US to relax rules protecting sage grouse, in win for oil drillers
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/us-t...e+Raw+Story%29
Leaked Emails![]()
Just Revealed Trump’s Orwellian Tactics To Keep USDA From Stemming Climate Change
When there is a reference to efforts to reduce greenhouse gases,
the staff of the USDA has been instructed to refer to it as
ways to “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient efficiency,”
according to a report by The Guardian (UK).
“A missive from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health (USDA),” according to an internal memo obtained by The Guardian from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS),
“lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them.
‘Climate change’ is in the ‘avoid” category.”
“In her email to staff, dated 16 February this year,” adds The Guardian, “Moebius-Clune said the new language was given to her staff and suggests it be passed on.
She writes that, ‘We won’t change the modeling, just how we talk about it.”
She adds that “a colleague from USDA’s public affairs team gave advice to ‘tamp down on discretionary messaging right now.'”
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08...limate-change/
The Oligarchy's Repugs emulating the Ministry of Truth throughout govt.
Rick Scott/FL already forbade his FL govt to use words, phrase indicating global warming.
US to relax rules protecting sage grouse, in win for oil drillers
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/us-t...e+Raw+Story%29
Uninterested Trump Is Letting Business Executives Write Their Own Laws
While the law requires each group to have a fair and representative composition, Trump’s shadowy groups are loaded with business executives who often have a potential or very real conflict of interest in what they are doing.
Through the Justice Department, Trump is refusing to follow laws and guidelines on the degree of transparency under which these private groups must operate.
“What’s different now,” reports McClatchy news, “is that Trump aides more often state that
they do not need to abide by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) or
that the law doesn’t require as much information be disclosed as has been in the past”
Trump’s Justice Department says it is voluntarily abiding by the provision of FACA, but has made clear it does believe it needs to disclose the names of panel members, or announce future meetings in advance, or allow outsiders or the press to listen to the discussions.
The public interest group Food and Water Watch, which filed the suit, charges the council acts behind closed doors, doesn’t do public reports as required and that both of the
co-chairs “stand to gain financially from the infrastructure deals they’re supposed to be crafting.”
“From the start,” charges Food and Water Watch, “we’ve been sure about one thing:
Trump’s infrastructure plan is nothing more than a corporate giveaway.
His administration is one of the most Wall Street friendly in history, and
if they’re going to spend any money on our roads, bridges and water systems, we know they’ll be expecting a large return on their investment.”
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08...es-write-laws/
America is ed and un able.
Whelp there goes the nursing home vote
Whelp there goes there the sage grouse vote
LGBT haters encouraged by Trash's hateful speech
Oklahoma Man, Alleging phobic and Racial Slurs, Sues Town Officials After House Fire
They threatened him, they targeted him, and then they burned his house down and ran him out of town.
His garage had been set on fire, and the house burned to the ground. The mayor, his wife, and other town officials allegedly watched while firefighters a block away failed to respond until it was too late, court do ents state.
“We were terrorized, murder threats were made against our seven year-old African-American son. Town officials conspired to run us out of office, all while local law enforcement ignored our pleas for help.
The incidents began last September, a month after Gamel-Medler, then the town clerk, brought his son to live with him in Hitch .
“What’s going to happen when your house burns down and we don’t send out the fire trucks?” said Meradith Norris, a town trustee, after learning Gamel-Medler had a Black son,
In early May, Gamel-Medler was working to clear an obstruction from the road when he says hewas assaulted by defendant Jonita Pauls Jacks, who tried to forcefully enterGamel-Medler’s truck,
called him a “f***ing ,” and said,
“I’m going to grab your little boy,
rip his ****** head off, and
down his throat.”
When Gamel-Medler tried to file a police report, the deputy sheriff refused to take a report and characterized the incident as “free speech,”
https://rewire.news/article/2017/08/...ality+Check%29
This what all y'all Trash supporters voted for.
Republican who said pipeline activists were waging ‘jihad’ confirmed to energy agency
With two confirmations, FERC finally has a quorum.
Robert Powelson, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission who made the accusation against pipeline opponents, and Neil Chatterjee, a senior energy policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), were confirmed by unanimous consent.
“The Senate just gave about as much attention to pushing through these FERC nominees as FERC gives to the impacts of fossil fuel projects they approve: Zero. This is a shameful day in shameful times for the U.S. Senate,”
“The new wave of gas pipelines under FERC consideration would lock in dependence on fracked gas that we cannot afford to burn, while delaying our transition to clean energy,”
“Simply put, FERC exists as a rubber stamp for the profit-driven whims of the fossil fuel industry,”
“The Senate’s action to put FERC back in business gives a shameful green light to advance a future of poisoning, polluting dirty energy in America.”
https://thinkprogress.org/republican...energy-agency/
Repug FERC allowed Enron and El Paso Gas to rig the CA, etc energy markets.
Market rigging, anti-regulation, pollution, diseased/dead people/environment will again be UnPresidented.
House Republican Cuts to Nutrition Assistance Would Harm Families in Every State
House Republicans’ fiscal year 2018 budget makes their priorities crystal clear—namely, delivering tax cuts to millionaires at the expense of America’s struggling working families.
Two-thirds of SNAP benefits go to children, seniors, and people with disabilities;
in 2015, SNAP lifted 4.6 million people, including 2 million children, out of poverty.
Despite SNAP’s modest benefits—which average only $1.39 per person per meal—the program’s effects extend far beyond helping families put food on the table.
Research shows that SNAP’s long-run positive impacts include improving health outcomes for infants and new mothers and boosting kids’ educational attainment.
The program is also a major engine of job creation, with every $1 billion spent on SNAP supporting nearly 11,500 additional jobs.
House Republicans want to slash SNAP by a whopping $154 billion over 10 years. The bulk of this cut—roughly $141 billion—would occur between 2023 and 2027,
https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...s-every-state/
Trump Administration Denies Pacific Bluefin Tuna Endangered Species Act Protection
After 97 Percent Decline, Species Faces Extinction Without Help
Yesterday, the Trump administration rejected a pe ion to protect imperiled Pacific bluefin tuna under the Endangered Species Act. This powerful apex predator, which commands top prices at fish auctions in Japan, has been overfished to less than 3 percent of its historic population.
Although the National Marine Fisheries Service announced in October 2016 that it was considering listing the Pacific bluefin, it has now concluded that protections aren’t warranted.
“If the paychecks of fishery managers and federal officials were tied to the status of this marvelous creature, they would have done the right thing,”
a luxury item on sushi menus.
One recent study found that bluefin and other large marine organisms are particularly vulnerable to the current mass extinction event; their loss would disrupt the ocean food web in unprecedented ways, and they need more protection to survive.
https://www.commondreams.org/newswir...ed-species-act
Such a Repug storm at hurricane force. up everything and it up forever.
Trump Set To Turn Afghan War Over To Private Armies Run By Betsy DeVos’ Brother
A shocking new report from USAToday reveals that the White House is weighing turning over the war in Afghanistan to private military contractors.
The proposal to replace American military forces with 5,500 private contractors and a private air force of 90 planes is the brainchild of Erik Prince, the founder of notorious private military contractor group Blackwater, who just so happens to be the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
The proposal is nothing less than a literal return to a for-profit colonial occupation – his words, not mine:
“We’ve fought for the last 15 years with the 1st Infantry Division model.
Now we should fight with an East India Company model, and do it much cheaper.
If you look back in history, the way the English operated India for 250 years, they had an army that was largely run by companies — and no English soldiers.
So cheap, very low cost” said Prince to FOX’s Tucker Carlson.
The idea is that the occupation would be paid for by extracting mineral resources from Afghanistan,
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08...devos-brother/
I'm sure Prince's mercernary pricks would also grab lots of Afghani heroin
The VOTER Purges Are Coming
Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department just took a major stand against voting rights. It’s now up to the Supreme Court to protect the rolls.
Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice has switched sides in several key court battles, reversing positions the agency took during the Obama era. Already,
the DOJ has withdrawn its opposition to Texas’ draconian voter ID law and to mandatory arbitration agreements designed to thwart class actions.
Now the agency has made another about-face:
On Monday, it dropped its objections to Ohio’s voter purge procedures, which kick voters off the rolls for skipping elections.
The DOJ is now arguing that such maneuvers are perfectly legal.
The state purges voters from the rolls relentlessly, removing around 2 million people between 2011 and 2016—
with voters in
Democratic-leaning neighborhoods twice as likely to be purged as those in Republican-leaning neighborhoods.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ter_rolls.html
Is why the Repugs put an infamous, committed RACIST as US AG
The DOJ Is Chipping Away at the Civil Rights Act, One Amendment at a Time
Aug 8, 2017, 5:34pm Sofia Resnick
Already, the agency has taken a chisel to many of the provisions that make up the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
le I—Voting Rights
This provision prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements. It was amended in 1965, with the adoption of the Voting Rights Act, to ban literacy tests and other voting qualifications beyond citizenship.
In a direct attack on the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the Justice Department is defending a Texas voter ID lawthat a federal appeals court last year found to be discriminatory against voters of color.
le IV—Desegregation of Public Education
This provision encouraged the desegregation of public schools and explicitly prohibited public schools from denying entrance to or within their schools based on a student’s race, color, or national origin. The provision also authorized the U.S. attorney general to file lawsuits to enforce this act.
In the spring, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division published a budget request outlining its agenda, which included a plan to review “regulatory materials” and the approximately 170 consent decrees entered into with school districts the DOJ had previously found to not be complying with federal desegregation laws.
le V—Commission on Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created this commission. The goal was to establish an independent fact-finding federal agency to keep track of how the federal government is enforcing and developing civil rights policy. Though it lacks the power to enforce civil rights laws, it can investigate any lack of enforcement.
At the moment, Sessions’ DOJ is not threatening this commission. But the commission is investigating the Trump administration’s enforcement of civil rights laws, among them le IX of the Education Amendment Act of 1972.
le VI—Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs
This provision bars discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, in all programs that receive federal funds, such as schools, hospitals, and city governments.
The DOJ’s aforementioned interest in revisiting affirmative action policies opens the potential for new threats to le VI.
le VII—Equal Employment Opportunity
This provision prevents employers from discriminating against prospective employees based on their race, color, religion, national origin or sex. “Sex,” as American Civil Liberties Union attorney Gillian Thomas puts it, was added to this part of the Civil Rights Act “at the last minute” by a Democratic U.S. House representative from Virginia. Thomas writes that historians believe Rep. Howard Smith opposed the Civil Rights Act but still pushed for this amendment, because he worried white women would be otherwise disadvantaged in the workplace.
What we have now is a fight over what “sex” in le VII means, and if it includes sexual orientation and iden y. The Trump administration has insisted it doesn’t.
https://rewire.news/article/2017/08/...ality+Check%29
Any of these coming before SCOTUS will be voted: 5 oligarchy/racist/Christian Sharia vs 4 progressive
Here’s What Happened After Trump’s FCC Got To Oversee Inmates’ Phone Service
“Families unfortunately can expect that the government is going to continue to protect these companies.”
Ajit Pai, abandoned the Obama administration’s attempt to cap exorbitant rates and fees that companies charge for phone service in prisons and jails
Regular contact between inmates and family members can lower recidivism and help with rehabilitation. And until the 1990s, inmates could make calls at about the same rates as other people, according to The New York Times. But over the next few decades, private phone providers sent rates and fees skyrocketing.
In October 2015, the FCC voted 3-2to cap state and federal prison phone rates at 11 cents a minute, and jail rates at 14 to 22 cents a minute. The FCC also discouraged commissions, which Democrats have described as kickbacks to prison operators.
Under Pai, the FCC changed course. One week before February oral argument in appeals court, the agency told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that it would no longer defend a key component of the Obama administration’s rule, namely, that the agency had the authority to cap in-state rates.
In June, the court struck down the the regulations on in-state calls. Advocates see the Trump administration’s position as a key factor. The court’s decision “relied in large part on the fact that the FCC would not put forward a defense” for the agency’s authority to regulate in-state phone rates and fees,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...gEmail__081017
yawn, Repugs ing Americans and America for profit, the basis of Repug politics.
Washington Blade highlights the influence of hate groups on White House policy
Anti-LGBTQ extremists successfully lobbied for Trump to ban transgender people from the military.
Now they’re promising action on so-called “religious freedom” guidance.
Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson detailed the growing influence of anti-LGBTQ hate groups in setting federal policy,
“intense lobbying” by anti-LGBT lawmakers and hate groups such as FRC and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) for Trump to sign a religious freedom executive order, a draft of which was leaked to The Nation in February.
Johnson added that although Trump hasn’t yet signed the order that the groups are floating --
which would “enable sweeping anti-LGBT discrimination in the name of ‘religious freedom’” --
he has empowered Attorney General Jeff Sessions “to issue guidance ensuring religious liberty.”
He noted that Perkins, speaking on his radio show last month, “said action would come soon” on religious freedom guidance.
In a speech to ADF, Sessions also promised that the Justice Department is “finalizing” guidance on “federal religious liberty protections.”
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/08/10/washington-blade-highlights-influence-hate-groups-white-house-policy/217586?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_c ampaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+Blog%29
Sessions probably hates s as much as he hate knitters, Mexicans, pot heads.
Trump Just Put His Daughter In Charge Of A Major Official American Delegation
Ivanka Trump’s prominence on the international stage is an embarrassment to the United States and a deeply cynical insult to women everywhere.
Her claims of being a feminist and a women’s rights activist are constantly undermined by
her failure to call out her father’s misogyny and
her continued exploitation of sweatshop labor in Asia.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
.@IvankaTrump will lead the U.S. delegation to India this fall, supporting women’s entrepreneurship globally.#GES2017@narendramodi
3:18 PM - Aug 10, 2017
The idea that Ivanka should be held up as a model for women’s entrepreneurship would be laughable were it not so offensive. She’s the heiress of a billionaire’s empire and has had everything handed to her. Her success is built on the exploitation of others.
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08...an-delegation/
Hey America! Your internet is going to be so much better this January
The FCC also suggests defining "broadband internet" using the speeds offered by ISPs. In other words, rather than setting the bar at 25Mbps, the regulator will consider, say, 10Mbps as broadband because, hey, that's what folks pay for.
That simply hands control of what should be independent government requirements to the cable giants.
And another proposed change would see how the FCC measures the deployment of broadband access on a year-by-year basis rather than in terms of how close it is to a fixed goal. In other words, Comcast can say it has got 10 per cent more people onto broadband this year (amazing!) rather than have the FCC say it is still only at 24 per cent of its required goal. The difference is literally millions of Americans with slower internet access.
Why is the FCC doing this?
Back when Tom Wheeler was chairman of the FCC and there was a Democratic majority on its panel of commissioners, the watchdog decided to increase the benchmark of broadband from 4Mbps to 25Mbps.
The problem was that the jump exposed so how poorly Americans are being catered for in terms of fast internet access.
After the rule change, the 2016 Broadband Progress Report noted that 34 million Americans don't have access to any broadband providers.
And that the US was still massively behind other developed nations in terms of speed, roll-out and compe ion (16th out of 34 developed nations).
Worse, just three per cent of the country had a choice of three or more providers (the definition of real compe ion) for speeds of 25Mbps or higher.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0..._this_january/
America, World Champions in Crapification by BigCorp for profit
Trump Just Ordered A Real Estate Developer To Solve A Crisis No Former President Has Solved
Golden boy Jared Kushner is at it again. Trump’s pet senior advisor and son-in-law is taking another blind stab at solving the myriad, nuanced problems of the Middle East. His previous trip to the region yielded no tangible results and was immediately followed by an outbreak of violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
As a refresher: Kushner is a former real estate developer with zero experience in diplomacy.
Naturally, this lack of experience means the kakocratic Trump regime has assigned him the mission of untangling the world’s most difficult, diplomatic Gordian Knot.
In an official statement, the Trump administration announced Kushner’s return to the Middle East:
The adventures of man-boy Jared are some of the most consistently absurd chapters of the Trump presidency.
A recently leaked transcript showed just how confident Kushner is in his own abilities to achieve a lasting peace:
...
“So, what do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know… I’m sure everyone that’s tried this has been unique in some ways, but again we’re trying to follow very logically.
We’re thinking about what the right end state is, and we’re trying to work with the parties very quietly to see if there’s a solution.
And there may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on.
So we’re going to focus on it and try to come to the right conclusion in the near future.”
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08...sident-solved/
And Trash gives the world another round of belly-busting laughter.
Repugs and Christian Taliban, and Their Lord God Almighty who ing HATES wimmen, DON'T WANT the S ING
This is a Christian SHARIA implementation
Trump Just Shocked Federal Health Officials By Defunding A Successful Obama Program
The fingerprints of social conservatives and anti-abortion religious fanatics are all over a decision today by the Trump administration to suddenly cut short grant programs put in place by President Obama designed to lower the rate of out of wedlock teenage pregnancy.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent out notices to 81 ins utions across the country that five-year grants for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) they already received and are successfully operating 44 programs in 39 states are going to end in June 2018, two years earlier than planned.
seeking something that was a “better fit for its priorities, but those were no specified.”
HHS spokesman Mark Vafiades told The Hill that the program was
cut short because there is little evidence it has had a positive impact. L I E He also said there is no funding for it in Trump’s budget proposal for fiscal 2018.
If they were actually interested in the truth, Trump’s HHS could have found support for the program in statistics provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“In 2015,” reported the Center, citing a 2017 report by the National Center for Health Statistics,
“a total of 229,715 babies were born to women aged 15-19 years, for a birth rate of 22.3 per 1,000 women in this age group.
This is another record low for U.S. teens and a drop of 8 percent from 2014.
Birth rates fell 9 percent for women aged 15-17 years and 7 percent for women aged 18-19 years.”
So if the programs are working, what is the real reason the HHS has put them on the chopping block with no advance warning or explanation?
The answer is that Trump and especially Vice President Mike Pence support abstinence-only sex education –
asking teens to give up all sex, rather than teaching them safe sex methods such as using condoms.
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08...obama-program/
The Trump Administration Rolls Back Anti-Corruption Efforts in the Oil Industry
In February, in one of its first acts of lawmaking, the Trump Administration, with the Republican-controlled Congress, rescinded a pending Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would have required oil companies to disclose details of their payments to international governments in connection with oil and gas production.
The rule, which was mandated by a law co-sponsored by former Republican Senator Richard Lugar, of Indiana, and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, of Maryland, was designed to combat bribery and corruption, especially in poor countries governed by kleptocrats.
Thirty other countries, including Canada and the members of the European Union, had already adopted similar requirements.
Yet the American Petroleum Ins ute and companies such as ExxonMobil, at the time when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was still its C.E.O., had lobbied against the rule.
They said that it was costly to implement and gave unfair advantage to overseas compe ors to which it did not apply.
When Trump took power, the lobbyists got their way.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily...IyMTAyMTg5MgS2
We Don’t Need a Government That Sides With Businesses Over People With Disabilities
But right now, it's the government we have.
Last month, the DOJ dropped an appeal in a disability rights case that could have had far-reaching and beneficial consequences related to workplace accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
It was clear when President Donald Trump tapped Jeff Sessions to be attorney general that Sessions would be terrible for vulnerable communities, such as LGBTQindividuals, immigrants, and people with disabilities.
Sessions signaled this right away by making a 2018 budget request for the DOJ’s civil rights division that cuts personnel and stops prioritizing things like investigations into police misconduct.
Under Sessions, the DOJ has also
stopped standing up for the rights of transgender students, and it has decided to
go after colleges and universities that don’t admit enough white students.
It has also sided with Ohio in the state’s attempts to aggressively purge voters from the rolls.
In this latest about-face, the DOJ asked the court to dismiss the case of United States v. Woody—an especially odd move, considering the United States is the party that brought the case.
In 2016, the government filed the lawsuit on behalf of Emily Hall, a deputy sheriff in Richmond, Virginia.
Hall developed a severe heart condition that required her to get a pacemaker and internal defibrillator and rendered her unable to perform the normal duties of a deputy sheriff, because they were too physically strenuous.
After the sheriff’s office terminated her employment following her diagnosis,
the United States brought suit on her behalf. A federal district court in Virginia dismissed the case last year, granting judgment for the sheriff. The DOJ initially appealed the case, but has now dropped that appeal.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers like the sheriff’s office have to provide “reasonable accommodation” to employees with a disability.
This includes reassignment to a vacant job—if one is available and the employee is qualified—if the employee’s disability means they can no longer perform the core functions of the job they currently hold.
https://rewire.news/article/2017/08/...-disabilities/
Under the Repugs' hatchet man racist Sessions, if you're not a straight, fully abled, white male, preferably an alt-Reich/KKK male,
well, YOU and your rights.
Take a Look at Trump’s Energy Appointee’s Deleted Tweets About Blacks, Jews and Women
http://www.theroot.com/staywoke-take...ele-1796377704
Trash's Exec is full of trash, like the White Supremacist House
Trump’s DoJ Just Demanded Personal Info Of 1.3 Million Visitors To Anti-Trump Website
Trump’s Department of Justice has requested personal information on 1.3 million visitors to an anti-Trump website that was used to organize protests against the President,
Dreamhost, based out of Los Angeles, has apparently been working with the Department of Justice but has protested the government’s request as going “too far under the Cons ution.” If the web hosting provider complied fully with the DoJ’s request, it would amount to
handing over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses, as well as
“names, addresses, telephone numbers and other identifiers,
e-mail addresses,
business information,
the length of service (including start date),
means and source of payment for services (including any credit card or bank account number), and
information about any domain name registration.”
The DoJ’s warrant alleged that this information is necessary because “authorities will seize any information cons ution violations of D.C. code governing riots that involve individuals connected to the protests on Inauguration Day.”
“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Cons ution’s First Amendment. That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.”
“In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website.”
http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/08/14/trumps-doj-just-demanded-personal-info-1-3-million-visitors-anti-trump-website/
I bet RACIST Sessions is making this up, and doesn't bother with a "John Yoo" writing "torture memos"
Trash, Sessions, etc appear STILL to be REALLY PISSED about Inaugural Day dissenting demonstrators.
the militarized police/surveillance state increases its unstoppable control of the populace
Last edited by boutons_deux; 08-15-2017 at 03:27 PM.
If TX wasn't crapified enough, Abbott and Patrick have bill that will preempt all local tree protecting ordinances.
Abbott personally has a complaint since Austin told him he couldn't cut down a tree on his lot. Kim-Jong Abbott gotta have his way, everybody, the environment.
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