Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 7 April 2017, Day 78:

 

Timeline of 63 Hours: From Chemical Attack to Trump’s Strike in Syria, The New York Times, Michael D. Shear and Michael R. Gordon, Friday, 7 April 2017: “The decision came Thursday afternoon on Air Force One on the way to Florida. President Trump assembled his National Security Council on his plane, some by secure video link, as the generals made the case that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had to learn there was a price to pay.”… Two hours later at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump gave the order to unleash 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Al Shayrat airfield in western Syria, where the chemical weapons attack originated. His generals had given him the option of delaying a day, but Mr. Trump chose not to wait. It had been only 63 hours from the chemical attack to the American strike.” See also, Who Was in the Room? these Advisers Joined Trump for the Syria Strike, The New York Times, David E. Sanger, Friday, 7 April 2017.

The media loved Trump’s show of military might in Syria. Are we really doing this again? The Washington Post, Margaret Sullivan, published on Saturday, 8 April 2017: “The cruise missiles struck, and many in the mainstream media fawned. ‘I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night,’ declared Fareed Zakaria on CNN, after the firing of 59 missiles at a Syrian military airfield late Thursday night. (His words sounded familiar, since CNN’s Van Jones made a nearly identical pronouncement after Trump’s first address to Congress.) ‘On Syria attack, Trump’s heart came first,’ read a New York Times headline. ‘President Trump has done the right thing and I salute him for it,’ wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens — a frequent Trump critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist. He added: ‘Now destroy the Assad regime for good.’ Brian Williams, on MSNBC, seemed mesmerized by the images of the strikes provided by the Pentagon. He used the word ‘beautiful’ three times and alluded to a Leonard Cohen lyric — ‘I am guided by the beauty of our weapons’ — without apparent irony…. Why do so many in the news media love a show of force? ‘There is no faster way to bring public support than to pursue military action,’ said Ken Paulson, head of the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center…. Clara Jeffery, editor in chief of Mother Jones, offered a simple explanation: ‘It’s dramatic. It’s good for TV, reporters get caught up in the moment, or, worse, jingoism.’… [E]mpathy as the president’s clear motivation is accepted, she said — ‘with no mention of the refugee ban keeping those kids out, no mention of Islamophobia that has informed his campaign and administration. How can you write about motive and not explore that hypocrisy?’… Groupthink, and a lack of proper skepticism, is something that we’ve seen many times before as the American news media watches an administration step to the brink of war.” See also, The Spoils of War: Trump Lavished With Media and Bipartisan Praise for Bombing Syria, The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, Friday, 7 April 2017: “In every type of government, nothing unites people behind the leader more quickly, reflexively or reliably than war. Donald Trump now sees how true that is, as the same establishment leaders in U.S. politics and media who have spent months denouncing him as a mentally unstable and inept authoritarian and unprecedented threat to democracy are standing and applauding him as he launches bombs at Syrian government targets.”

Russia Suspends Cooperation With U.S. in Syria After U.S. Missile Strikes, The New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar, Friday, 7 April 2017: “Russia on Friday froze a critical agreement on military cooperation with the United States in Syria after an American military strike, warning that the operation would further corrode already dismal relations between Moscow and Washington. Syria, Russia’s ally, condemned the American strikes as ‘a disgraceful act.’ In addition to suspending the pact to coordinate air operations over Syria, an accord that was meant to prevent accidental encounters between the two militaries, Russia also said it would bolster Syria’s air defense systems, and was reported to be planning to send a frigate into the Mediterranean Sea to visit the logistics base at the Syrian port of Tartus…. A statement from the office of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said the American missile strikes, which President Trump said were a response to a chemical weapons attack in Idlib Province on Tuesday that left more than 80 people dead, was the result of ‘a false propaganda campaign.’ Syria has denied that it possesses chemical weapons, and Russia held to its view that Mr. Assad had not bombed his own people. The American attack left six people dead, according to the Syrian Army, and a military spokesman described the missile strikes as an act of ‘flagrant aggression.'”

Continue reading Week 12, Friday, 7 April – Thursday, 13 April 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 31 March 2017, Day 71:

 

Trump Calls the Congressional Investigations Into His Presidential Campaign’s Ties to Russia a ‘Witch Hunt,’ The New York Times, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Friday, 31 March 2017: “President Trump said on Friday [31 March] that Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned last month over his contacts with Russian officials, should ask for immunity from prosecution in the congressional investigation into the presidential campaign’s ties to Moscow. Mr. Trump called the inquiry a ‘witch hunt’ by the news media and Democrats. The president made the remark on Twitter the morning after it was revealed that Mr. Flynn was seeking an immunity deal as part of an offer to testify in the investigations by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees into Russian meddling. Those inquiries are looking into the presidential election and potential collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign staff members and the Russians. ‘Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!’ Mr. Trump wrote. The president has been eager to dismiss as ‘fake news’ all allegations that members of his campaign colluded with the Russians, and the post appeared to be an effort to discredit the congressional inquiries that are examining those claims. It also appeared to be aimed at defusing any speculation that Mr. Flynn might be seeking immunity because he has incriminating information to share about Mr. Trump or his associates…. [Mr. Trump] has said previously that seeking protection from prosecution is a telltale sign of wrongdoing. ‘If you’re not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for, right?’ he said at a campaign rally in Orlando, Fla., in September. Mr. Trump was referring to Hillary Clinton aides who received immunity during an F.B.I. inquiry into her private email server.”

Bernie Sanders Wants to Expand Medicare to Everybody–Exactly What Its Architects Wanted, The Intercept, Zaid Jilani, Friday, 31 March 2017: “Bernie Sanders doesn’t just want to play defense on health care — he’s introducing a bill that would expand the Medicare program to everybody in America, creating a single-payer health care system. Such a system would wipe out inefficiencies in our current, private insurance-run system, and polls very well — yet it is opposed by the health care industry and the Democratic and Republican establishments that relies on them for campaign cash. But creating a ‘Medicare-for-all,’ single-payer health insurance system for all Americans would be fulfilling the dream of those who created the Medicare system in the first place in 1965. Medicare’s architects ended up compromising with Congress and establishing a system that offered public-run health insurance just for the elderly, but they never intended for only retirees to benefit from the program.”

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel approves $25 million settlement in Trump University cases, The Washington Post, Rosalind S. Helderman, Friday, 31 March 2017: “A federal judge has given final approval to a $25 million settlement to litigation against Trump University, a now-defunct real estate seminar program once owned by President Trump. Trump had agreed not long after his election to settle two class-action suits filed by former customers of the program in California, as well as a New York state lawsuit. The suits argued that Trump University defrauded customers, some of whom paid more than $30,000 to participate in the seminars, with false advertisements promising that they would learn Trump’s personal real estate tricks and that Trump had hand-picked seminar leaders. In depositions, Trump acknowledged he did not choose instructors. The case had been used against Trump during the presidential campaign, with Democrats contending that Trump University was part of a pattern of deceptive Trump business endeavors. It also sparked one of the campaign’s most controversial moments for Trump, when he argued that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was overseeing the matter, was biased because of his Mexican heritage…. Curiel ruled Friday that the settlement was ‘fair’ and ‘adequate.’ In a written opinion, Curiel said that many former customers are likely to recover 80 or 90 percent of the amount they had paid for the program, a recovery rate he termed ‘extraordinary.’ The settlement will be available to more than 5,000 former customers of the program, which was held in hotel ballrooms around the country.”

Continue reading Week 11, Friday, 31 March – Thursday, 6 April 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 24 March 2017, Day 64:

 

In Major Defeat for Trump, Push to Repeal Health Care Law Fails, The New York Times, Robert Pear, Glenn Thrush and Thomas Kaplan, Friday, 24 March 2017: “House Republican leaders, facing a revolt among conservatives and moderates in their ranks, pulled legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act from consideration on the House floor Friday afternoon in a significant defeat for President Trump on the first legislative showdown of his presidency. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan conceded, ‘We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.’ The defeat of the Republicans’ three-month blitz to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement exposed deep divisions in the Republican Party that the election of a Republican president could not mask. It also cast a shadow over the ambitious agenda that Mr. Trump and Republican leaders had promised to enact once their party assumed power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. The drama of the day underscored the futility of the leaders’ efforts. Mr. Ryan rushed to the White House shortly after noon to tell Mr. Trump he did not have the votes for a repeal bill that had been promised for seven years — since the day Mr. Obama signed his landmark health care act into law. Mr. Trump, in a telephone interview moments after the bill was pulled, blamed Democrats and predicted that they would seek a deal within a year, he asserted, after ‘Obamacare explodes’ because of high premiums. He also expressed weariness with the fight, which was a fraction of the length of time that Democrats devoted to enacting the Affordable Care Act. ‘The best thing that could happen is exactly what happened — watch,’ he said. ‘It’s enough already.’ But the effort to win passage had been relentless — and hardly hidden. Vice President Mike Pence and Tom Price, the health secretary, rushed to Capitol Hill for a late appeal to House conservatives, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. And in private, Mr. Trump took a much harder line. The president was furious that members of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus had opposed the legislation. He demanded for much of Thursday that Mr. Ryan push a vote to publicly expose the members who were opposing the administration. Mr. Trump and his top strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, wanted to see a confidential list to exact revenge on the bill’s Republican opponents, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation…. In the end, Republican leaders doomed the bill by agreeing to eliminate federal standards for the minimum benefits that must be provided by certain health insurance policies. ‘This provision is so cartoonishly malicious that I can picture someone twirling their mustache as they drafted it in their secret capitol lair last night,’ said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. ‘This back-room deal will kill the requirement for insurance companies to offer essential health benefits such as emergency services, maternity care, mental health care, substance addiction treatment, pediatric services, prescription drugs and many other basic essential services.’ Defeat of the bill could be a catalyst if it forces Republicans and Democrats to work together to improve the Affordable Care Act, which virtually every member of Congress believes needs repair. Democrats have been saying for weeks that they want to work with Republicans on such changes, but first, they said, Republicans had to abandon their drive to repeal the law.”

In a Call to The Times, Trump Blames Democrats for the Failure of the Health Bill, The New York Times, Maggie Haberman, Friday, 24 March 2017: “Just moments after the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was declared dead, President Trump sought to paint the defeat of his first legislative effort as an early-term blip. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, was preparing to tell the public that the health care bill was being withdrawn — a byproduct, Mr. Trump said, of Democratic partisanship. The president predicted that Democrats would return to him to make a deal in roughly a year. ‘Look, we got no Democratic votes. We got none, zero,’ Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview he initiated with The New York Times. ‘The good news is they now own health care. They now own Obamacare.’ Mr. Trump insisted that the Affordable Care Act would collapse in the next year, which would then force Democrats to come to the bargaining table for a new bill…. In a later phone interview with The Times, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, ridiculed Mr. Trump’s remarks about Democrats being at fault. ‘Whenever the president gets in trouble, he points fingers of blame,’ Mr. Schumer said. ‘It’s about time he stopped doing that and started to lead. The Republicans were totally committed to repeal from the get-go, never talked to us once. But now that they realize that repeal can’t work, if they back off repeal, of course we’ll work with them to make it even better.’ Mr. Trump said that “when they come to make a deal,” he would be open and receptive. He singled out the Tuesday Group moderates for praise, calling them ‘terrific,’ an implicit jab at the House Freedom Caucus, which his aides had expressed frustration with during negotiations.”

The U.S. State Department, in Reversal, Issues Permit for Keystone XL Oil Pipeline, The New York Times, Clifford Krauss, Friday, 24 March 2017: “During his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump repeatedly hailed the Keystone XL pipeline as a vital jobs program and one that sharply contrasted his vision for the economy with that of Hillary Clinton. ‘Today we begin to make things right,’ President Trump said Friday morning shortly after the State Department granted the pipeline giant TransCanada a permit for Keystone construction, a reversal of Obama administration policy. The pipeline would link oil producers in Canada and North Dakota with refiners and export terminals on the Gulf Coast. It has long been an object of contention, with environmentalists saying it would contribute to climate change and the project’s proponents — Republicans, some labor unions and the oil industry — contending that it would help guarantee national energy security for decades to come. When President Barack Obama rejected the project in late 2015, he said it would undermine American leadership in curbing reliance on carbon fuels. The pipeline still faces hurdles before it can be built. It needs the approval of the Nebraska Public Service Commission and local landowners who are concerned about their water and land rights. Protests are likely since the project has become an important symbol for the environmental movement, with the Canadian oil sands among the most carbon-intensive oil supplies. Mining the oil sands requires vast amounts of energy for extraction and processing. In addition, interest among many oil companies in the oil sands is waning amid sluggish oil prices. Extraction from the oil sands, situated in the sub-Arctic boreal forest, is expensive. Statoil and Total, two European energy giants, have abandoned their production projects. In recent weeks, Royal Dutch Shell agreed to sell most of its oil sands assets for $8.5 billion. And Exxon Mobil wrote down 3.5 billion barrels of reserves, conceding the oil sands were not economically attractive enough to develop for the next few years at least. Nevertheless, Canadian production continues to grow as projects that were conceived when prices were higher begin to operate. And the Keystone effort is central to the future of TransCanada, a major force in the Canadian oil patch.” See also, Keystone XL pipeline Opponents Renew Fight Against Pipeline After Trump Approves It, Inside Climate News, Marianne Lavelle, Friday, 24 March 2017.

Continue reading Week 10, Friday, 24 March – Thursday, 30 March 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 17 March 2017, Day 57:

 

Trump Offers No Apology for Claim on British Spying, The New York Times, Peter Baker and Steven Erlanger, Friday, 17 March 2017: “President Trump provoked a rare public dispute with America’s closest ally on Friday after his White House aired an explosive and unsubstantiated claim that Britain’s spy agency had secretly eavesdropped on him at the behest of President Barack Obama during last year’s campaign. Livid British officials adamantly denied the allegation and secured promises from senior White House officials never to repeat it. But a defiant Mr. Trump refused to back down, making clear that the White House had nothing to retract or apologize for because his spokesman had simply repeated an assertion made by a Fox News commentator. Fox itself later disavowed the report. The rupture with London was Mr. Trump’s latest quarrel with an ally or foreign power since taking office. Mexico’s president angrily canceled a White House visit in January over Mr. Trump’s proposed border wall. A telephone call with Australia’s prime minister ended abruptly amid a dispute over refugees. Sweden bristled over Mr. Trump’s criticism of its refugee policy. And China refused for weeks to engage with Mr. Trump because of his postelection call with Taiwan’s president…. The angry response from Britain stemmed from Mr. Trump’s persistence in accusing Mr. Obama of tapping his phones last year despite the lack of evidence and across-the-board denials. At a briefing on Thursday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, read from a sheaf of news clippings that he suggested bolstered the president’s claim. Among them was an assertion by Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, that Mr. Obama had used Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, the agency known as the GCHQ, to spy on Mr. Trump. In response to Mr. Spicer, the agency quickly denied it as ‘nonsense’ and ‘utterly ridiculous,’ while British officials contacted American counterparts to complain.” See also, Fox’s Andrew Napolitano Stirred the Pot for Trump’s British Tempest, Michael M. Grynbaum, Friday, 17 March 2017: “Andrew Napolitano was a Superior Court judge in New Jersey until, frustrated by the constraints of his salary, he left the bench for more lucrative pastures: talk radio, a syndicated small-claims court TV series (‘Power of Attorney’) and, eventually, Fox News, where he rose to become the network’s senior legal analyst. It was in that basic-cable capacity this week that Mr. Napolitano managed to set off a cascading scandal, which by Friday had sparked a trans-Atlantic tiff between Britain and the United States while plunging President Trump’s close relationship with Fox News into new, murkier territory…. The saga began on Tuesday on ‘Fox & Friends,’ the chummy morning show, where Mr. Napolitano made a bizarre and unsupported accusation: Citing three unnamed sources, he said that Britain’s top spy agency had wiretapped Mr. Trump on behalf of President Barack Obama during last year’s campaign. Cable news blather, especially at that hour, usually vanishes at the commercial break. But on Thursday, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated the claim from the White House podium, infuriating British officials. On Friday, Fox News was forced to disavow Mr. Napolitano’s remarks. ‘Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary,’ the anchor Shepard Smith said on-air. ‘Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, any way. Full stop.’… Mr. Trump refused to back down from the claims on Friday, and even praised Mr. Napolitano, telling reporters, ‘All we did was quote a very talented legal mind.'”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Rejects Talks With North Korea on Nuclear Program, The New York Times, David Sanger, Friday, 17 March 2017: “Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson ruled out on Friday opening any negotiation with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and said for the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action ‘if they elevate the threat of their weapons program’ to an unacceptable level. Mr. Tillerson’s comments in Seoul, a day before he travels to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders, explicitly rejected any return to the bargaining table in an effort to buy time by halting North Korea’s accelerating testing program. The country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said on New Year’s Day that North Korea was in the ‘final stage‘ of preparation for the first launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States. The secretary of state’s comments were the Trump administration’s first public hint at the options being considered, and they made clear that none involved a negotiated settlement or waiting for the North Korean government to collapse. ‘The policy of strategic patience has ended,’ Mr. Tillerson said, a reference to the term used by the Obama administration to describe a policy of waiting out the North Koreans, while gradually ratcheting up sanctions and covert action. Negotiations ‘can only be achieved by denuclearizing, giving up their weapons of mass destruction,’ he said — a step to which the North committed in 1992, and again in subsequent accords, but has always violated. ‘Only then will we be prepared to engage them in talks.'”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Meets Trump, the Defender Versus the Disrupter, The New York Times, Mark Landler, Friday, 17 March 2017: “Near the end of his meticulously formal, utterly impersonal news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Trump finally sought a sliver of common ground with his guest: They both, he said, had been wiretapped by former President Barack Obama. Ms. Merkel did a barely perceptible double take, busying herself by shuffling her notes. She smiled thinly and said nothing, as if she had resolved not to get drawn into Mr. Trump’s political dramas. It was like that throughout Mr. Trump’s first meeting with Ms. Merkel on Friday, an awkward encounter that was the most closely watched of his young presidency and took on an outsize symbolism: the great disrupter confronts the last defender of the liberal world order. Worlds apart in style and policy, Mr. Trump and Ms. Merkel made a show of working together, as they stood side by side in the East Room of the White House. But they could not disguise the gulf that separates them on trade, immigration and a host of other thorny issues.” See also, In awkward exchange, Trump seems to ignore Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handshake request, Politico, Madeline Conway, Friday, 17 March 2017: “Donald Trump, who made headlines for shaking hands with Japan’s prime minister in front of reporters for a full 19 seconds, seemed to ignore German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she suggested that they exchange the same courtesy during her White House visit Friday. In an exchange caught on video, photographers gathered around Trump and Merkel in the Oval Office early Friday afternoon and suggested that the two leaders shake hands for the camera. Merkel, a U.S. ally regarded highly by former President Barack Obama, turned toward Trump and asked, ‘Do you want to have a handshake?’ Trump, who seemed to be grimacing as he sat alongside Merkel, did not respond. He continued looking forward as the cameras rolled. It is unclear whether or not Trump heard the chancellor, but clips of the exchange immediately made the rounds on Twitter. Reporters dubbed it ‘awkward.'”

Continue reading Week 9, Friday, 17 March – Thursday, 23 March 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 10 March 2017, Day 50:

 

Trump Abruptly Orders 46 Obama-Era Prosecutors at the Department of Justice to Resign, The New York Times, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, Friday, 10 March 2017: “The Trump administration moved on Friday to sweep away most of the remaining vestiges of Obama administration prosecutors at the Justice Department, ordering 46 holdover United States attorneys to tender their resignations immediately — including Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. The firings were a surprise — especially for Mr. Bharara, who has a reputation for prosecuting public corruption cases and for investigating insider trading. In November, Mr. Bharara met with then President-elect Donald J. Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan and told reporters afterward that both Mr. Trump and Jeff Sessions, who is now the attorney general, had asked him about staying on, which the prosecutor said he expected to do. But on Friday, Mr. Bharara was among federal prosecutors who received a call from Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, instructing him to resign, according to a person familiar with the matter. As of Friday evening, though some of the prosecutors had publicly announced their resignations, Mr. Bharara had not. A spokesman for Mr. Bharara declined to comment…. The abrupt order came after two weeks of increasing calls from Mr. Trump’s allies outside the government to oust appointees from President Barack Obama’s administration….  [T]he calls from the acting deputy attorney general arose a day after Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator who is a strong supporter of President Trump, said on his evening show that Mr. Trump needed to ‘purge’ Obama holdovers from the federal government. Mr. Hannity portrayed them as ‘saboteurs’ from the ‘deep state’ who were leaking secrets to hurt Mr. Trump. It also came the same week that government watchdogs wrote to Mr. Bharara and urged him to investigate whether Mr. Trump had violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars federal officials from taking payments from foreign governments…. It is not unusual for a new president to replace United States attorneys appointed by a predecessor, especially when there has been a change in which party controls the White House. Still, other presidents have done it gradually in order to minimize disruption, giving those asked to resign more time to make the transition while keeping some inherited prosecutors in place, as it had appeared Mr. Trump would do with Mr. Bharara.”

ACLU files ethics complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his testimony to a Senate committee that he had no communications with the Russian government, The Washington Post, Kristine Phillips, Friday, 10 March 2017: “The American Civil Liberties Union has filed an ethics complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his testimony to a Senate committee that he had no communications with the Russian government. The complaint, filed with the Alabama State Bar’s disciplinary commission, comes less than two weeks after The Washington Post revealed that Sessions met with Russia’s ambassador to the United States twice last year and did not disclose those communications when asked during his confirmation hearing in January. The March 1 report by The Post’s Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller intensified calls for a congressional investigation into Russia’s alleged involvement in the presidential election. Chris Anders, deputy director of the ACLU’s legislative office in Washington, claims that Sessions had violated Alabama’s rules of professional conduct preventing lawyers from engaging in ‘conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,’ according to the complaint, which cites The Post’s story…. The complaint, filed Thursday, says the report of the meetings with the Russian ambassador ‘does not square’ with Sessions’s sworn testimony in the Senate.”

Trump Supporters Have the Most to Lose in the Republican Health Care Plan, The New York Times, Nate Cohn, Friday, 10 March 2017: “The people who stand to lose the most in tax credits under the House Republican health plan tended to support Donald J. Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, according to a new Upshot analysis. Over all, voters who would be eligible for a tax credit that would be at least $1,000 smaller than the subsidy they’re eligible for under Obamacare supported Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton by a seven-point margin. The voters hit the hardest — eligible for at least $5,000 less in tax credits under the Republican plan — supported Mr. Trump by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent. These estimates are based on data from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (C.C.E.S.), a large survey of tens of thousands of Americans. Kaiser estimated whether individuals would gain or lose under the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, based on their income, age and insurance market.”

Continue reading Week 8, Friday, 10 March – Thursday, 16 March 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

 

Friday, 3 March 2017, Day 43:

 

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson skips State Department’s annual announcement on human rights, alarming advocates, The Washington Post, Carol Morello, Friday, 3 March 2017: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who during his confirmation hearings repeatedly vowed to promote human rights as a core American value, alarmed human rights advocates when he did not appear in person to present the State Department’s annual human rights report, released Friday. In a break with long-standing tradition only rarely breached, Tillerson’s remarks were limited to a short written introduction to the lengthy report. Nor did any senior State Department official make on-camera comments that are typically watched around the world, including by officials in authoritarian countries where abuses are singled out in the report.”

Moscow blames anti-Russian hysteria for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s plight, The Washington Post, David Filipov, Friday, 3 March 2017: “From Russia’s point of view, the turmoil swirling around the Trump administration and its contacts with Russian officials is a ‘witch hunt”’fueled by ‘fake news’ instigated by leading Democrats looking to distract attention from their election defeat and carried out by their lap dogs in the U.S. media. In other words, Moscow’s reaction pretty much mirrors that of President Trump after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any investigation into alleged Russian interference in the presidential election. Sessions made the move after The Washington Post revealed that he twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last year, while still serving as a senator, but did not disclose that during his Senate confirmation hearing in January. Sessions was an early backer of Trump’s bid for the presidency and served as an adviser and surrogate for his campaign.”

Keystone Pipeline Won’t Have to Use U.S. Steel Despite Trump Pledge, The Wall Street Journal, Kris Maher, Ted Mann and Christopher M. Matthews, Friday, 3 March 2017; updated on Saturday, 4 March 2017: “A Trump administration official said an executive order approving two pipeline projects and mandating the use of American-made steel won’t apply to the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, despite prior statements by President Donald Trump that it would. Days after taking office in January, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to speed approval of two pipeline projects that had been blocked by the Obama administration, the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline. On several occasions since then, President Trump has said that the order would require the use of steel made in the U.S. As recently as last week, Mr. Trump said that Keystone and the Dakota Access Pipeline must use U.S. steel ‘or we’re not building one.’ On Friday, however, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the presidential order applies to new pipelines or those that are being repaired.”

Continue reading Week 7, Friday, 3 March – Thursday, 9 March 2017:

[Read more…]

 

 

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 24 February 2017, Day 36:

 

Trump tweeted about the FBI and leaks at 7:31 am: “The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security ‘leakers’ that have permeated our government for a long time. They can’t even……” And again at 7:36 am: …”find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW”

Trump Denounces F.B.I. Over Leaks, Demanding Investigation, The New York Times, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Friday, 24 February 2017: “President Trump on Friday assailed the F.B.I. as a dangerously porous agency, charging that leaks of classified information from within its ranks were putting the country at risk — and calling for an immediate hunt for the leakers. Mr. Trump’s complaints were his latest attacks on his own government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which he has characterized as misguided, irresponsible and politically motivated. The criticisms appeared to be a response to a news report Thursday night indicating that a White House official had asked the F.B.I. to rebut an article detailing contacts between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russian intelligence officials…. An F.B.I. official confirmed on Thursday night [23 February] that the White House had asked last week for the bureau’s help disputing the story, and that senior F.B.I. officials had rejected the request, citing the continuing investigation into Russian efforts to affect the election…. Mr. Trump’s remarks add to an already unusual moment in history for the F.B.I. The bureau, along with other American intelligence agencies, has concluded that Russia unleashed a hacking campaign to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, in part to help Mr. Trump. F.B.I. agents are also investigating some of Mr. Trump’s former campaign advisers and associates. Mr. Trump has been disparaging the intelligence community for months, particularly in response to its conclusion that Russia sought to influence the election on his behalf. In December, he suggested that United States intelligence agencies could not be trusted because they erroneously concluded that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In January, he denounced leaks emanating from the intelligence community and argued that they were politically motivated. ‘Are we living in Nazi Germany?’ he said.”

Fact Check: Trump Blasts ‘Fake News’ and Repeats Inaccurate Claims at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), The New York Times, Linda Qiu, Friday, 24 February 2017: “President Trump’s speech on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference followed a familiar pattern: Blast the news media as ‘dishonest,’ repeat a string of falsehoods and wrap up by promising to change the status quo. ‘I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘It’s fake, phony, fake. They have a professional obligation as members of the press to report honestly. But as you saw throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn’t tell the truth.'” This article assesses some of the claims Trump made at CPAC. See also, Remarks by President Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), whitehouse.gov, Friday, 24 February 2017: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake. A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people, because they have no sources. They just make them up when there are none. … There are some great reporters around. They are talented. They’re honest as the day is long. They’re great. But there are some terrible, dishonest people, and they do a tremendous disservice to our country and to our people. A tremendous disservice. They are very dishonest people, and they shouldn’t use sources. They should put the name of the person. You will see stories dry up like you’ve never seen before.”

Continue reading Week 6, Friday, 24 February – Thursday, 2 March 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 17 February 2017, Day 29:

 

Scott Pruitt, longtime adversary of the Environmental Protection Agency, confirmed to lead the agency, The Washington Post, Brady Dennis, Friday, 17 February 2017: “Scott Pruitt woke up Friday morning as Oklahoma’s attorney general, a post he had used for six years to repeatedly sue the Environmental Protection Agency for its efforts to regulate mercury, smog and other forms of pollution. By day’s end, he had been sworn in as the agency’s new leader, setting off a struggle over what the EPA will become in the Trump era. Pruitt begins what is likely to be a controversial tenure with a clear set of goals. He has been outspoken in his view, widely shared by Republicans, that the EPA zealously overstepped its legal authority under President Barack Obama, saddling the fossil-fuel industry with unnecessary and onerous regulations. But rolling back the environmental actions of the previous administration won’t happen quickly or easily. Even if President Trump issues executive orders aimed at undoing Obama initiatives to combat climate change, oversee waterways and wetlands and slash pollution from power plants — as he is expected to do as early as next week — existing regulations won’t disappear overnight.”

Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the American People,’ The New York Times, Michael M. Grynbaum, Friday, 17 February 2017: “President Trump, in an extraordinary rebuke of the nation’s press organizations, wrote on Twitter on Friday that the nation’s news media ‘is the enemy of the American people.’ Even by the standards of a president who routinely castigates journalists — and who on Thursday devoted much of a 77-minute news conference to criticizing his press coverage — Mr. Trump’s tweet was a striking escalation in his attacks. At 4:32 p.m., shortly after arriving at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump took to Twitter to write:

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The message was swiftly deleted, but 16 minutes later Mr. Trump posted a revised version. Restricted to 140 characters, he removed the word “sick,” and added two other television networks — ABC and CBS — to his list of offending organizations. [At 4:48 pm Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”] The president has referred to the media as the ‘opposition party’ to his administration, and he has blamed news organizations for stymieing his agenda. But the language that Mr. Trump deployed on Friday is more typically used by leaders to refer to hostile foreign governments or subversive organizations. It also echoed the language of autocrats who seek to minimize dissent.”

FBI Director James Comey met with lawmakers from the Senate Intelligence Committee amid uproar over Trump-Russia ties, The Hill, Katie Bo Williams, Friday, 17 February 2017: “FBI Director James B. Comey met with lawmakers from the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Friday, amid an uproar over alleged contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials. Committee members and Comey spent nearly three hours Friday afternoon in a secure room in the Senate basement used for classified briefings, known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). Lawmakers tersely refused to comment upon exiting the meeting, declining even to confirm that Comey met with them.”

Continue reading Week 5, Friday, 17 February – Thursday, 23 February 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 10 February 2017, Day 22:

 

Tom Price Is Sworn In as Health and Human Services Secretary Amid Senate Disunity, The New York Times, Robert Pear and Alan Rappeport, Friday, 10 February 2017: “Mr. Price was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence just hours after the Senate, by a party-line vote of 52 to 47, confirmed his nomination in the early hours of Friday morning…. Senate Democrats and the chamber’s two independents said they feared the worst, based on Mr. Price’s 12-year record as a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Georgia. They said that Mr. Price had led efforts to repeal the health care law and slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid by shifting some costs to beneficiaries and trimming payments to some health care providers. ‘This is a sad evening,’ said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. ‘People will look back and say that the Republicans’ war on seniors began at 2 a.m. Friday morning when the Senate unfortunately confirmed Representative Price.’ The depth of concern about Mr. Price was illustrated by the comments of Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats but is not given to hyperbole. ‘To put somebody in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services that is inimical to Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act — this guy is a wrecking ball,’ Mr. King said. ‘He is not a secretary. He is going into this agency to destroy it. He wants to undercut and diminish and, in some cases, literally destroy some of the major underpinnings of providing health care to people in this country.’

51% of Trump voters think the “Bowling Green massacre” justifies Trump’s Muslim ban, Mic, Anna Swartz, Friday, 10 February 2017: “A new poll suggests that more than half of Trump voters believe the Bowling Green massacre is a prime example of why President Donald Trump’s travel ban is so necessary. Apparently they don’t realize the “Bowling Green massacre” is a complete fabrication. The new national poll, released on Friday by the North Carolina-based organization Public Policy Polling, surveyed 712 registered voters. When asked if they either disagreed or agreed with the statement, ‘The Bowling Green massacre shows why we need Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration,’ a full 51% of Trump voters said they agreed that the supposed massacre was a justification for Trump’s ban, while just 23% said they disagreed (for comparison, 90% of Hillary Clinton voters said they disagreed with the statement).  …[T]he ‘Bowling Green massacre’ is a lie, a made-up terrorist attack that seems to have come straight from the mind of Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, who mentioned it in a Feb. 2 interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.”

Pence was told Flynn didn’t discuss sanctions with Russian ambassador, aides say, Politico, Matthew Nussbaum, Friday, 10 February 2017: “Reports that national security adviser Michael Flynn may have discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russian ambassador before President Donald Trump’s inauguration has revived concerns about Flynn’s relationships with Moscow — and threatens to entangle a member of the administration who has so far mostly dodged controversy: Vice President Mike Pence. Pence said in a Jan. 15 appearance on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ that Flynn’s conversations with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were ‘strictly coincidental’ and had nothing to do with the Obama administration’s decision to punish Russia for meddling in the November election. ‘They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,’ Pence told CBS. An administration official told POLITICO that Pence’s remarks came after a conversation with Flynn and were guided by that conversation — leaving open the possibility that Flynn misled the Vice President just as he repeatedly denied the allegations to the Washington Post before acknowledging the topic may have been discussed.”

Continue reading Week 4, Friday, 10 February – Thursday, 16 February 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

Friday, 3 February 2017, Day 15:

 

Trump tweeted about Iran at 6:28 am on Friday, 3 February 2017: “Iran is playing with fire – they don’t appreciate how “kind” President Obama was to them. Not me!”

Trump tweeted about protests against him and his administration at 6:48 am on Friday, 3 February 2017:  “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump tweeted about the attack at the Louvre in Paris at 7:51 am on Friday, 3 February 2017: “A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.”

Continue reading Week 3, Friday, 3 February – Thursday, 9 February 2017:

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