The madness continues.
Trump names lobbyist for coal industry to be second in command at EPA.
To those who said there was no difference between Trump and Clinton, take note.
And take a deep breath, while you can. Before the air is so polluted that you can’t breathe.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
tRump is a very, very SICK person and unfit to serve. He’s crazy and mean.
LikeLike
Right after the election I wrote about my fear of “collective exhaustion” that our Dear Leader’s regime would cause; that people would give in because the issues would come at us with the force of water from a fire hose in our faces. Boy, did I underestimate that. Consider the past few days: coal lobbyist at EPA, loss of birth control coverage by executive fiat, a not-so-cryptic hint that we will soon engage in preventive military action, an imminent hurricane on the Gulf Coast while we’ve ignored Puerto Rico and are already forgetting Texas and Florida, and an all out attack on 1st amendment press freedom. Don’t get me started on the issues in my state. Oy!
LikeLike
Yes and CHIP funding has been allowed to lapse putting 8 to 9 million poor kids at risk for 2018!
LikeLike
Thanks for catching that one, Joe. My head was about to explode as I was writing. I’m reading a collection of short writings by Mark Twain. Last night I came across a quote that seems appropriate for this discussion:
“Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I had been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfish world.”
LikeLike
Greg,
So right. Trump actions come so fast and hard that it promotes collective exhaustion as our rights are not only whittled away but abandoned.
High Hewitt, a conservative talk show host, wrote in TE Washington Post the other day that the religious right doesn’t care what else Trump does so long as he is opposed to abortion. This is his base. Abortion and guns.
LikeLike
Here’s another example of you write. Read this at a hotel (when else do we even consider reading USA Today?) and it caused a primal scream in the closest pillow: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/07/23/voted-trump-save-lives-sophia-buono-column/413823001/
It must be wonderful to be so clueless. Must help her get through the day.
LikeLike
Just heard on CNN that Trump assembled top military brass at the White House last night and in front of them, on national TV, insulted them.
LikeLike
Trump also said on national TV, in the presence of the military leaders, “This is the calm before the storm.” And repeated it.
What does that mean?
Is he about to start a nuclear war?
Is that how to make America great again?
LikeLike
GregB
Until she or her daughter one day experiences an unwanted pregnancy. Or worse one that should be terminated for medical reasons for the mother or fetus . As another hypocritical congressman bites the dust . The religious right is neither religious nor right. Their concern for the living ends at childbirth. Whether the issue is healthcare , drinking water , gun deaths or our endless wars. Has Donald shed any tears lately for those babies in Syria or Yemen .
LikeLike
He certainly didn’t shed any tears for the babies in Puerto Rico that had no access to clean drinking water or refrigeration for their food or milk.
LikeLike
They’re All № 2 …
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Has anyone watched the Lorax?
The movie where they have to buy/sell air because they cut down all the trees and polluted everything. Sounds familiar.
LikeLike
Paul Krugman points out the massive incompetence and malevolence of the Trump appointments: Quote – “By all accounts, Rex Tillerson has demoralized and degraded the State Department to the point of uselessness. Tom Price did much the same to Health and Human Services before jetting off. Scott Pruitt has moved rapidly to eliminate the “protection” aspect of the Environmental Protection Agency. And similar stories are unfolding throughout the executive branch.
Donald Trump has, in short, been like a Category 5 hurricane sweeping through the U.S. government, leaving devastation in his wake. And one question I don’t see being asked often enough is, will the same thing happen to the Federal Reserve? And if it does, how disastrous will that end up being for the world economy?
The Fed, which sets monetary policy, is by far our most important economic agency; its chairwoman (or chairman) is arguably the most powerful economic official in the world, more than the president himself. Its institutional status is peculiar: It isn’t exactly part of the executive branch, but it isn’t exactly independent, either. Its board members are appointed by the president subject to congressional approval, but have traditionally been technocrats expected to distance themselves from partisan politics.” end quote
Geezus, now the federal reserve is at risk of being headed by another right wing vicious boob.
LikeLike
Great a new Fed Chairman to the rescue. Raise those interest rates and Donald could be hanging from the WH flag pole by 1/1/ 2019.
“Americans are already spending a record share of disposable income paying their interest bills. And interest rates haven’t even risen much yet.
You don’t have to ask a Wall Street economist to know this, of course. Watch people wielding their credit cards this Christmas.”
Just a piece of an article on the coming collapse predicted in 2004 .
Now one could argue that the American consumer has shed much debt since the crash. But incomes have barely risen while a six year car loan can be gotten for 2.4 %. a thirty year fixed mortgage for 3.9%. an adjustable for just over 3%. Do you think Yellen has been so reluctant to raise rates because she thought the economy was healthy.
You could say that as we get closer to full employment it gets more difficult to create jobs . But to just throw this out there Trump has to date, created a 1/2 million less jobs than Obama last year. Further 99 was a pretty ,pretty , pretty good year. The last time unemployment was this low with a much higher worker participation rate . And a population of 46 million less people . 2.7 million jobs were created in 99 ,at the current average we are on pace to create 700,000 jobs less .
Go Donald go, Whip Inflation Now .
LikeLike
Here’s the bigger question, and yes, as distracting as Dumpsters malevolence is, I ask you not to get too distracted by it since that is his primary function as fake POTUS. Who is giving him these names, who is telling him which grifter to put where? As long as everyone keeps looking at him as if he were doing all this alone and not pointing to the hands inside Donnie the Sockpuppet nothing will change. Not that the dumbocrats have any skill or will to call that out.
LikeLike
Buy stock in Blueair. Consumer Reports lists their HEPA air filter #1. Trump must envy China’s air and water pollution. He wants to have GREATER pollution than any country on the planet so he can brag about it. As the air turns dark purple and the water too dangerous to even touch let alone drink, only the water and air we filter inside our homes will be safe.
LikeLike
Noam Chomsky Diagnoses the Trump Era | The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/noam-chomsky-diagnoses-the-trump-era/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%2010062017&utm_term=weekly
This interview has been excerpted from Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, the new book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian to be published this December.
It’s enough that attention is diverted from what is happening in the background. There, out of the spotlight, the most savage fringe of the Republican Party is carefully advancing policies designed to enrich their true constituency: the Constituency of private power and wealth, “the masters of mankind,” to borrow Adam Smith’s phrase.
Noam Chomsky: There is a diversionary process under way, perhaps just a natural result of the propensities of the figure at center stage and those doing the work behind the curtains.
At one level, Trump’s antics ensure that attention is focused on him, and it makes little difference how. Who even remembers the charge that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Clinton, depriving the pathetic little man of his Grand Victory? Or the accusation that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower? The claims themselves don’t really matter. It’s enough that attention is diverted from what is happening in the background. There, out of the spotlight, the most savage fringe of the Republican Party is carefully advancing policies designed to enrich their true constituency: the Constituency of private power and wealth, “the masters of mankind,” to borrow Adam Smith’s phrase.
Related Articles
These policies will harm the irrelevant general population and devastate future generations, but that’s of little concern to the Republicans. They’ve been trying to push through similarly destructive legislation for years. Paul Ryan, for example, has long been advertising his ideal of virtually eliminating the federal government, apart from service to the Constituency—though in the past he’s wrapped his proposals in spreadsheets so they would look wonkish to commentators. Now, while attention is focused on Trump’s latest mad doings, the Ryan gang and the executive branch are ramming through legislation and orders that undermine workers’ rights, cripple consumer protections, and severely harm rural communities. They seek to devastate health programs, revoking the taxes that pay for them in order to further enrich their constituency, and to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed some much-needed constraints on the predatory financial system that grew during the neoliberal period.
That’s just a sample of how the wrecking ball is being wielded by the newly empowered Republican Party. Indeed, it is no longer a political party in the traditional sense. Conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have described it more accurately as a “radical insurgency,” one that has abandoned normal parliamentary politics.
LikeLike
not just Coal
Since taking office in January, President Trump has made eliminating federal regulations a priority. His administration — with help from Republicans in Congress — has often targeted environmental rules it sees as overly burdensome to the fossil fuel industry, including major Obama-era policies aimed at fighting climate change.
To date, the Trump administration has sought to reverse more than 50 environmental rules, according to this analysis by The New York Times.
52 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump – The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_up_20171006&nl=upshot&nl_art=5&nlid=50637717&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
LikeLike
Trump is a U.S. Constitutional Wrecking Ball.
Trump is an environmental Wrecking Ball.
He is officially the Kremlin’s Agent Orange Wrecking Ball of the United States.
If Trump achieves his stated goals, he will destroy the United States by doing away with the federal government and replacing it with 50 different countries that were once states — making it easier for powerful con-men and frauds to cheat everyone in sight and get away with it.
The only way the United States can function as a country is with a powerful national government that watched over individual rights and works at keeping the water and air as clean as possible.
Even someone like Bill Gates with all his wealth can’t fight the federal government because the feds have more money then he does. But on a state by state basis, these billionaires get off easy dividing up the states and buying them at a cheaper price.
The cost of buying enough influence at the federal level is just too high for these fascist oligarchs to stomach.
LikeLike
Noam Chomsky pointed outhttps://www.thenation.com/article/noam-chomsky-diagnoses-the-trump-era/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%2010062017&utm_term=weekly
“while attention is focused on Trump’s latest mad doings, the Ryan gang and the executive branch are ramming through legislation and orders that undermine workers’ rights, cripple consumer protections, and severely harm rural communities. They seek to devastate health programs, revoking the taxes that pay for them in order to further enrich their constituency, and to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed some much-needed constraints on the predatory financial system that grew during the neoliberal period.
“That’s just a sample of how the wrecking ball is being wielded by the newly empowered Republican Party. Indeed, it is no longer a political party in the traditional sense. Conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have described it more accurately as a “radical insurgency,” one that has abandoned normal parliamentary procedures.”
LikeLike
With lots of evidence. For instance, Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who should have never made it if the GOP hadn’t refused to let a vote take place almost one year before the end of the Obama presidency.
LikeLike
see this video: https://www.facebook.com/nrdc.org/videos/10155611179064454/
Donald Trump has staffed his administration with oil executives, lobbyists for big agriculture, and consultants to pipeline builders. Do any of these men speak for you?
Then TAKE ACTION: http://on.nrdc.org/2iZSfNt
LikeLike
I receive a daily mailing called “Jewdayo,” which says what happened on this day in history as it relates to Jews.
This story appeared today:
Members of the Sonderkommando (corpse handlers) who were facing their own annihilation in Auschwitz rose up against their captors on this date in 1944. They succeeded in killing the SS company commander and three guards and burning the crematoria. Six hundred internees escaped during the uprising, but all of them were hunted down and killed. Four young Jewish women — Rosa Robota, Ella Gartner, Esther Vichablum, and Regina Saperstein — had smuggled explosive materials from a camp factory (for artillery shells) to help fuel the rebellion. On October 10, after days of torture, the four were publicly hanged — the last executions carried out in Auschwitz, which was evacuated by the Nazis on January 18, 1945, as the Red Army approached.
“Be strong and brave.”
–Rosa Robota’s last words before her execution
I never knew there was an uprising at Auschwitz.
LikeLike
A year ago, on Oct 7, Trump trumpeted his realization that when you are a celebrity by virtue of your wealth you can do anything you want, even grab women by their genitals.
Since then , he has proven that nothing can stop him from doing as his malignant ego desires. What he meant when he WINKED, and said the calm before the storms anyone’s guess.
Is there no one to remove this incompetent lunatic?
LikeLike
By September 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau was the only remaining Nazi killing center still in operation. The Operation Reinhard camps—Treblinka, Sobibór, and Belzec—had been closed down. Chelmno, originally closed in 1943, reopened for a brief period in spring-summer 1944. At the end of July 1944, Majdanek was liberated by Soviet troops.
For the prisoners at Auschwitz, liberation seemed close at hand. The Soviet army had moved deep into German-occupied Poland, and US planes had begun bombing the I.G. Farben synthetic oil and rubber factory located near Auschwitz III, less than five miles from Birkenau. In Warsaw, the Polish Home Army had risen up in revolt against German occupation forces. Within the Auschwitz complex, the resistance movement—composed of Jews and non-Jews alike—made plans to launch its own uprising.
For months, young Jewish women, like Ester Wajcblum, Ella Gärtner, and Regina Safirsztain, had been smuggling small amounts of gunpowder (schwartzpulver) from the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke, a munitions factory within the Auschwitz complex, to men and women in the camp’s resistance movement, like Róza Robota, a young Jewish woman who worked in the clothing detail at Birkenau. Under constant guard, the women in the factory took small amounts of the gunpowder, wrapped it in bits of cloth or paper, hid it on their bodies, and then passed it along the smuggling chain. Once she received the gunpowder, Róza Robota then passed it to her co-conspirators in the Sonderkommando, the special squad of prisoners forced to work in the camp’s crematoria. Using this gunpowder, the leaders of the Sonderkommando planned to destroy the gas chambers and crematoria, and launch the uprising.
On October 7, 1944, having learned that the SS was going to liquidate much of the squad, the members of the Sonderkommando at Crematorium IV rose in revolt. Setting fire to the crematorium, they attacked the SS guards with hammers, axes, and stones. Seeing the flames rising over the building as a signal for the camp uprising, those of the Sonderkommando at Crematorium II went into action, killing a Kapo and several SS men. Several hundred prisoners escaped from Birkenau, almost all of whom were caught and killed by the SS. Later that day, an additional 200 prisoners who took part in the revolt were executed.
In their investigation of the incident, the SS traced the gunpowder to the “Union” factory and arrested Ester Wajcblum, Ella Gärtner, and Regina Safirsztain. Róza Robota was arrested shortly thereafter. Though brutally tortured, the four women refused to name their comrades. On January 6, 1945, they were hanged in front of the assembled prisoners from the munitions factory.
Prior to their deaths, Ester Wajcblum and Róza Robota smuggled messages to their comrades in the underground. To a friend, Ester Wajcblum wrote: “I know what is in store for me, but I go readily to the gallows. I only ask you to take care of my sister Hanka. Please don’t leave her, so that I may die easier.” Róza Robota’s final message to her comrades in the underground was, “Hazak v’ematz,” “Be strong and have courage
LikeLike
Cut and pasted from another account I saw on the internet.
LikeLike