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

[boutons_deux]

Dana Perino acknowledged that

part of the reason why the Senate has moved forward with their investigation

is because of a story that the Washington Post broke that the FBI obtained a do ent that shows communications between the Department of Justice and the Clinton campaign.

However, the FBI concluded that the do ent was unsubstantiated and was possibly fabricated to confuse investigators.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/but-its-so-juicy-jesse-watters-pushes-a-bit-of-fake-news-gets-mocked-by-the-five-co-hosts/

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

How a dubious Russian do ent influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.94b678d26578

Grassley, etc WASTING taxpayer $Ms in an investigation based on a fake do ent, to deflect from Trash's flaming crash out

Repugs are SUCH KLOWN's, refusing to govern since they want to destroy govt, except the part that pays their salaries for their carerr, free health care, and generous pensions.

[boutons_deux]

Trump Just Killed A UN Resolution To Protect Women In War Zones

the Trump administration wants to make it even worse, by rejecting a Canadian proposal for a UN resolution that was designed to prevent violence against women and ensure that they have “comprehensive sexual and health-care services” because of the greater risk in conflict zones.

According to an article in the British newspaper The Independent, the reason for this inexplicable repudiation of what most civilized nations would automatically accept as a “no-brainer” is that fact that the language of the resolution included a clause that ensured access to safe abortions.

In other words, the Trump administration’s policy is to coerce women who become pregnant after being forcibly raped by a violent attacker in a war zone to carry their unwanted fetus, a painful and shameful reminder of the trauma they endured, to full term.
According to the Independent:

the US is rejecting a Canadian proposal to the 47-member

because the Trump administration

does “not recognise abortion as a method of family planning,

nor do we support abortion in our reproductive health assistance”.

http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/06/24/trump-just-killed-un-resolution-protect-women-war-zones/

[boutons_deux]

Marijuana News Roundup: Fed Threat Causes Bank to Close Pot Group’s Accounts

PNC Bank will close the bank accounts of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) on July 7, citing the risk of the bank faces from the hard-line U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has adopted for enforcing federal drug laws as they apply to cannabis.

http://247wallst.com/consumer-produc...F7+Wall+St.%29

[boutons_deux]

a born-wealthy orthodox Jew with no political experience didn't gel with Abbas? shocking!

Jared Kushner’s meeting with Mahmoud Abbas went so badly that Trump is reportedly considering pulling out of talks
London-based Arabic daily

Al-Hayat reported Saturday that the meeting between Kushner and Abbas had been “tense.” Abbas was allegedly furious when Kushner relayed a set of demands from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"They sounded like Netanyahu's advisers and not like fair arbiters," a senior Palestinian official told the publication. "They started presenting Netanyahu's issues and then we asked to hear from them clear stances regarding the core issues of the conflict."

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/jare...e+Raw+Story%29

[boutons_deux]

Ron Johnson: People with preexisting condition don’t deserve insurance like ‘somebody who crashes their car’

The Wisconsin Republican pointed to Obamacare rules that forbid insurance companies from charging more for people with preexisting conditions.

“We know why those premiums doubled,” he opined. “We’ve done something with our health care system that you would never think about doing, for example, with auto insurance, where you would require auto insurance companies to sell a policy to somebody after they crash their car.”

“States that have… guarantees for preexisting conditions, it crashes their markets,” he continued. “It causes the markets to collapse. It causes premiums to skyrocket.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/ron-...e+Raw+Story%29

... y'all's garden-variety Repug sociopath and LIAR, from Kockistan, of course.

[boutons_deux]

Trump just ended a long tradition of celebrating Ramadan at the White House

In the early days of December 1805, a handful of prominent politicians received formal invitations to join President Thomas Jefferson for a White House dinner.

Such entreaties were not uncommon: Jefferson frequently hosted lawmakers for political working dinners at the White House, almost always commencing them about 3:30 in the afternoon, shortly after the House or Senate had adjourned for the day.
But this gathering, scheduled for Dec. 9, would be slightly different.

"dinner will be on the table precisely at sun-set - " the invitations read. "The favour of an answer is asked."

The occasion was the presence of a Tunisian envoy to the United States, Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, who had arrived in the country just the week before, in the midst of America's ongoing conflict with what were then known as the Barbary States.

And the reason for the dinner's later-than-usual start was Mellimelli's observance of Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims in which observers fast between dawn and dusk. Only after sunset do Muslims break their fast with a meal, referred to as an iftar.

For the first time in nearly two decades, Ramadan has come and gone without the White House recognizing it with an iftar or Eid celebration, as had taken place each year under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

In recent weeks, several former White House staff members told The Post they would usually begin planning an iftar "months in advance" and didn't anticipate the Trump White House could pull something off before the end of Ramadan.

In late May, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly said the State Department would break with recent tradition and not host a Ramadan reception, as it had done nearly annually for two decades.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/T...g-11244746.php

Massively PVL so-called Pres Trash, of all Americans.

[boutons_deux]

Trump Withdraws Funding From Anti-Hate Group

The Trump administration has slashed funding for a group devoted to tackling radical white extremists.

The Department for Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that $400,000 in federal funding was being withdrawn from Chicago-based Life After Hate, one of the few U.S. groups dedicated to combating white nationalism.

The group was awarded the grant in the closing days of the Obama administration.

The new list of grant recipients doesn't include a single organization dedicated to fighting far-right extremism but several that are focused on countering Islamic extremism.

Reuters reported in February that administration officials were debating changing the name of the “Countering Violent Extremism” program to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.”

http://www.nationalmemo.com/trump-wi...ti-hate-group/

white male misogynist supremacy winning protection from You People's Repug party of hate, paranoia, misogyny, xenophobia.

[boutons_deux]

White House Pushes Military Might Over Humanitarian Aid in Africa

Pentagon officials are themselves concerned that shifting to a military-heavy presence in Africa

will hurt American interests in the long term by failing to stimulate development.

An absence of schools and jobs, they say, creates more openings for militant groups.

“We have statements out of Washington about significant reductions in foreign aid,” Gen. Griffin Phiri, the commander of the Malawi Defense Forces, said in an interview during the African Land Forces Summit, a conference of 126 American Army officers and service members and their counterparts from 40 African nations.

“What I can tell you is that experience has shown us that diplomacy and security must come together.”

the United States will spend more money on military affairs in Africa but reduce humanitarian and development assistance across the continent.

The Trump budget proposes cutting aid to Africa to $5.2 billion in the 2018 fiscal year from $8 billion now,

a stark drop. Even some of the money still in the Trump proposal would shift to security areas from humanitarian and development,

“We are radically narrowing the definition of why and how Africa matters to U.S. national interests,”

Gone are the days, he said, when human rights, development, economic growth and humanitarian relief dominated the American agenda on the continent

The Trump administration has proposed slashing programs that buy antiretroviral drugs for people who are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, by at least $1.1 billion — nearly a fifth of their current funding.

Researchers say the cuts could lead to the deaths of at least one million people in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. Over all, Mr. Trump’s budget submission would reduce State Department funding by roughly a third and cut foreign assistance by about 29 percent.

Rex Tillerson, reinforced the view on the continent that the Trump administration puts a low priority on diplomacy when in April he backed out of a planned meeting with the chairman of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, at the last minute. The aborted meeting, first reported by Foreign Policy magazine, left the chairman fuming.

two big think tanks, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the United States Ins ute of Peace, are facing the complete elimination of federal funding for their Africa programs under Mr. Trump’s proposed budget.

And yet over at the Pentagon, it is a different story.

The American military leaders are among the first to sound alarms about the proposed cuts in humanitarian funding, worrying that the reductions could put in place conditions that lead to more conflict, which might then mean more military intervention.

Military leaders today echo Mr. Mattis’s sentiment.
“We recognize the limits of military power, and how important it is to leverage all elements and capabilities that our interagency and nongovernmental organizations bring to bear in Africa and around the world,”

“How do we operate in an environment when we are willing to send peacekeepers,” asked Alexander M. Laskaris, a State Department official with Africa Command, “but we’re not willing to take the steps necessary to make peace?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/w...er=rss&emc=rss

Awesome, Trash, just awesome.

white nationalist/racist Repugs don't give a about American blacks, and give a of a lot les about blacks anywhere.

Gotta cut spending on blacks and shift $Bs to the oligarchy, MIC and its investors.

[spurraider21]

entire page be like

[boutons_deux]

Trump Just Moved To Sell Off Our National Parks To The Highest Bidder

the President is cutting the budget for public lands where the poor and middle class have been able to vacation for generations.
Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has announced plans for “public-private partnerships” as the administration proposes cutting $1.5 billion (about 13 percent) of the department’s budget, even though there is a nearly $12 billion backlog of maintenance, construction, and repair work needed to keep the parks operating for the common good.

“Public-private partnership, says the non-profit National Resources Defense Council, is “code for privatizing the management of our national park system. The idea is both unpopular (huge majorities of Americans in virtually every demographic oppose privatization) and unwise (our national parks are a public good and therefore should be publicly managed).”

Secretary Ryan Zinke
✔@SecretaryZinke

330M visitors in parks last year. Will increase. Need to look outside parks to improve connecting trails & other #PublicLands infrastructure
10:21 AM - 20 Jun 2017

If you are a billionaire like almost all the members of Trump’s cabinet, having national parks available at a low cost isn’t important. You can fly around the world and stay in lavish cir stances, enjoy vast swaths of natural resources and live behind a gate that only admits your pals.

For the rest of us, the parks are a place where true democracy is practiced. It is where anyone who can get there can enjoy the great outdoors just as their ancestors did, at least they can once they get past the traffic jams and problems caused by park understaffing which keeps visitors fuming in long lines.


“Secretary Zinke is throwing hardworking park rangers under the bus,” says Chris Saeger, executive director fo
the Western Values Project,

” while advocating for a budget that cuts essential funding and allows special interests to drill and mine public lands with virtually no accountability.”


Bringing in outside private vendors has been tried before and the only thing it assures is that the costs for visitors will rise.

“Some public lands advocates are concerned that privatization would drive up costs for visitors,” reports The Guardian, “and put the egalitarian nature of visiting a park out of reach for some.”

“If Donald Trump is actually interested in helping our parks,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club,

“he should stop trying to slash their budgets to historically low levels.

America’s parks and the people and economies they support need real funding, not a giant fake check.”


No president in the past had ever revoked a national monument designation.

Trump began doing exactly that in early June when Zinke announced he had completed an “expedited review,” and that he would shrink the land for the Bears Ears Monument, and reevaluate its management.

“This strikes at a core American value – our commitment to set aside special places that preserve our heritage, enrich our lives and honor the people who forged our history,” says Rhea Suh, President of the NRDC, adding: “It sends a chilling signal about the Trump administration’s intent to hand over irreplaceable American landscapes to mining and fossil fuel interests. And this is just the beginning of the Trump administration’s assault.”

Now Trump and Zinke want to move forward privatizing the parks, which means selling the rights to run the roads, hotels, restaurants, concessions and more to private interests who would be free to raise prices.

“I don’t want to be in the business of running campgrounds,” Zinke said earlier this month at a meeting of the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association in Washington.

The park service has privatized services before. In the 1980s and 1990s it bid out services and, according to John Garder of the National Parks Conservation Association, learned that

“you can’t privatize services significantly without having to raise the cost of visitation.”

A provision in some of those contracts guaranteed that concessionaires would recoup their investment ahead of the end of the contract period.

http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/06/26/trump-just-moved-sell-off-national-parks-highest-bidder/

[boutons_deux]

Trump Just Betrayed Thousands Of Immigrant Veterans Who Fought For America

Since 2009 the U.S. Army has had a program that gave foreign-born recruits an expedited path to being an American citizen in return for their service.

These troops have often filled important positions as interpreters, medical experts or foreign liaisons for American troops worldwide – jobs which few of the American recruits are capable of handling.

Now the Trump administration the military are discussing a

plan to cancel the enlistment contracts for over a thousand new recruits and do enhanced security checks on about 4,100 others, many of whom are already naturalized American citizens, which could lead to their dismissal.


Another 10,000 are now being treated as security threats for things like having a foreign-born relative, which is not a surprise since they are foreign born.

This report comes from an “action memo” obtained by the Washington Post that was prepared for Trump’s Defense Secretary Jim Mattis by personnel and intelligence officials at the Pentagon.

At least a thousand who have signed contracts and made commitments have been left waiting for the call to attend basic training.

During that period the visas of some of those recruits have expired, making them technically illegal aliens.

http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/06...ought-america/

[boutons_deux]

how the corporate oligarchy dictates to Repugs' corrupt politicians

EPA chief met with Dow CEO before deciding on pesticide ban

The Trump administration's top environmental official met privately with the chief executive of Dow Chemical shortly before reversing his agency's push to ban a widely used pesticide after health studies showed it can harm children's brains, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's schedule shows he met with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris on March 9 for about a half hour at a Houston hotel. Both men were featured speakers at an energy industry conference.

Twenty days later Pruitt announced his decision to deny a pe ion to ban Dow's chlorpyrifos pesticide from being sprayed on food, despite a review by his agency's scientists that concluded

ingesting even minuscule amounts of the chemical can interfere with the brain development of fetuses and infants.

Dow, which spent more than $13.6 million on lobbying in 2016, has long wielded substantial political power in the nation's capital.
When President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February mandating the creation of task forces at federal agencies to roll back government regulations, he handed the pen to Dow's chief executive, who was standing at his side.


The American Academy of Pediatrics urged Pruitt on Tuesday to take chlorpyrifos off the market. The group representing more than

66,000 pediatricians and pediatric surgeons said it is "deeply alarmed" by Pruitt's decision to allow the pesticide's continued use.

"There is a wealth of science demonstrating the detrimental effects of chlorpyrifos exposure to developing fetuses, infants, children, and pregnant women," the academy said in a letter to Pruitt.

"The risk to infant and children's health and development is unambiguous."

http://m.sfgate.com/news/politics/ar...n-11250533.php

For BigCorp and their Repug s, profits ALWAYS before people, esp Trash's "beautiful babies"

[boutons_deux]

EPA and Army Corps seek to rescind clean water rule





Thhe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers released a proposal on Tuesday to repeal the 2015 Clean Water Rule, the latest move by the Trump administration to unwind environmental regulations put in place by the previous administration.

The agencies are working to rescind the rule, known as the Waters of the United States rule and re-codify the regulation in place before 2015.

“We are taking significant action to return power to the states and provide regulatory certainty to our nation’s farmers and businesses,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/epa-...e+Raw+Story%29

crapification, indeed.

btw, the Gulf of MX dead zone craeted by a ag and BigCorp chemical sewer, aka the Mississippi river, is predicted to be twice as big this summer as last year.

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s EPA Just Declared War On Clean Drinking Water

When Pruitt was still the Attorney General in Oklahoma, he joined in a lawsuit with a few others states including Alabama, to repeal the rule.

Trump during his campaign called it a “disaster,” and signed an executive order early in his term urging the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to dismantle it.

Yesterday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, after talking to the only stakeholder that matters to him, Trump, announced a 42-page plan to undo the Clean Water Rules. His report does not address any of the scientific reasons for the rule.

“It would strip out needed protections for the streams that feed drinking water sources for one in every three Americans,” said Suh. “Clean water is too important for that. We’ll stand up to this reckless attack on our waters and our health.”


https://twitter.com/KieranSuckling/s...nking-water%2F

http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/06/28/trumps-epa-just-declared-war-clean-drinking-water/

[boutons_deux]

After ugly White House briefing, the time is now for press to push back against Trump

During Tuesday’s briefing, Sanders took a question from a reporter for the right-wing Breitbart News platform about a CNN report on a member of Trump’s transition team and his alleged links to the ongoing Russian investigations, which the network had to retract. Three staffers resigned for their role in the report, which was based on just one anonymous source.
Sanders didn’t waste any time using the set-up to bash CNN.

“I think it's the constant barrage of fake news directed at this president that has garnered a lot of his frustration,” she said. “You point to that report. There are multiple other instances where

that outlet that you referenced has been repeatedly wrong and has had to point that out or be corrected.”

She then went on to encourage “everyone” to view a video by propagandist James O'Keefe, maker of the infamous undercover video taken at the Baltimore offices of the community organizing group ACORN, that attacks CNN.

“There’s a video circulating now, whether it’s accurate or not, I don’t know, but I would encourage everyone in this room and frankly everybody across the country to take a look at it,” Sanders said.

“If it is accurate, I think it’s a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism. I think that we have gone to a place where if the media can’t be trusted to report the news, then that’s a dangerous place for America.”

I don’t know if it’s accurate, but go look at it?

And somehow she gets from there to a “disgrace to all media” and” dangerous place for America” in a sentence?

And this is the person standing at the podium in the White House?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertai...______20170629

Reich Minister Huckabee, you Goebbels wannabe, try this different subject

( "subject" is part of a sentence, aka grammar, you could look it up):

Don The Con Trash "...has been repeatedly wrong and has had to point that out or be corrected.”

[boutons_deux]

Tillerson has only himself to blame




The normally laconic Texan unloaded on Johnny DeStefano, the head of the presidential personnel office, for torpedoing proposed nominees to senior State Department posts and for questioning his judgment.

“Tillerson also complained that the White House was leaking damaging information about him to the news media, according to a person familiar with the meeting.” (Well, someone leaked about him complaining about leaking so yes, the White House, which is supposed to reject anonymous sources, is using one or more to bloody its secretary of state.) “Above all, he made clear that he did not want DeStefano’s office to ‘have any role in staffing’ and ‘expressed frustration that anybody would know better’ than he about who should work in his department — particularly after the president had promised him autonomy to make his own decisions and hires, according to a senior White House aide familiar with the conversation.”

First, Tillerson must have known exactly what he was getting into when he signed up with a dilettante president who hired relatives and cronies. Surely he knew President Trump operates out of resentment and spite. He can hardly be surprised that Trump is acting like Trump and Trump’s minions are acting as advertised.

Second, Tillerson set the pattern of subservience by allowing the White House to veto as his deputy someone with superb qualifications and bipartisan support, Elliott Abrams. Once you roll over on that post, you’ve given the White House leverage.

Third, Tillerson has been excruciatingly slow in conducting his internal reorganization. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he wouldn’t get around to filling many slots until next year. Both Democrats and Republicans were aghast.

Fourth, Tillerson took a job for which he was not remotely qualified and which demanded skills he never developed as chief executive of an oil company. His role now includes public diplomacy, but he shuns the press.

Former State Department employees tell a similar story after visits to Foggy Bottom.

“State is being quickly gutted. Offices closing; Sr. and mid-level career experts fleeing or being axed,” tweeted Max Bergmann.

“Tillerson is now clearly one of worst Sec States in American history. Few have done more to weaken America.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/29/tillerson-has-only-himself-to-blame/?utm_term=.94782f1c4102&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1

[boutons_deux]

6 Things Betsy DeVos Has Done on Higher Ed

Education Secretary’s Higher Education Report Card at the 2017 Midpoint

1. Encouraged ‘too big to fail’ in student loan servicing

Number potentially affected: 32 million borrowers owing $963.5 billion

On April 12, the Trump administration withdrew Obama-era policy guidance that incorporated borrower-focused protections and customer service guarantees into a compe ion to select new companies that will service all federally held student loans. The revised compe ion announced in mid-May included some particularly troubling changes. First, the department announced that it would select just one company to serve as the primary servicer for all 32 million borrowers who have a student loan held by the federal government. Second, the department eliminated requirements for the servicer to provide more proactive assistance


2. Proposed cutting $143 billion from federal student loans

Number potentially affected: At least 6 million borrowers a year and $143 billion in cuts over 10 years

The president’s budget request released in May had a clear message to student borrowers: Go kick rocks. Over 10 years, Trump’s budget proposes to cut a stunning $143 billion in various benefits to millions of student loan borrowers. This includes taking $39 billion from students by ending subsidized Stafford Loans for new borrowers. Every year, this program provides interest-free loans to 6 million borrowers with financial need while they are in school.
It also cuts another $76 billion by creating one plan for new borrowers to pay their loans based on their income. It would require borrowers to pay a larger share of their income each month than most plans available today.

3. Proposed raiding the Pell Grant surplus and reducing grant aid

Number potentially affected: At least 1.6 million students and $5 billion in one year
In addition to the student loan changes, the Trump budget request also suggests cutting billions from grant programs. The largest is a $3.9 billion hit to the rainy day fund for the Pell Grant program, which had been built up over time by earlier cuts to the student aid programs. Although this move does not immediately reduce the nation’s largest grant for college, it puts it on shakier ground for the long term. Beyond that, the budget also seeks to eliminate the Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant, which annually provides $732 million in additional assistance to 1.5 million students with need.

4. Began dismantling 2 consumer protection regulations

Number potentially affected: At least 64,000 students and an estimated $2.5 billionin pending borrower defense claims plus 360,000 students and several billion dollars for gainful employment

On June 14, the Department of Education announced plans to pause and rewrite regulations around two major consumer protection regulations. The borrower defense rule provides a process for defrauded borrowers to get loan forgiveness; creates conditions for holding schools financially accountable when problems arise; bans the use of mandatory arbitration provisions that prevent students from taking their schools to court; and provides a longer time frame for students to get discharges when their school closes, among other things. The rule was supposed to take effect on July 1 but is now indefinitely paused.
The attempt to redo the borrower defense regulation comes amid stories that the department has approved no new requests for forgiveness through this provision since the Trump administration took office.

5. Restored onerous collection fees

Number potentially affected: Some small subset of the 4.2 million borrowers in default on $65.6 billion in debt from the bank-based loan system

Restoring large collection costs on some defaulted borrowers was one of the first thingsDeVos did on higher education. This change applies to borrowers with certain types of older debt who immediately attempt to resolve a default.

6. Implemented year-round Pell Grants

Number potentially affected: 900,000 students and $1.5 billion

Despite the troubling actions cited above, Congress’ decision to restore funding for year-round Pell Grants is the most positive higher education development this year.

http://washingtonjournal.com/2017/06...oor-americans/

Devos is to BigFinance and a Bible-humping Christian supremacist

[boutons_deux]

The most alarmist pessimists were right about Neil Gorsuch


Gorsuch is disrespectful of precedent and eager to move the law very far, very fast. His agenda is both well-thought out and extraordinarily conservative.

When the Court splits into its old factions, with Justice Clarence Thomas staking out a position that no other member of the Court will sign onto, Gorsuch embraces Thomas’ view.


Echoing religious conservatives who sought the right to deny birth control coverage to their employees, Gorsuch wrote as a lower court judge in the original Hobby Lobby litigation that

“all of us face the problem of complicity,” and “all of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others.”


Gorsuch revealed himself as a hardline conservative on marriage equality and called for a broad expansion of Hobby Lobby. And he did so on the very same morning that the Court announced that it would decide whether religion is a license to discriminate.


So when Gorsuch defended Arkansas’s law by pointing to allegedly “rational reasons” for it to exist, he suggested that discrimination based on sexual orientation isn’t something the courts should worry themselves about.


Gorsuch disagreed, pointing to the state’s arguments “that rational reasons exist for a biology based birth registration regime.” Never mind, of course, that Arkansas did not have a “biology based birth registration regime,”


The conservative jurist’s use of the word “rational” here is also highly significant, as it offers a window into how Gorsuch views discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation generally. The lowest level of scrutiny the Court applies in cons utional discrimination cases?—?the level it typically applies to allegations it views as dubious?—?is known as “rational basis,” and it provides that the government is free to do whatever it wants so long as it can articulate a rational reason for doing so.


Gorusch mostly joined this opinion, but he also wrote a separate opinion calling for the Court to hand a much greater victory to the religious right.

Robert’s opinion, Gorsuch wrote, “leaves open the possibility a useful distinction might be drawn between laws that discriminate on the basis of religious status and religious use.”


As Gorsuch puts it, “I don’t see why it should matter whether we describe” a government benefit “as closed to Lutherans (status) or closed to people who do Lutheran things (use).”


Roberts’ opinion in Trinity Lutheran leaves open the possibility that religious belief will not be construed as a license to discriminate.

Gorsuch’s opinion, by contrast, strongly indicates that he intends to back the anti-LGBTQ business at the heart of Masterpiece Cakeshop.




In an impossibly boring case involving an obscure statute,

Gorsuch went to war with most of his colleagues, with established precedents, and even with one of the Court’s most conservative members.


Judges simply don’t behave this way. Or, at least, normal judges don’t behave this way. When there are no grand principles at stake and existing precedents clearly point in one direction, judges typically follow the path that’s already been blazed for them. Often, certainty in the law matters even more than the question of what the law is.


But not for Gorsuch. For him, even the most arcane case is an opportunity to tear down everything that came before him.


The question in Perry was what should happen in certain “mixed” cases where an employee alleges both a violation of the CSRA and a violation of anti-discrimination law.

The pain of not knowing the answer to this question must be killing you, I know. So allow me to end the suspense.

Seven justices, in an opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, concluded that the case goes to a federal district court. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas, disagreed.




What’s interesting is that, despite Alito’s entirely justified frustration with the ungainly statute at issue in Perry, there was exactly one lawyer who was absolutely certain what the law says: Neil Gorsuch.


At oral arguments, Gorsuch repeatedly asked an advocate arguing on behalf of the government to disregard a 2012 opinion establishing that “mixed” cases typically go to a district court and not to the Federal Circuit, demanding that the lawyer justify that result under the statute. He repeatedly suggested that the “plain language” of the law — again, a law whose language Alito compared to an exercise in sadism — mandated just one result. And he insisted that past precedents must be cast aside to implement this result.


And, when confronted with the fact that the Court reached an entirely different conclusion in a very similar case five years ago, Gorsuch simply waves that case off. Uncertainty be damned! Precedent be damned! The warnings and frustrations of conservative stalwarts like Justice Alito be damned!

Neil Gorsuch thinks that he knows the one correct answer, and no one will tell him to reconsider.


If he’s willing to take that approach to a tortuous statute in a case with very little at stake, just imagine what he’ll do when he encounters a case he actually cares about.

Just imagine what he’ll do to marriage equality.


https://thinkprogress.org/gorsuch-supreme-court-christian-right-e7acb6f9427d


yet another oligarchy/Christian Taliban on SCOTUS, and yes, yet another ing Catholic

[boutons_deux]

Repug/Price/Verma ing it all up, keeping SECRETS behind the LIE of "data is inaccurate"

Medicare Halts Release Of Much-Anticipated Data

These so-called Medicare Advantage plans now enroll more than a third of the 58 million beneficiaries in the Medicare program, a share that grows by the month.But little is known about the care delivered to these people, from how many services they get to which doctors treat them to whether taxpayer money is being well-spent or misused.

The government has collected data on patients’ diagnoses and the services they receive since 2012 and began using it last year to help calculate payments to private insurers, which run the Medicare Advantage plans. But it has never made that data public.

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have been validating the accuracy of the data and, in recent months, were preparing to release it to researchers.

Medicare already shares data on the 38 million patients in the traditional Medicare program, which the government runs.

(ProPublica has created a tool called Treatment Tracker that enables people to compare how doctors and others use services in the traditional Medicare program.)

The grand unveiling of the new data was scheduled to take place at the annual research meeting of AcademyHealth, a festival of health wonkery, which just concluded in New Orleans.

But at the last minute, the session was canceled.

The change caught researchers — and even some former Medicare officials — off guard as the data’s release was a highly anticipated expansion of the government’s effort to share information.

In a statement, CMS said there were enough questions about the data’s accuracy that it should not be released for research use. CMS said it will examine the data for 2015 “to determine if it is robust enough to support research use.”

Niall Brennan, until January the chief data officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, worked on the data — known as encounter data — during his time in office. “Hugely disappointing,” he tweeted, with a photo of the sign announcing the session’s cancellation.

“Hope CMS not backsliding on #opendata.”icare Halts Release Of Much-Anticipated Data


http://www.nationalmemo.com/medicare-halts-release-much-anticipated-data/

Repugs don't do #opendata, esp not data that might show BigInsurance is stealing taxpayer $Bs through Medicare.

[boutons_deux]

Repug misogyny news

Trump Administration Considering Shutting Down WH Council on Women and Girls

President Donald Trump’s administration is considering shuttering the White House Council on Women and Girls, established by the Obama administration, according to Politico.

The council has reportedly been “defunct” under a new Trump administration, which is mulling whether to keep it in place.
Set up by former President Barack Obama in 2009, the council worked “to monitor the impact of policy changes and liaise with women’s groups,” per Politico.

Obama’s council was created three months into his first term, as a replica of Clinton’s, “which helped the Democratic administration maintain open lines of communication with women’s groups but was much-hated by conservative groups.”

As Politico notes, “veterans of Obama’s White House say

the existence of a robust office supporting women and girls sends a strong message about the president’s priorities — and that the lack of such an office does as well.”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump...men-and-girls/

the Repug/Christian Taliban "message": off, the feminazis

[boutons_deux]

Repug voter suppression "UnPresidented"

Trump Names Voter ID Pusher Hans Von Spakovsky To Bogus Voter Fraud Panel




President Trump is appointing Heritage Foundation scholar and Hans Von Spakovsky to the sketchy new presidential “elections integrity” commission,

Von Spakovsky served in President George W. Bush’s Justice Department during an era when the agency came under fire for politicizing voting rights issues.

Von Spakovsky approved Georgia’s voter ID law, over the objections of career DOJ employees.

Since leaving the federal government, he has continued to be an advocate for restrictive voting laws and has fanned the unsubstantiated fears about voter fraud.

He will be a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which is being led by

Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is also a prominent pusher of voter restrictions.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...0%28TPMNews%29

Repugs rigging elections by voter suppression, gerrymandering, fraudulent vote counts, and refusing to upgrade vulnerable, hackable, riggable voting machines

[boutons_deux]

Calling Total Bull on Allowing Guns in Schools

Bring your gun to school – courtesy of the Pennsylvania Senate


The Pennsylvania state Senate voted 28-22 today to allow school employees like me to start packing heat.
Hooray!

My class sizes will be larger because of almost $1 billion in budget cuts the legislature couldn’t be bothered to heal over the last seven years.

I’ll have to teach more sections because my district is bleeding money from charter school vampires that the legislature couldn’t be bothered to regulate.
But now I can be fully armed.

Priorities.
Bullets over books, I guess.

As a more than 15 year veteran of the public school system, I can’t wait to get back in the classroom wondering which of my fellow teachers, principals, custodians or rent-a-cop security guards is fully locked and loaded. I can’t wait until my elementary school daughter is finally protected by being in an adult’s daily line of fire.

This is going to make us much safer.

At my school, we fired a security guard for slamming a student’s head into the table.

I’m sure having these folks armed will have no negative effects at all.

And the extra stress from added responsibilities being piled on my back will just make me more vigilant in case I need to take out my piece in class and chase away Black Bart with my Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model… uh… rifle.

This is what happens when you have a Republican-controlled legislature and a Democratic Governor. The kids say they want nothing but candy for dinner and Dad says “No.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...g-guns-schools

[boutons_deux]

California's top elections officer to Trump's voting fraud panel: No

President Trump's voter fraud commission will not be getting the names and addresses of California's registered voters. The panel's request was denied on Thursday by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who said it would only "legitimize" false claims of massive election cheating last fall.

Padilla refused to hand over data, including the names, addresses, political party and voting history of California's 19.4 million voters.

Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who serves as vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, sent letters to all 50 states on Wednesday for information he said would help the group examine rules that either "enhance or undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of federal elections processes."

"I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally," he said in a written statement.

"California's participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach."

Kobach's request says the panel seeks only "publicly available" information. Basic information about California voters is routinely shared with journalists, political campaigns and researchers after a written request and payment of a fee.

The letter asks for data including "information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information."

Kobach to help lead Trump's commission, accusing the Kansas official of past efforts at racial profiling and suppressing voter turnout.

"His role as vice chair is proof that the ultimate goal of the commission is to enact policies that will result in the disenfranchisement of American citizens,"

http://www.latimes.com/politics/esse...htmlstory.html

names, birthdays, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their voting history dating back to 2006.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/340117-trump-election-integrity-commission-requests-years-of-voter-data-from

[boutons_deux]

Trump says he is sending federal help to quell Chicago violence

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

Crime and killings in Chicago have reached such epidemic proportions that I am sending in Federal help. 1714 shootings in Chicago this year!

5:48 AM - 30 Jun 2017

Trump’s tweet comes after authorities confirmed to The Chicago-Sun Times reported that Trump had sent 20 agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to the city.

Twenty new ATF agents have joined a force of 35 to 40 agents who were already in the city, according to the report.

The agents are collaborating with the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police on a strike force that will work to track down gun traffickers and solve shootings in the city with the help of ballistics technology.Chicago police said Superintendent Eddie Johnson first met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March to discuss the strike force.

Trump tweeted shortly after taking office in January that if city of Chicago did not fix the “carnage,” he would send in federal forces.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/340201-trump-says-he-is-sending-federal-help-to-quell-chicago-violence

20 more Feds?

[boutons_deux]

Gun Sales Are Plummeting and Trump Wants to Help

The NRA’s new playbook includes guns for kids and open carry in every state.

 a triumphant Donald Trump owes the NRA bigly: The organization spent over $30 million to get him elected, making it one of the biggest pro-Trump groups.

And the payoff is coming. In his NRA speech, Trump announced “news that you’ve been waiting for a long time: The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end.”

Over the years, the NRA has steadily transformed itself from a calm advocate for hunters and sportsmen to a primal outlet for hard-right paranoia, and it’s long been treated carefully by Republican presidents.

Though Ronald Reagan made a point of addressing the national convention, former president George H.W. Bush quit the NRA after the Oklahoma City bombing, when the group was seen as too close to the right-wing militia culture that produced Timothy McVeigh, and George W. Bush never showed up at the annual meeting as president.

When candidate Trump

talked about immigrants from Mexico who might be rapists and drug runners,

railed against sanctuary cities,

brought the mothers of people killed by undo ented immigrants onto the stage at the Republican National Convention, and

spoke in ominous tones about crime overtaking American cities,

he seemed a natural part of the movement that LaPierre has been building for decades.

And Trump received the earliest presidential endorsement in the NRA’s history.

LaPierre understands the gun-rights movement as a culture war first and a battle over gun laws second.

Before Trump spoke at the annual meeting, LaPierre declared:

“It’s up to us to speak up against the three most dangerous voices in America:

academic elites,

political elites, and

media elites.

These are America’s greatest domestic threats.”

The gun industry has been experiencing a dramatic decline in sales—which have declined 10 percent in the six months since Trump was elected compared with the same period last year—

The NRA also has a “family” branding arm that

promotes guns to children on its website, including in “the six- to 12-year-old range.”

 The US Army Corps of Engineers, which controls nearly 12 million acres of public land nationwide, has banned almost anyone from carrying loaded weapons or ammunition on this land since the 1970s. But there’s a case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging that prohibition, and the Corps signaled in March that it would be dropping its challenge.

Ryan Zinke canceled a ban on the use of lead ammunition by hunters on federal lands, which environmentalists worried would damage their ecosystems. Zinke also directed any agency managing federal land to identify areas where hunting could be expanded.

Neil Gorsuch, who enjoyed a million-dollar ad blitz from the NRA when the Senate was considering his nomination.

NRA. Its top priority now is to get Congress to pass—and President Trump to sign—concealed-carry reciprocity legislation, which would require every state to recognize a concealed-carry permit issued by any other state.


https://www.thenation.com/article/gu...wants-to-help/

anything you crappy gun fellators and NRA do CRAPIFIES America