance you’ll experience an enormous flooding event.

The requirement accounts for future sea-level rise predicted by “the best-available and actionable science,” the order reads.

As the Washington Post noted in 2015, Obama’s order was the first time the federal government took sea-level rise projections into account, instead of relying only on historical data.

http://grist.org/article/trump-revok...inst-flooding/

[boutons_deux]

the bags that red/slave states elect. The FFs were terrified of true democracy, with reason.

House Republican embraces 5 conspiracy theories in one 20-minute interview

Rep. Kevin Cramer thinks universal health care leads to people stealing their neighbors' possessions

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)

Cramer said the “biggest obstacle” to economic growth is “all of this liberal activism”


Cramer said liberals are trying to scare business owners through “smashing their windows or burning their equipment”


Cramer said in an “en lement culture… pretty soon you start believing that your neighbor’s stuff is your stuff”


Cramer didn’t object when the host said Hillary dressed like Chairman Mao


Cramer didn’t argue when the host said Obama “sells out” America so he can become U.N. Secretary General


https://thinkprogress.org/trump-cram...-494f1bc90a68/

[BillMc]

‘He wants people to get fat’: Internet wonders why Trump nixed Obama-era WH bike share station




President Donald Trump’s administration has removed a nine-slot Bikeshare station at the White House, The Washington Postreports.

“It’s unclear why the White House wanted it removed,” The Post noted.

Capital Bikeshare users average saving $631 per year on personal travel cost, meaning the removal of the 9-slot station could cost White House staff $5,679 in increased transportation expenditures.

Bill McKibben
&#10004 BillMckibben

.Molly McKew
✔@MollyMcKew

If you have time to hate bikeshare, but not Nazis, you're doing it wrong


Leslie Burrell leslieBurrell75

Replying to @dcdutchiedude @bikeshare
Well.....cars are bad. But, there are some mighty fine cars out there. Bikes didn't have a permit.


Mitchy McConell MitchMcConell

Replying to @dcdutchiedude @bikeshare
No detail of @BarackObama 's accomplishments is too small for Trump to want to erase from history, including this one. Wow.


Samuel Claiborne SamuelClaiborne

Replying to BillMckibben realDonaldTrump
Predictable: if there's a move to be made, Churlish #ManBoy #Buffoon
Eric Gibbs Ericwgibbs

Replying to BillMckibben and 2 others
he doesn't mind confederate monuments and racists who revere them, but bike stations gotta go


Analogbear @Analogbear

I'm reminded of when Carter installed solar panels on the White House, and then Reagan promptly removed them...Pettiness for zero reason.


Stu Krupoff @stukrupoff

Replying to BillMckibben realDonaldTrump
He wants people to drive, pollute and get fat. So evil.


http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/he-w...e+Raw+Story%29

Greasebag Trash, (where's Trash's traditional Presidential annual medical checkup. Just another YOU, AMERICA) rides around the golf course in a cart, and waddles to/from his cart and ball.

Trash is the anti-role model for ethics, morals, emotions, maturity, health, intellect, articulation.

No doubt Ms of sheeple are acting, consciously or unconsciously, worse in those areas by emulating Trash.

Every time you post Bill!cKibben ST alerts me I have a mention.

[boutons_deux]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Will Allow For-Profit Schools To Continue Offering Programs That Don’t Meet Standards

Earlier this year, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revealed plans to “reset” the Gainful Employment rule meant to hold for-profit colleges more accountable for the education they provide students. Today, she continued tearing apart the rule, announcing the intention to allow colleges to continue enrolling students in programs that run afoul of the regulation.

In a notice [PDF] published in the Federal Register today, the Department of Education announced that it would

“reduce the burden on ins utions” by revamping the appeals process for colleges when their programs fail to meet the gainful employment standards for employment after graduation.
The Rule

Under the Gainful Employment rule [PDF], for-profit educators must demonstrate their former students are making a living wage after they graduate.

For-profit colleges are at risk of losing their federal aid should a typical graduate’s annual loan repayments exceed 20% of their discretionary income, or 8% of their total earnings. Discretionary income is defined as above 150% of the poverty line and applies to what can be put toward non-necessities.

So for example, say the typical recent graduate of a career education program earns $25,000. That student would need to average annual student loan payments less than $2,000, or the school would be at risk for losing federal financial aid.

https://consumerist.com/2017/08/17/e...eet-standards/

iow, taxpayers to keep subsidizing TY fake colleges and enriching their investors, aka,

wealth transfer from taxpayers to Capitalists, with horribly indebted, unemployable/under-employable grads, with meangingless "diplomas", as collateral damage.

[boutons_deux]

A Texas Assistant Principal Wrote an Alt-Right Children's Book

Author Eric Hauser denies the book has racist themes. Source materials provided by his illustrator tell a different story.

The Adventures of Pepe and Pede

A reader's interpretation of The Adventures of Pepe and Pede will depend on their working knowledge of alt-right memes.

Pepe the frog is a cartoon character created by artist Matt Furie that became an internet meme. During the 2016 US election cycle, the alt-right adopted him as a symbol and mixed him with fascist imagery, and today both the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League recognize Pepe as a hate symbol.

Online fans of Donald Trump refer to themselves as centipedes.

Alkah is a bearded alligator, his name is one letter off from Allah—the Arabic word for God—and in this story, his minions are all beautiful pink creatures covered in icky black mud. In the book's illustrations, they look like women in burqas.

A few days after he released Pepe and Pede, principal Renee Koontz told the rest of the school staff that Hauser had just published his first book. The le immediately rattled at least one teacher, who told me about the meeting.

"That can't be what I thought I heard," teacher Chad Withers told Motherboard in a phone interview, recalling the moment he learned about the book.

Withers is the middle school's theater teacher and an 11-year veteran of Denton Independent School District (ISD), which includes Rodriguez Middle School.

He worried the book might be coded alt-right propaganda aimed at children,

but he reserved judgment until he'd read the thing.

Once he had, he was horrified. "The book was worse than I thought," Withers said.

"The story itself is de able, racist, and xenophobic. I was disgusted by it. I've never seen anything before that was so obviously targeted propaganda to children."

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...tm_source=tonl

check the link to see the unlinkable images

Ms of Texans really really suck camel

[boutons_deux]

They snubbed Trump. But the Koch network has still exerted a surprising influence over the White House

Koch’s sprawling network of conservative advocacy groups has exerted surprising influence in the Trump administration, scoring some early accomplishments and pushing its priorities to the top of the White House agenda.

It started with the quick rollback of a dozen Obama-era environmental and labor regulations — a to-do list orchestrated by Koch-backed groups even before Trump was sworn into office.

By spring, the Koch-backed Concerned Veterans for America was instrumental in passage of the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, a long-fought Koch effort to make it easier to fire employees at the beleaguered Veterans Affairs department, providing a blueprint for how to make an end-run around civil service protections that could be replicated across other federal departments.

In July, the Kochs celebrated the official demise of the border-adjustment tax, a tax-reform proposal backed by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan that was bitterly opposed by many business groups,

“The vacuum in Trump not having his own network is filled by people who’ve been cultivated for years by the Koch network,”

Also helpful is a Republican-led Congress made up of many lawmakers who depend on the network’s backing for reelection, and fear being attacked if they stray from the libertarian, small-government orthodoxy. Even without being active in the presidential race, the network spent $750 million during the 2016 election cycle, including $250 million on campaign ads, voter engagement and other efforts to advocate for issues and shape public opinion.
The early results show that Koch donors have remained a powerful force in politics

The network started attacking the GOP plan, running ads against specific House Republicans and criticizing the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, who spearheaded Ryan’s tax overhaul effort.

After months of intense campaigning by the Koch network — 10,000 phone calls to lawmaker offices and $2 million spent on tax-reform ads and advocacy overall — the proposal was shelved.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was featured at a Koch-backed event in Washington with Marc Short, the White House legislative director, about the administration’s tax plan moving forward. Short is a former aide to Pence and one-time president of Freedom Partners, a Koch-aligned group.

Through its vast array of think tanks, conservative groups and political operations, the network s ches together organizations around the Kochs’ libertarian-leaning small-government pursuits, funded by donations from more than 700 members who pay $100,000 annual dues to attend the summits.

“I think we’re really going to start doing some good,

where we see it every day now,” Koch told those gathered under the evening sun.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...IyMTU2NDg5NAS2

The Kock Bros network is unbeatable, as is the entire plutocratic, kleptocratic oligarchy, is why America is ed and un able, with the lower 80%, and the environment, in permanent, unstoppable decline.

[boutons_deux]

Just YOU, America.

We authoritarian, fascist oligarchists do whatever the we want, we are above the law, morals, ethics, so just try to stop us

'Downright Uncons utional': Gorsuch Slammed for Headlining Event at Trump Hotel

"Especially as many Trump decisions are likely soon to reach the court's docket, a healthy respect for public confidence in the court should have led Justice Gorsuch to demur."

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has reportedly agreed to headline the "Defending Freedom Luncheon" next month at the Trump International Hotel, which is the subject of numerous lawsuits that could eventually reach the nation's highest court.

Legal experts immediately sounded alarm upon learning that Gorsuch is set to be the featured speaker at the event, which is hosted by the conservative group The Fund for American Studies.

"It's a terrible signal for this group to be holding their meeting at the Trump International Hotel and for a Supreme Court justice to legitimate it by attending," Stanford law professor Deborah L. Rhode told the New York Times.

New York University ethics expert Stephen Gillers agreed, saying in an interview with the Times:

"At this highly divisive political moment, especially as many Trump decisions are likely soon to reach the court's docket, one just days later,

a healthy respect for public confidence in the court ( These assholes don't GAF about the public confidence )

should have led Justice Gorsuch to demur."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...nt-trump-hotel

[boutons_deux]

Heard of rape insurance? Texas Republicans just made sure women will have to buy it for abortions

Nicknamed the "rape insurance" bill for its cruel lack of exceptions for rape, incest, or fetal abnormalities, HB 214 mandates abortion coverage be removed from all private, state-offered, and Affordable Care Act insurance plans and sold as a separate — and unprecedentedly specific — policy.

What this means in theory is that people who want to be covered in the event that they need an abortion will have to purchase extra insurance for it.

In practice, it means insurance companies may simply stop covering the procedure altogether, the profitability of an "abortion-only" add-on being questionable at best.

As with many such laws, the state GOP's stated purpose is to "prevent those with moral, religious and philosophical objections from having to pay for the procedure."

"As a firm believer in Texas values I am proud to sign legislation that ensures no Texan is ever required to pay for a procedure that ends the life of an unborn child," said Governor Abbott in a press release.

"Under this new law Texans will not be forced to pay for elective abortions through their insurance plans."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/18/1691222/-Heard-of-rape-insurance-Texas-Republicans-just-made-sure-women-will-have-to-buy-it-for-abortions


Texas and Texans ing suck

Repugs REGULATING private industry and vaginas.

[boutons_deux]

Again, the Repugs plan to do what the oligarchy (always) wants, not what citizens want

U.S. national monument review to test key land protection law

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will recommend on Aug. 24 whether to eliminate or shrink nearly two dozen national monuments,

Zinke is expected to recommend that at least some of the national monuments under review - which were all created since 1996 - be rescinded or shrunk in size,

Trump has argued that previous administrations "abused" their right to designate federally protected monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act and put millions of acres of land - mainly in western states - off limits to drilling, mining, logging and other activity without adequate input from locals.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-interior-monuments-idUSKCN1B00H7?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&u tm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign= Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28Reuters+Politics +News%29

[boutons_deux]

‘It’s a total mess’: GOP sheriffs reportedly under pressure from Trump to break the law

The White House is allegedly asking some sheriffs keep undo ented immigrants in local jails longer than is legally allowable under federal court rulings.

“If we violate the law by doing what they ask us to do,

we’re subjecting ourselves, no question, to civil liability and civil rights violations,”

Republican Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast.

The former attorney says that the White House has no understanding of the legal issues involved when Immigration and Customs Enforcement files “detainers” to hold undo ented immigrants until ICE can assume custody.

“My takeaway from that conversation with

Stephen Miller is that he was uninformed about this problem,”

Gualtieri said. “I think that there are certain admin officials who think that these warrants [detainers] solve the problem, and are saying, ‘What are you sheriffs doing? Why aren’t you cooperating?’”

“The current ICE detainer notion that sheriffs can and should hold alleged illegal aliens beyond the time that their local charges are adjudicated is in violation of their cons utional rights while in the United States of America, and ICE knows this,”

Republican Sheriff Richard Stanek, of Hennepin County, MN

“The U.S. courts have ruled against this notion time and time again

– the way forward for ICE and local Sheriffs in partnership to protect public safety is a solution that both provides for public safety while at the same time protecting an individual’s cons utional rights.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/its-...e+Raw+Story%29

racist Bannon is gone, but racists Trash, Miller, Gorkkka remain

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s corporate infrastructure giveaway begins with air traffic control

The president signed a list of air traffic control “principles” in a fake bill signing.

President Donald Trump announced the first part of his infrastructure plan on Monday, which would privatize the air control system.

This week he plans to roll out the rest of his infrastructure agenda, which he said would invest $1 trillion in infrastructure.

The administration has released very few details about how it plans to invest in waterways and roads, and all of Trump’s policy statements have been removed from his campaign website.

But if his air traffic control announcement is any indication of where the rest of his infrastructure plan is headed,

it will be a massive giveaway to corporations and a departure from past infrastructure programs.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-air-...-12556f2fb56e/

iow, making BigCorp a toll gatekeeper to air travel.

"You want to fly? Pay the piper his rentier capitalism profits (and we're not sorry the system we own is ty)"

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s new energy regulatory head: We have to save coal to keep the country safe

The coal industry plays its "final card" in compe ion with natural gas and renewables.

The new head of the nation’s top energy regulatory agency cited “national security” as a reason to keep uneconomic coal and nuclear power plants running, a refrain that has become increasingly common among Trump administration officials.

generation, including our existing coal and nuclear fleet, need to be properly compensated to recognize the value they provide to the system.”

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-appo...-883ea5d3a96c/

Get ready to get fleeced for their lie of national security

[boutons_deux]

Another millionaire grifter pastor, a fraudulent Christian, spewing about Trash is God's tool, and Christian Supremacy is why God sent Trash to America

Trump’s Spiritual Adviser: Opposition To President Trump Is Opposition To God

Right-wing prepper pastor Jim Bakker interviewed televangelist Paula White, who is one of President Trump’s key spiritual advisers, on his television program today, where she declared that opposition to the president is opposition to God and explicitly praised Trump for not sounding or acting presidential.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “In other words, he’s not a polished politician. In other words, he’s authentically—whether people like him or not,

he’s been raised up by God because God says that He raises up and places all people in places of authority.

It is God that raises up a king, it is God that sets one down and so when you fight against the plan of God, you’re fighting against the hand of God.”

Later in the broadcast, when

White declared that Christians “were sent here to take over,”

Bakker excitedly agreed, asserting

“that’s why we have the president we have!”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/t...sition-to-god/

Typical hackneyed, cliched formulaic cant from the grifter crowd.

[boutons_deux]

Interior Secretary Zinke’s Contradictory Pardon Process


U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke is playing games with our national parks and monuments,

treating them like contestants on a reality show, to be voted off one at time.

It is all part of a sham review of 27 national monuments ordered by President Donald Trump this past April.

On August 24, Secretary Zinke is expected to make his final recommendations to President Trump, which could result in national monuments being closed or significantly altered.

Over the past several weeks, Zinke has “pardoned” several of the sites on his official review list.

So, let’s play along! The chart below identifies which monuments might clear Zinke’s publicly declared criteria for national monument status—and they all do.



https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...ardon-process/

Zinke will reduce or close the parks as dictated by resource extractors and property developers.

[boutons_deux]

Trump 'Wave of Destruction' Continues With Decision to Disband Key Climate Panel

"Any organization that disagrees with Trump, gets cut. Business committees, arts, and now science."

Even as reports from federal agencies demonstrate that the global climate scenario is becoming increasingly alarming,

President Donald Trump has decided to continue the "wave of destruction" his administration is inflicting on the environment—and on the agencies tasked with studying climate change—by

disbanding the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, which was tasked with helping government translate climate findings into plans for action.

As the Washington Post reported, the "charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment—which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives—expires Sunday," and the Trump administration has decided the panel will not be renewed.

The Post continued:

The National Climate Assessment is supposed to be issued every four years but has come out only three times since passage of the 1990 law calling for such analysis.

The next one, due for release in 2018, already has become a contentious issue for the Trump administration.

Administration officials are currently reviewing a scientific report that is key to the final do ent.

Known as the

Climate Science Special Report, it was produced by scientists from 13 different federal agencies

and estimates that human activities were responsible for an increase in global temperatures of 1.1 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2010.

Recent reports have indicated that the Trump administration—more specifically

Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—is taking direction from Big Oil,

so the move to disband a key climate advisory board was not met with surprise by scientists and commentators.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...climate-panel#

The oligarchy ing the planet for profit

[boutons_deux]

The Trump Administration Just Jeopardized The Lives Of Countless Coal Miners

What health effects will all the mining Trump wants to bring back to Coal Country have on miners and their families? Thanks to the President’s Interior Department, we may never know.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine were in the middle of conducting

a months-long study into a wide range of potential health risks related to increased surface mining.

Cancer risks, water pollution, and the effects of potential soil toxicity were just some of the real-world consequences researchers were examining.

Then on Monday, the National Academies released a statement saying the Trump administration had abruptly ordered them to

kill the study immediately.

“In an August 18 letter, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement informed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that it should

cease all work on a study of the potential health risks for people living near surface coal mine sites in Central Appalachia.”

-- National Academies statement.

Mountaintop removal, which has occurred on at least 500 Appalachian mountains, has clogged streams and waterways with heavy metals such as selenium and manganese, which can be toxic in high concentrations. The dust kicked up by these explosions is also considered a hazard.

http://verifiedpolitics.com/trump-ad...s-coal-miners/

[boutons_deux]

Trash's greasebag of a science pick argued same-sexmarriage would lead to legalizing pedophilia




Clovis said the science was still out but "as far as we know" being LGBT is choice. Clovis then concludes the protecting of LGBT people could mean that pedophilia would also be protected.

"Someone who engages in LGBT behavior -- I don't know what the science is on this, I think it's still out -- but as far as we know, LGBT behavior is a choice they make, Clovis says in a video obtained by CNN's KFile.

"So we're being asked to provide Cons utional protections for behavior, a choice in behavior as opposed to a primary characteristic." [...]

"There's no equivalency there between the civil rights issue associated between those protected classes and the civil rights of someone who engages in a particular behavior," continues Clovis.

"Follow the logic, if you engage in a particular behavior, what also becomes protected?

If we protect LGBT behavior, what other behaviors are we going to protect? Are we going to protect pedophilia? [...]

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

"follow the logic"

[boutons_deux]

Oligarchy / BigFinance division hires Repug s to enable BigFinance to pilfer $Bs from citizens

Another fiduciary rule delay would cost retirement savers $10.9 billion over 30 years

The Trump administration’s Department of Labor is actively working to weaken or rescind the “fiduciary” rule (the rule that requires financial advisers to act in the best interest of their clients).

The latest step in these efforts is a proposed 18 month delay of key provisions of the rule past their already-delayed implementation date of January 1st, 2018.

An additional 18-month delay would be enormously expensive to retirement savers. Previously, we estimated that the delays the department has already ins uted under the new administration mean that retirement savers will lose $7.6 billion over the next 30 years.

Using the same methodology, we estimate that an additional 18 months of delay of key provisions in the rule announced yesterday will cost retirement savers an additional $10.9 billion dollars over the next 30 years.

http://www.epi.org/publication/anoth...eid=3f6f7e5a76

[boutons_deux]

Taxpayers Just Wasted A Small Fortune On Tiffany Trump’s Luxury Vacation




The Daily Mail alleges that “official government records show three payments were made by the State Department to a car rental agency in Rome on July 18 totaling

$117,489.44” for Tiffany and her mother, Marla Maples, and their Secret Service detail as they jetted around Italy.

“Federal records show that three separate payments in the amounts of $54,694.84, $39,188.64 and $23,605.96 were made on July 18 in Rome” continues the Daily Mail expose.

Trump and Maples spent two weeks zooming around the Italian countryside before jumping on a yacht for a cruise on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/08/2...xury-vacation/

That's car rental only.

What about Secret Service travel and living expenses?

Probably a total $250K+ sucked out of taxpayers pockets.

That's about 6+ years total salary for 10Ms of Americans

[boutons_deux]

Repug FCC enabling BigNetwork to ignore poor (white) rural areas which are predominantly Repug counties.

This is exactly what rurual Repugs voted for.

They ignorant rurals ideology is that govt is not supposed to protect American from BigCorp's ty products.

So, "Let Us Be Screwed"

FCC Considers Smart Phones Broadband Deployment, That’s Laughable.

Mobile Internet service, especially at speeds less than 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload, is not equivalent to high-speed home Internet service.

On paper, the FCC statistics will show that rural America has sufficient Internet access, but the reality in the trenches will remain as it is today – poor connectivity in many rural communities.

A similar situation has already happened in Iowa, where the inclusion of satellite Internet service is now considered broadband access. The interactive FCC 2016 Broadband Deployment Map clearly shows that almost all of Iowa has high-speed Internet access via satellite. One can use satellite service to browse the web, but it has significant limitations, especially when uploading data.

https://ilsr.org/fcc-considers-smart...ats-laughable/

===================

Maybe Americans don’t need fast home Internet service, FCC suggests

By saying mobile is good enough, FCC could find that deployment problem is solved.

If the FCC finds that broadband isn't being deployed quickly enough to everyone, it is required by law to "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting compe ion in the telecommunications market."

But with Republican Ajit Pai now in charge, the FCC seems poised to change that policy by declaring that mobile broadband with speeds of 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream is all one needs. In doing so, the FCC could conclude that broadband is already being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, and thus the commission could take fewer steps to promote deployment and compe ion.

This would also be the first time that the FCC has set a broadband speed standard for mobile;

at 10Mbps/1Mbps, it would be less than half as fast as the FCC's home broadband speed standard of 25Mbps/3Mbps.

But Pai has made it clear in previous years that he thinks mobile broadband can subs ute for fixed connections. As far back as 2012, Pai's first year on the commission,

he criticized the then-Democratic majority for concluding that mobile Internet service can't replace home Internet. In 2012, Pai said:

[T]he Commission has consistently ignored in recent years the statute's direction that "advanced telecommunications capability" may be deployed "using any technology."

That instruction does not permit us to segregate fixed connections from mobile connections,

focusing on the former and neglecting the latter.

Instead, in making our statutory finding we should consider all broadband services meeting the statutory definition regardless of the technologies used to deploy them.

https://arstechnica.com/information-...-fcc-suggests/

[boutons_deux]

Another day, another Trump official with ties to Holocaust denial and the pro-Nazi movement

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump appointed Teresa Manning, a leading anti-abortion activist, to be a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The pick was controversial because Manning, formerly a legislative analyst at the conservative Family Research Council and a lobbyist for the National Right to Life Committee,

would be in charge of family planning policy,

even though she has questioned the efficacy of contraception in preventing pregnancy and has said government should not play a role in family planning.

Her links to the Holocaust-denying right are direct.

In her anti-abortion role

she edited a 2003 book of essays by fellow anti-abortion activists.

One of those essays was by Joe Sobran,

who joined her onstage for a promotional event for the book. That

Joe Sobran was at the time well known throughout conservatism for his anti-Semitic writings and promotion of Holocaust deniers

was, apparently, not a deal breaker for Manning and her "pro-life" audience.

In her flattering introduction of Sobran, Manning neglected to mention that a few months earlier, in June 2002, he was a speaker at the 14th annual convention of the Ins ute for Historical Review. This is how the Southern Poverty Law Center has described the group: “Founded in 1978 by Willis Carto, a longtime anti-Semite,

the Ins ute for Historical Review (IHR) is a pseudo-academic organization that claims to seek ‘truth and accuracy in history,’ but whose real purpose is to promote Holocaust denial and defend Nazism.”

That there are still, in this millennium, people in America obsessed with defending the Nazis is remarkable.

It’s also remarkable how

Trump's team just happens to keep appointing figures from the far-right

with so many of the same marks on their resumes.

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

in charge of family planning policy? How about eugenics / sterilization / abortion only for Jews, blacks, Mexicans?

[boutons_deux]

A Trump Official Just Revealed Trump’s Plans Regarding Racist Sheriff Arpaio

President Trump has prepared formal pardon paperwork to keep America’s most racist law enforcement officer out of a federal jail.

Arizona’s Maricopa County finally booted Arpaio from the Sheriff’s office last year, but not before he cost taxpayers $70 million dollars fighting a federal court case which found him guilty of criminal contempt of court.

Despite his half-hearted calls for “unity,” President Trump seems intent on appeasing his racist base and letting a man who ran a self-declared concentration camp for immigrant detainees walk free.

One of the talking points is that

Arpaio served his country for 50 years in the military,

the Drug Enforcement Administration and

as Arizona’s Maricopa County sheriff, and

that it is not appropriate to send him to prison

for “enforcing the law”

and “working to keep people safe.”

It was Arpaio’s decision to harass people based on the color of their skin that drew Maricopa County into expensive litigation and a court monitor to end their discriminatory police practices.

President Trump called that “just doing his job” during his gaslighting rally last night, in which he tried to prove how tolerant he is by saying that “law and order” includes giving a literal “get out of jail free card” to the convicted cop who defied a court order and was punished for it.

President is more interested in giving out pardons to promote lawlessness, white nationalism and ins utionalized racism than justice and the rule of law.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/08/23/trump-official-just-revealed-trumps-plans-regarding-racist-sheriff-arpaio/

Trash's BULLHORN mesage to xenophobes, racists, cops and CBP, DHS, bubbas, kickers, rednecks:

go out get them Mexican and Mexican-lookin Americans.

[boutons_deux]

Did the Treasury secretary and his wife use a taxpayer jet to get to an eclipse watch party?

Using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, CREW is seeking more details about the trip:

"On August 21, 2017, Secretary Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton travelled to Lexington, Kentucky, purportedly for the Secretary to present remarks along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at a luncheon sponsored by the Louisville chamber of commerce, Greater Louisville Inc.

Afterward, Secretary Mnuchin and his wife “headed to Fort Know…to tour the bullion reserve at the Army post and view the eclipse.”
The requested records would shed light on the justification for Secretary Mnuchin’s use of a government plane, rather than a commercial flight, for

a trip that seems to have been planned around the solar eclipse and to enable the Secretary to secure a viewpoint in the path of the eclipse’s totality.

At a time of expected deep cuts to the federal budget,

the taxpayers have a significant interest in learning the extent to which Secretary Mnuchin has used government planes for travel in lieu of commercial planes,

and the justification for that use."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/23/1692686/-Did-the-Treasury-Secretary-and-his-wife-use-a-taxpayer-jet-to-get-to-an-eclipse-watch-party?detail=emaildkre