March 2, 2018

Trump Imposed Tariffs In Response to Pressure From Bernie Sanders and His Army of Supporters

Today, Trump announced the imposition of tariffs on steel imports, which is a move that Bernie Sanders has long championed.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/03/31/bernie-sanders-pledges-rewrite-disastrous-trade-deals/82473012/

Along with NAFTA, Sanders said he also would rewrite CAFTA, permanent normal trade relations with China, and the Korean Free Trade Agreement.

He didn’t specify what changes he would make but said U.S. workers shouldn't be forced to compete against people making “pennies an hour.” He also criticized deals that lead corporations to move to countries such as China where there are “virtually no environmental standards” compared to the U.S.

“That is not fair competition,” he said.

His campaign says Sanders also would impose countervailing tariffs on imports from China and Japan “until they stop dumping steel into the United States and stop manipulating their currencies.”

In addition, Bernie has been keeping pressure on Trump to not stop with tearing up TPP, but to also tear up NAFTA, which Trump still has yet to do. Bernie Sanders should call attention to this that Trump is simply stealing from Bernie's playbook, so that when economic exceeds 3% as Bernie predicted under his policies, Bernie gets the credit.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-13/bernie-sanders-to-trump-on-nafta-for-once-keep-your-promise

Bernie Sanders Tells Trump to Keep His Promise on Nafta

President Donald Trump is finding an unlikely ally in his efforts to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement: the political left.

Civil-society groups, union leaders and left-wing politicians have opposed almost everything Trump has done. But they’re urging him to stand firm in his attempt to overhaul Nafta -- and face down opposition from business groups, who complain that U.S. companies will be hurt by the proposed changes. Mexico and Canada have called U.S. demands unworkable, including on regional-content requirements for cars and investor-state dispute systems.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an outspoken critic of trade deals in his campaign for president last year, called on Trump to deliver. “When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he promised that he was going to stop corporations from shifting American jobs to Mexico,” Sanders said Wednesday at a rally for the #ReplaceNafta movement in Washington. “For once in your life, keep your promises.”

February 25, 2018

AlterNet - Could Republicans Just Cancel the Midterm Elections?

Lets say Trump gets his wish and starts a war with a convenient adversary whether it be North Korea or Iran. Lets say Trump then fire Jeff Sessions and picks an AG who is more than happy to go after Trump's political adversaries. Could our Democracy be saved if these two events and Republicans in Congress just go along for the ride by doing nothing?

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/could-donald-trump-cancel-mid-term-elections

In his 2017 New York Times bestselling book "On Tyranny," Yale historian Timothy Snyder warned that the American people only had one year to stop Donald Trump from causing serious and perhaps irreversible harm to our democracy, as well as other social and political institutions.

Snyder's concerns were centered on how the rule of law, reality and truth, civil and human rights, and the ways Americans interact with each other as members of a shared community would come under assault by Trump and his allies' agenda. He also sounded the alarm about the possibility that the Trump administration could stage its own version of Nazi Germany's "Reichstag fire" as a way of declaring a national emergency in order to consolidate power.

* * *
When Trump was elected you said America had roughly one year before the country's democracy was irrevocably damaged. You were also concerned that Trump and his allies would stage some type of "Reichstag fire," a staged event that would permit them to expand their control. Where are we with those predictions?

My allusion to the Reichstag fire was meant to be a self-defeating prophecy. I was trying from the very beginning to get that idea out there in order to make it less likely. I think that conversation has now gone well beyond me. I am happy that plenty of other folks have now raised it. My new concern is that there will be something that happens around the time of the midterms. This will allow Trump and his allies to say that the midterms don't really count or that we have to have the midterms under exceptional conditions. Take note of how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently said that the Russians are going to hack the 2018 election and we really can't do anything about it.

I'm starting to wonder whether the idea might be to discredit the election and use Russian interference as a pretext to say that the elections aren't real and therefore we must not have any turnover. It is odd otherwise for Tillerson to say, "Yes, there is Russian interference, but no, we can't do anything about it." It's one thing to say it's not real. It's another thing to say it's real, but hey, you know, what the hell? That is basically Tillerson's position, as I understood him.

February 21, 2018

Right-Wing Media Uses Parkland Shooting as Conspiracy Fodder

Source: MSN/NY Times

The teenagers of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who a week ago lost 17 of their classmates and school staff members in a mass shooting, have emerged as passionate advocates for reform, speaking openly of their anger in the hope of forcing a reckoning on guns.

But in certain right-wing corners of the web — and, increasingly, from more mainstream voices like Rush Limbaugh and a commentator on CNN — the students are being portrayed not as grief-ridden survivors but as pawns and conspiracists intent on exploiting a tragedy to undermine the nation’s laws.

In these baseless accounts, which by Tuesday had spread rapidly on social media, the students are described as “crisis actors,” who travel to the sites of shootings to instigate fury against guns. Or they are called F.B.I. plants, defending the bureau for its failure to catch the shooter. They have been portrayed as puppets being coached and manipulated by the Democratic Party, gun control activists, the so-called antifa movement and the left-wing billionaire George Soros.

The theories are far-fetched. But they are finding a broad and prominent audience online. On Tuesday, the president’s son Donald J. Trump Jr. liked a pair of tweets that accused David Hogg, a 17-year-old who is among the most outspoken of the Parkland students, of criticizing the Trump administration in an effort to protect his father, whom Mr. Hogg has described as a retired F.B.I. agent.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/right-wing-media-uses-parkland-shooting-as-conspiracy-fodder/ar-BBJo3TH?li=BBnbcA1

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While I think that the paid social media trolls and sock puppets have been around prior to the 2016 election, I think the big change is the brazen willingness of Republicans and most notably Trump to embrace and amplify what was once considered fringe conspiracy theories. The way it worked in the past was that the establishment Republican maintained plausible deniability while the Sean Hannity's, Rush Limbaughs and Alex Jones of the world did the dirty work of pushing racism and conspiracy theories. Indeed, even they would hide their racism with the use of code words and racially charged language.

However, with Trump, you have this feedback loop where Trump himself enthusiastically regurgitates the crazyiest fringe conspiracies. Indeed, as was shown during the 2016 election, Trump's campaign often seemed to be prescient in their ability to anticipate conspiracies or leaks of documents on Wikileaks. Today, Fox will push a RW lie or talking point, then Trump will happily repeat it, which Trump will then cite as validation of his statements.

Compare this to 2008 when John McCain would at least go through the motions of admonishing his supporters not to say that President Obama was a terrorist even as the RW media pushed such conspiracies and lies. Likewise, Romney would play along with the establishment model of letting the RW media apparatus do the dirty work.

February 20, 2018

Why shouldnt the gun industry be liable for damage done by its products, just like anybody else?

Here is noted progressive legal scholar, and UC Berkeley Law Dean, Erwin Chereminsky on gun manufacturer immunity:

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article178170691.html

It is time to stop giving the gun industry special protections that are not accorded to other businesses. In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act which prevents gun companies from being sued by the victims of gun violence.

The NRA got it right when it called this “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in twenty years.” No other industry enjoys this special treatment.

The massacre in Las Vegas occurred because gun companies make semi-automatic weapons that are easily converted into automatic weapons that can kill large numbers of people in a short amount of time. Gun manufacturers take automatic military weapons like the M-16 and modify them into legal, semi-automatic weapons, like the AR-15.

They can be turned back into automatic weapons, through bump stocks or other techniques that are described on many websites. Ammunition magazines with large capacity are manufactured that serve no purpose for hunting or sport.

February 20, 2018

It's Time to End Legal Immunity for the Gun Industry - Where Do Progressives Stand?

We need to know where our electeds stand. Do they stand with gun manufacturers? Or, will they end the immunity for gun manufacturers?

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/42522-it-s-time-to-end-legal-immunity-for-the-gun-industry

In November 1998, the largest tobacco manufacturers in the country entered into a "master settlement agreement" with the attorneys general of 46 states in order to settle public health lawsuits that threatened to beggar the industry. The attorneys general had sued on the grounds that they had incurred immense Medicaid costs as the result of the tobacco industry's negligent marketing practices, causing millions of people to get hooked on cigarettes and suffering health effects that burdened the state health systems.

That same month, the City of Chicago filed a lawsuit against 22 gun manufacturers and sellers of guns in the Chicago suburbs and surrounding areas for causing a "public nuisance" in supplying and selling guns around the City at a level well above what the lawful gun market could support. The City's theory of the case was that the manufacturers and sellers must have known that the guns would end up on the illicit secondary market -- that is, on the streets of Chicago, where violence was continuing at high rates.

The case wended its way through the court system for six years, finally being dismissed by the Illinois Supreme Court in November 2004. Chicago's suit was one of several that had been filed along similar lines -- all inspired by the success of the public suits against the tobacco companies. Most of these suits suffered similar ends by 2005 -- when Congress passed the Protecting Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) which granted the gun industry immunity from civil liability for the unlawful use of guns except in narrow circumstances.

The PLCAA effectively exempted this one industry from the type of product liability and nuisance litigation that just about every other industry has to protect itself against: liability for the foreseeable misuse of their products. This immunity acted as a second shield for gun manufacturers and sellers, who already enjoy some level of protection from product liability suits because they traffic in "inherently dangerous" products, which users know are dangerous. Therefore, users themselves assume a significant level of risk for these products' use.

February 15, 2018

Last February, Trump signed a bill making it easier for people with mental illness to buy guns

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/15/17016036/trump-guns-mental-illness

It did not attract a ton of attention at the time (nothing does these days) but about a year ago on February 28, 2017, Congress passed and Donald Trump signed a law revoking an Obama-era regulatory initiative that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy a gun.

Yet despite this effort to roll back even a very modest effort to restrain the ability of seriously incapacitated people from obtaining deadly weapons, this morning Trump tweeted that there were “so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed,” implying that someone should have done something to report him.

But it’s Trump’s party — and Trump himself — who have consistently prevented the federal government from doing anything about this kind of situation. The Obama-era gun regulation wouldn’t have had a massive impact on gun violence in the US since it’s estimated that it would only affect about 75,000 people. And disability rights groups had their own objections to the bill so some liberal groups, including the ACLU, joined with the National Rifle Association in urging Trump to reverse it.

But anything that makes it easier to obtain a gun, the research suggests, will likely worsen gun violence. After all, America already has some of the weakest gun laws in the developed world — and repealing a rule that made it a little tougher for some people to buy a gun likely makes that worse.

February 15, 2018

NY Times - A Little-Noticed Target in the House Health Bill: Special Education

Not only are Republicans fighting against gun control, but they are also cutting funding to special education programs that could assist teens with mental illness and autism.

A perfect recipe for more gun shootings. Easy access to guns plus rollbacks in services to youth with special needs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/politics/health-bill-medicaid-special-education-affordable-care-act.html

WASHINGTON — While House Republicans lined up votes Wednesday for a Thursday showdown over their bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Vickie Glenn sat in her Murphysboro, Ill., office and prayed for it to fail.

Ms. Glenn, a Medicaid coordinator for Tri-County Special Education, an Illinois cooperative that helps more than 20 school districts deliver special education services to students, was worried about an issue that few in Congress were discussing: how the new American Health Care Act, with its deep cuts to Medicaid, would affect her 2,500 students.

With all the sweeping changes the Republican bill would impose, little attention has been paid to its potential impact on education. School districts rely on Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor, to provide costly services to millions of students with disabilities across the country. For nearly 30 years, Medicaid has helped school systems cover costs for special education services and equipment, from physical therapists to feeding tubes. The money is also used to provide preventive care, such as vision and hearing screenings, for other Medicaid-eligible children.

“If I could have 10 minutes with President Trump, I could help him understand what we do, why it’s important,” Ms. Glenn said. “If he understood, he would protect it, because this isn’t Republicans and Democrats. It’s just kids.”

February 13, 2018

Fox Pulls Column Calling the U.S. Olympic Team 'Darker, Gayer, Different'

As Korean American Chloe Kim prepared to dominate the women's half-pipe, Fox's Executive Vice President wrote a column complaining about having gay or non-white athletes on the Olympic team.

http://time.com/5143227/john-moody-fox-news-olympics/

Fox News has deleted a column in which executive editor and executive vice president John Moody wrote that the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) apparently wants to change the Olympic motto from “swifter, higher, stronger” to “darker, gayer, different.”

Moody’s column, which was published Wednesday, attracted widespread outrage online after outlets including Deadspin wrote about its contents. By Friday, the op-ed had been removed from Fox’s website, with a spokesperson saying it did not reflect Fox News’ views or values, the Associated Press reports.

Moody’s column was apparently prompted by a USOC official providing an “embarrassing laundry list of how many African-Americans, Asians and openly gay athletes are on the team” while discussing the diversity of this year’s athletes, AP writes. Moody used the column to argue that sports should be about merit and competition, not political correctness.

“Insisting that sports bow to political correctness by assigning teams quotas for race, religion or sexuality is like saying that professional basketball goals will be worth four points if achieved by a minority in that sport – white guys, for instance – instead of the two or three points awarded to black players, who make up 81 percent of the NBA. Any plans to fix that disparity? Didn’t think so,” Moody’s column read, according to an excerpt published by Deadspin.

February 6, 2018

Republican candidates across the country are trying to replicate Trumps formula

The genie is out of the bottle as Republicans embrace previously unspoken racism, sexism, xenophobia and hate that bound the Republican party. Populism is just a euphemism for hate these days.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/republican-candidates-are-running-like-trump.html

Is Donald Trump the chicken or the egg in the devolution of the Republican Party? Trump isn’t the first Republican to win over GOP voters with shameless bigotry and relentless demagoguery, and his administration is almost typical in its disdain for the commons and its commitment to enriching the rich. At the same time, his success has unleashed something in the GOP, opening the gate to a crop of candidates who have jettisoned respectability to channel the conservative id in all of its anger and resentment.

The latest example of this phenomenon comes from Illinois, where Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives is challenging incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner for the gubernatorial nomination. Like Trump against Jeb Bush, Corey Stewart against Ed Gillespie in Virginia, and Roy Moore against Luther Strange in Alabama, Ives hopes to upset a more established Republican by fanning anger and prejudice.

“Thank you for signing legislation that lets me use the girl’s bathroom,” says a deep-voiced male actor wearing a dress, in a new ad released by Ives’ campaign. The ad attacks the incumbent governor for purportedly backing liberal policies and uses a procession of conservative boogeymen to mockingly “thank” Rauner for his aid. A black woman in a Chicago Teachers Union shirt thanks Rauner for a “bailout” of teacher pensions, a white woman in a pink hat thanks him for “making all Illinois families pay for my abortions,” and a man dressed as antifa thanks the governor for making “Illinois a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals.”

* * *
Across the country, Trump-style candidates appear to have the upper hand over establishment favorites. Former sheriff Joe Arpaio shot to the top of the polls in Arizona when he entered the race for a U.S. Senate seat last month, surpassing former state Sen. Kelli Ward and nearly tying Rep. Martha McSally. Arpaio served 24 years as sheriff of Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, where he built a reputation for cruelty to inmates and a national profile as an aggressive tormentor of undocumented immigrants. Dozens of inmates died in Arpaio’s jails, and the country spent tens of millions of dollars litigating claims against the sheriff. In 2017, he was convicted of criminal contempt of court for ignoring a court order to stop racially profiling Hispanic residents, detaining them simply on suspicion of undocumented status. President Trump later pardoned him, calling Arpaio an “American patriot,” and it’s not at all clear whether the criminal charges for profiling will help or hurt Arpaio in the Republican primary.

February 3, 2018

Vox - The campaign to oust Rod Rosenstein is heating up after the Nunes memos release

It does not matter that Nunes little list of talking points is bullshit. You do not matter. The point of the memo is to give Fox News and other RW media outlets a plausible story line to justify Trump firing Rosenstein and Mueller.

Looking ahead, once Trump has his cronies in the DOJ and FBI, he can use them to attack his political adversaries Putin style. If you were curious about how a Democratic country can slip into dictatorship, this is how it goes.

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/2/16966208/nunes-memo-rod-rosenstein-tea-party-patriots-ad

The Nunes memo has been released — and the conservative drumbeat demanding the firing of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is getting louder.

The Tea Party Patriots, a conservative activist group, put out an ad Friday that bluntly states: “It’s time for Rod Rosenstein to do his job or resign.”

The ad claims that Rosenstein’s “incompetence and abuse of power” have “undermined congressional investigations” and tarnished the reputation of the Justice Department.

It also calls him “a weak careerist at the Justice Department, protecting liberal Obama holdovers and the deep state, instead of following the rule of law.” (Trump appointed Rosenstein to his position in the Justice Department; he had previously served as the longtime US attorney in Maryland. He was appointed to that position by George W. Bush, in 2005.)