trump often says that the President is not covered by conflict of interest law. Try this one on: the New York Times reports that the Trump Organization is closing two new deals on Indonesia for super-luxury hotels. Having the president of the US as CEO should help the deals get through the red tape.
Did he run for President to make more money for himself and his family?
Happy New Year! I hope 2017 brings you health, happiness, and good times with family and friends.
2017 will be a dangerous time for our nation.
Somehow, a man was elected as president who has no experience or qualifications or knowledge. He is not a “populist,” the term adopted by the media. He is a white nationalist and a plutocrat who said whatever he needed to say to get elected. He has chosen as his Secretary of Education a woman who is a zealot for religious education and private providers. She is not an educator. She has never worked in education. She did not got to public schools, nor did her children. She does not like public schools. She is contemptuous of our public schools. She likes charter schools, cyber charters, vouchers, and anything other than public schools. She is a billionaire who has spread millions to elect other zealots for school choice, despite the fact that it is no solution to the problems of public education, and despite the fact that every dollar that goes to a charter school or voucher school is taken away from a public school. She seeks the destruction of public education.
We will stand strong in support of the commons. We will not let this pampered billionaire destroy what belongs to us. We will fight her in the states and in the districts. We will reach out to our elected officials, local and state and Congressional. We will remind them that the public schools are an essential part of our democracy. We will ask Republicans and Democrats alike to defend our public schools against the Trump administration’s determination to privatize them.
Join the fight. Stand with your allies. Join the Network for Public Education. It will not be an easy struggle, but it is a worthy one. It is a fight for democracy against autocracy. We are citizens first, not consumers. We will fight to maintain separation between church and state. We will fight for our democratic legacy. We will fight for democratically controlled community schools that accept ALL children, no matter when they show up, no matter whether they can speak English or whether they have disabilities.
This is the challenge for the next four years. It begins in a few weeks.
Do not be afraid. We have numbers. We must fight to sustain our democracy and our public schools. We will and we hope you will join us.
I am not a reader of “The National Enquirer,” but I do see the front page when I check out at the supermarket.
The headlines that caught my eye today said (with a bit of my paraphrase): “New Evidence Proves That Obama Was Not Born in America” and “Trump Already Restores Dignity to the White House.”
This is a rag that is published by a friend of Trump. During the elections, Trump quoted The National Enquirer as the source for his absurd claim that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of JFK.
There were reports of a billboard in Mumbai showing Trump in his usual gold-encrusted lifestyle, looming over a scene of desperate poverty in Mumbai, India. The billboard said, “There is only one way to live. The Trump way.” Snopes said it was fake news. But it was not fake news and Snipes changed its designation to TRUE.
Vanity Fair reports that Twitter is a-twitter because of Trump’s little mash notes to Vladimir Putin.
Trump does have a crush on Putin.
He didn’t know that Russia had invaded Crimea, and now that he knows he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t know that businessmen who dare to cross Putin lose everything and are imprisoned.
He doesn’t know that dissidents and journalists have been murdered for daring to criticize Putin.
Or maybe he does know, and doesn’t care.
I am weary with commenters who defend the tyrant Putin and say that “we” (the U.S.) are trying to recreate the Cold War, that we are warmongers, and that Russia is an innocent victim of our hysteria. Listen, the Russians are not Communists any more. Putin is a dictator and a tyrant. He plays Trump like a violin. Trump is a chump. Trump’s innocence and ignorance put the former Soviet satellite colonies in Europe at risk of a Russian re-invasion. Putin has no ideology other than power and control. He would love to see Trump break up NATO. He hacked into our election and supported Trump. Trump recognizes his debt to Putin. That’s why he continues to blow him kisses.
You have probably read that the best-known singers in the country have refused to perform at the Trump inauguration ceremonies. The Rockettes will perform, probably at an Inaugural Ball since the swearing-in platform is not large enough to hold a large troupe of high-kicking dancers. One Rockette said she didn’t want to dance at the event, but the owner of the troupe said she would dance or lose her job. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has signed on to sing, but at least one of its members has dropped out for reasons of conscience.
But Andy Borowitz reports that the Trump team has finally enlisted an internationally known performer to sing at the Inauguration. He is not internationally known as a singer, but he is an A list celebrity.
Borowitz also reported on an honor that Trump received even before the swearing-in ceremonies.
The New Republic assembled a panel of historians and veteran political observers to discuss Obama, Clinton, and Trump. I think you will find the discussion illuminating, or certainly interesting.
“TAKING THE LONG VIEW
THE PARTICIPANTS IN OUR FORUM ON OBAMA’S LEGACY
NELL IRVIN PAINTER is professor emerita at Princeton and the former president of the Organization of American Historians. Her most recent book is The History of White People.
ANNETTE GORDON-REED is a professor of law and professor of history at Harvard. She won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her book The Hemingses of Monticello.
SARAH JAFFE, a fellow at the Nation Institute, is a journalist who reports on labor and social movements. She is the author of the new book Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt.
JOHN B. JUDIS, a former senior editor at the New Republic, is the author of The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics.
ANDREW SULLIVAN, a former editor of the New Republic, is a contributing editor at New York magazine. His most recent book is The Conservative Soul, on the future of the right.”
It begins like this:
“From the moment Barack Obama was elected in 2008, he began to disappoint those who had believed in his message of change. He appointed entrenched Washington insiders to his Cabinet. He put Wall Street bankers in charge of regulating Wall Street banks. He compromised with Republicans on the economic stimulus, slowing the recovery for millions of Americans. He refused to push for universal health care, and deported two million immigrants. He failed to shut down Guantanamo, dispatched another 60,000 troops to Afghanistan, and launched hundreds of drone strikes that killed countless civilians. Today, income inequality continues to rise, and big banks are bigger than ever, and student debt has hit a record $1 trillion. Democrats have not only lost control of every branch of the federal government, they are weaker at the state level than at any point since 1920. Those who thought they had elected a bold and inspiring populist were surprised to find him replaced by a cautious and deliberate pragmatist.
“Now, eight years later, many of Obama’s critics suddenly find themselves yearning for the euphoria that accompanied his election, and fearing for the small but significant progress he made on a host of fronts: equal pay, expanded health care, nuclear nonproliferation, global warming. It’s not just that hope and change have given way to fear and loathing—it’s that so few of us saw it coming. Right-wing extremists, it turns out, aren’t the only ones who live in a faith-based reality of their own making. From Brooklyn to Berkeley, American liberals have cocooned themselves in a soothing feedback loop woven from Huffington Post headlines, New York Times polls, and repeat viewings of Madam Secretary. If nothing else, Trump’s election demands that we return to the real world in all its complexities and contradictions, and confront our own obliviousness.”
I found this on the Internet and think you will find it important to know:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DzOz3Y6D8g_MNXHNMJYAz1b41_cn535aU5UsN7Lj8X8/mobilebasic
It is a practical guide to resisting the reign of Trump.
Mike Klonsky, a longtime political activist in Chicago, warns that the rise of Trumpism in the US and Europe signals a dangerous white nationalism that threatens the fabric of civil society.
The rise and seizure of political and military power by a narrowly-based clique of white supremacists and neo-fascists, in the U.S. and much of Europe, combined with an inadequate response on the part of liberal democrats, is plunging the world closer to a global conflagration than it’s been since World War 2 and Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet. The Trumpists are too weak and their base too narrow to rule primarily through diplomacy and negotiation. Their strong suit is their control of military (including nuclear capacity) and police powers (including an apparent willingness to use torture)….
Then there’s the Trump’s war on the press; trade war with China; Betsy DeVos’s war on public schools; Trump’s war on science; Trump/Pudzer’s declared war on labor unions; Trump/Perry/Tillerson’s war on the environment; Sessions’ war on civil rights; and so it goes….
As for teachers and educators, we have a significant role to play in resisting the Trumpists drive towards war and in defense of civil society. War is the enemy of education, families, children, women, and democracy. Resistance to Betsy DeVos war on public education will be a key part of the opposition movement. Defense of public space and of public decision-making, teaching students to think critically and to become shapers of their own future, are some of the essential pieces of the resistance movement based in the schools.
Frank Rich, a veteran political and cultural critic, makes a safe prediction: we are about to enter an era of corruption and influence peddling that will make Warren Harding’s Teapot Done scandal look like child’s play.
Rich writes:
“After the press revealed that a hastily assembled “Opening Day Foundation,” with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump on its board, was selling access to the president-elect and his family the day after his inauguration, for $500,000 to $1 million, the Trump family abruptly distanced itself.
“Simultaneously, Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich floated the idea of using the presidential pardon to help advisers get around conflict rules. What happens if Trump doesn’t work out a consistent conflicts-of-interest policy before his inauguration?
I hate to break it to anyone at this time of year, but (a) there is no Santa Claus, and (b) there will be no conflicts-of-interest policy in the Trump administration. What there will be are rampant conflicts of interest, more than you can count, as the Trump family and his appointees rip off anything they can — from taxpayers, from consumers, from shareholders — in a spree of deregulation, special dealing, lax white-collar-law enforcement, and corporate welfare. Just in the past day we’ve learned that the billionaire investor Carl Icahn will be Trump’s adviser on deregulation and do so under a legal dodge (he won’t collect a government salary) that will allow him to hold on to his own investments in the industries he’ll be enriching.
“Only hours before the Icahn announcement we had learned that Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager and ever-loyal wingman, was opening a “consulting” firm “just a block from the White House” (this was the language in the press release) to facilitate access to the White House for corporations, trade associations, and heaven knows what other favor seekers. As I’ve said before, the Trump kleptocracy is going to make the Harding administration’s pay-for-play Teapot Dome scandal look like a Sunday-school picnic.
“And so instead of draining the swamp, Trump is going to build a bigger and better swamp smack in the middle of the Rose Garden.
“Many have noted the hypocrisy: Trump promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Gingrich explained the seeming discrepancy in that same NPR interview in which he proposed that the new president evade ethics laws by granting mass pardons to any administration hands that get caught in the till. “I’m told he now just disclaims that,” Gingrich said of Trump’s current attitude toward his former catchphrase. “He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore.” (Gingrich has since disowned his own phraseology in a subsequent tweet.) Instead of draining the swamp, Trump is going to build a bigger and better swamp smack in the middle of the Rose Garden — and, don’t worry, it will be fantastic. Meanwhile, it says all you need to know that Gingrich, the first Speaker of the House ever to be punished for ethics violations, is stepping into the vacuum to serve as moral arbiter of this new regime.”
