Trump Trainwreck - Ongoing diary of betrayal and evil

[Eric the Green]

"Hardened criminal"? I don't think so.

He dropped his daughter off at school. Minutes later, immigration agents took him away.
By Avi Selk March 4 at 1:54 PM

Daughter records her father of 4 being taken by ICE. This is real, this is happening, this is how it feels. #Romulo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDHM7Ef59FQ …
6:23 AM - 3 Mar 2017

Immigration agents tailed a man as he dropped off his daughter at a Los Angeles school last week. They pulled him over and took him away — all while his 13-year-old sobbed in the back seat.

In the wake of President Trump’s orders to crack down on illegal immigration, the arrest of Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez left teachers trying to console students — even as they began to prepare some for the possibility of their own parents’ sudden deportation.

“You need to be ready. ‘Have you talked to your parents? Do you have power of attorney?’” Ricardo Mireles, executive director of Academia Avance, told the Los Angeles Times.

Many educators condemned the arrest that occurred so close to a school. The California Charter Schools Association said it “provoke[s] fear and create[s] turmoil” and would discourage children from going to class.

A 48-year-old restaurant worker, Avelica-Gonzalez was the only source of income for his wife and four children, according to the Times.

The Mexican national had lived in the United States more than half his life. He was ordered removed from the country in 2014 after multiple convictions, according an ICE statement released to news outlets.

After campaigning on a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, Trump ordered swift deportations for many of them.

“We’re actually taking people that are criminals — very, very, hardened criminals in some cases with a tremendous track record of abuse and problems,” he said last month.

ICE’s statement on Avelica-Gonzalez cites an eight-year-old drunken driving charge — though an attorney for the family told the Los Angeles Times he also bought a fake registration tag in 1998.

[Memos signed by DHS secretary describe sweeping new guidelines for deporting illegal immigrants]

“We knew the day was going to come,” Avelica-Gonzalez’s 19-year-old daughter Jocelyn told KTLA. “Especially with the election. We just weren’t prepared.”

In its statement, ICE said it was “conducting surveillance to confirm his identity” as Avelica-Gonzalez and his wife dropped their 12-year-old daughter off at the Lincoln Heights school.

As the family drove away, two dark cars quickly appeared.


Immigrant Magazine @theimmigrantmag
The Fight Is Not Over! STOP The Deportation Of Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez http://www.timtvhollywood.com/immigratio...-gonzalez/ …

The men who stepped out of the cars wore jackets that read “Police.” Just days earlier, the Los Angeles city attorney had implored ICE agents to stop calling themselves police — saying it undermined public confidence in the city’s officers.

“Relax and be strong,” Avelica-Gonzalez told 13-year-old Fatima as he stepped out of the car, according to KTLA.

Her mother told her to take video.

Sobbing loudly for at least two minutes, Fatima held the phone steady enough to record her father being cuffed, loaded into the agent’s car and driven out of sight.

[Fact Checker: Trump’s claim that immigration arrests reflect his enforcement policies]

Tens of thousands of people watched Fatima’s video. Dozens protested outside a Los Angeles police station, and his attorney filed a court motion to stay his deportation, according to the Times.

“This is a population we police by creating partnerships, not by targeting them because of their immigration status,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said last year, after Trump promised to deport millions of immigrants.

ICE has denied that other deportations — like a day-long sweep that targeted nearly 700 people last month — are unusual. But United Teachers Los Angeles called Avelica-Gonzalez “a deliberate tactic being deployed by the Trump administration to spread fear.”

Immigration agents are supposed to avoid enforcements at “sensitive locations” like schools, according to the Los Angeles Times.

At Academia Avance, students were so shaken that an assembly was called to talk about the arrest, the Times reported.

And teachers were ordered to help students whose parents are in the United States illegally make emergency plans in case of sudden deportation.

[Eric the Green]

Drump tries and fails again with his senseless travel ban.

Trump’s revised travel ban is still cruel and still unconstitutional
By Ilya Somin March 6 at 4:10 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volo...b2fe56c3f8

Trump rolls out new travel ban amid reactions to wiretapping claims Play Video1:58

Today, Donald Trump issued a revised executive order barring entry into the US by citizens of six Muslim-majority nations. The new order replaces an old one that was repeatedly rejected by the courts. The new order is less bad than the old one in some crucial respects. But it is still indefensibly cruel, and still unconstitutional for many of the same reasons as the original.

The new order does improve on the original in several significant ways. It exempts legal permanent residents and people who have previously been issued visas. The nation of Iraq is exempted from the order entirely, which now applies only to six nations instead of the original seven. Instead of being excluded indefinitely, as before, citizens of Syria are now banned only for 120 days, like those of the other five nations still covered.

[ Trump’s new travel ban is as arbitrary and senseless as the first ]

Despite those improvements, the order still inflicts cruel harm on refugees and others, while creating little if any security benefit. Most notably, the new order still cuts the total intake of refugees for fiscal year 2017 from 110,000 to 50,000. This part of the order is unlikely to be struck down by the courts. But it deserves emphasis nonetheless, because it consigns many thousands of refugees to misery and the risk of death without even a minimally plausible security rationale. The reduction applies to all refugees from anywhere in the world, regardless of whether there is any reason to think they might security risks or not. The same point applies to the order’s suspension of all refugee admissions for 120 days. That period of time may not seem very long. But for many refugees, it might mean the difference between life and death. Refugees awaiting admission to the US and other Western nations often live in dangerous refugee camps, or even worse. The fact that these parts of the order probably cannot be successfully resisted in court does not make them any less cruel and unjust.

With regard to the legal issues, the revised order’s exemptions for legal permanent residents and visa holders make it less vulnerable to challenge on the Due Process Clause grounds at issue in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the initial order. That decision emphasized the rights of these two groups.

But the revised order remains vulnerable on the ground that its real purpose is religious discrimination against Muslims, which was the basis for the most recent trial court ruling against the initial order. Like the original order, the new one is still clearly an outgrowth of Trump’s advocacy of a “Muslim ban,” as admitted by Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani, who played a key role in drafting the first order. Courts have repeatedly – and correctly – ruled that Trump and Giuliani’s anti-Muslim statements are relevant to assessing the constitutionality of the original order.

The same should be true of the new order, as well. The new order is clearly an outgrowth of its predecessor, and still targets all the same Muslim-majority nations, with the exception of Iraq. The security rationale for the order remains laughably weak. Indeed, the risk that any given American will be killed by an immigrant terrorist of any kind is much lower than the risk that he will be killed in a lightning strike. The total number of Americans killed by immigrant terrorists from the nations covered by the travel order is zero, though a very small number have made unsuccessful attempts.

By singling out citizens from these countries for exclusion, Trump’s order may well actually increase the risk of terrorism, because it disincentivizes citizens of those nations from cooperating with US forces. That danger is reduced by the decision to drop Iraq from the new order and to make the exclusion of Syrians temporary rather than indefinite. But Syrians and citizens of other nations who cooperate with US forces still have reason to worry. The administration might try to extend the 120 day period after it ends. And even 120 days might be a long time for those in fear for their lives. More generally, even a temporary categorical ban on entry by citizens of those nations likely alienates public opinion there, and makes cooperation with American forces less likely.

The weakness of the security rationale for both the original order and the new one makes it more likely that discrimination against Muslims is the true motive behind it. Under the standard legal framework for analyzing such cases, once evidence of discriminatory intent is proven, the government has the burden of showing that it would have adopted the same policy even in the absence of improper motivation. That burden will be extremely difficult to meet in this case.

The Trump administration will continue to argue that the courts should defer to its policy and not scrutinize it closely because of the so-called “plenary power” over immigration. It is possible that the courts will be more receptive to such arguments now that the new order exempts green card and visa holders. But such deference would be a mistake for reasons I discussed here and here.

It is also possible that courts would reject lawsuits against the new order for procedural reasons. Previously, state governments obtained standing because of their interest in ensuring that state institutions such as universities could facilitate entry of foreign students. The administration may well argue that things are different if the students in question do not yet have visas. In my view, however, the absence of a current visa should not be decisive. State universities and other institutions still have a strong interest in facilitating entry by new students and employees who might get visas in the future. That may be only a relatively small material interest. But it is comparable to ones under which state plaintiffs got standing in past cases, including the state challenge to Obama’s executive action on immigration, which was based on speculative evidence that Texas might have to bear the cost of issuing new drivers’ licenses as a result.

While Trump’s revised order is still both cruel and unconstitutional, it is a positive development in one crucial respect: the very fact that he had to withdraw the original order and issue a new one shows that the administration is not immune to legal and political resistance. Because the initial order attracted strong public and judicial opposition, Trump concluded that he had to back down, at least partially. That was an important victory, both for its own sake, and for what it may portend for the future. Opponents of the order and Trump’s other immigration policies should do all they can to keep up the pressure.

[Eric the Green]

Is there anything Drump won't lie about?

PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Keystone XL oil pipeline won’t use American steel in its construction, despite what President Donald Trump says.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/keys...w.facebook

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday that’s due to language in a presidential directive Trump issued in January. The directive applies to new pipelines or those under repair. Sanders said it would be hard to do an about-face on Keystone because it’s already under construction and the steel has been acquired.

Trump said as recently as last week that Keystone and the Dakota Access pipeline must use American steel “or we’re not building one.”

[Eric the Green]

I know, Occupy Democrats is not exactly a neutral and unbiased source, so we'll see if this report indicates what may happen after the August eclipse on Drump's Ascendant!


An Ex-NSA Director Just Revealed They Have The Proof To Sink Trump For Treason

BY GRANT STERN

PUBLISHED ON MARCH 6, 2017
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/03/06/ex...p-treason/

Former National Security Agency technical division Director and Navy War College Professor John Schindler, Ph.D. just dropped a bombshell on his widely followed Twitter account as part of a major tweetstorm detailing his unique, insider’s opinion of the Trump-Russia affair.

Schindler publishes a regular column at the New York Observer when he’s not debunking Trump’s myths about a “deep state” or selectively leaking what the secretive spy agency’s operatives really believe about our wayward new President.

While most of the media speculates about Trump’s Russian ties, John Schindler has inside access to the NSA and believes that they’ve already got enough evidence to prove that Putin’s election meddling was a cooperative affair.

Follow
John Schindler ✔ @20committee
AHEM: US IC has considerable SIGINT featuring high-level Russians talking about their collusion with Team Trump.
You heard it here 1st.
2:20 PM - 5 Mar 2017
6,749 6,749 Retweets 10,224 10,224 likes

In this tweet, “IC” refers to “intelligence community” and SIGINT refers to “signal intelligence” – information obtained from intercepted signals from either person-to-person communications (COMINT) or electronic signals (ELINT).

Follow
John Schindler ✔ @20committee
Individually these convos are not all that persuasive, analytically; but collectively, they demonstrate collusion.https://twitter.com/20committee/status/838514983902330880 …
2:23 PM - 5 Mar 2017
550 550 Retweets 836 836 likes

Follow
John Schindler ✔ @20committee
SIGINT is from #NSA & partners. This is called "reflections" in spookdom, ie readouts from convos about current ops.https://twitter.com/20committee/status/838514662949928961 …
2:22 PM - 5 Mar 2017
830 830 Retweets 1,200 1,200 likes

In this next tweet, BLUF refers to the “Bottom Line Up Front” method of delivering information, which places conclusions and recommendations before supporting facts.

Follow
John Schindler ✔ @20committee
BLUF: 1 intercepted convo between 2 senior Kremlin guys talking about collusion w/Trump isn't a big deal; a bunch of them = a very big deal.
2:27 PM - 5 Mar 2017
911 911 Retweets 1,738 1,738 likes

Here, Schindler refers to his sources inside the NSA and both his former position. The tweet is shared with former British member of Parliament Louise Mensch, who first reported on a possible FISA warrant issued to investigate the Trump campaign last October, which both the BBC and The Guardian later confirmed.

Follow
John Schindler ✔ @20committee
I only tell you folks things about the IC, esp WRT something #YUGE like #TrumpRussia, when I personally know the spooks telling me the news.
2:26 PM - 5 Mar 2017
490 490 Retweets 1,312 1,312 likes

This former high-ranking intelligence official believes that the Trump-Russia affair will not only end the current Administration, but there will be prosecutions as well:

Follow
John Schindler ✔ @20committee
I'm confident that any SERIOUS investigation of #TrumpRussia will find enough intel to end Trump's admin & send people to jail.
cc @GOP
2:40 PM - 5 Mar 2017
4,250 4,250 Retweets 8,748 8,748 likes

Ideologically, John Schindler is conservative and has no reason to help Democrats, which he proved amply by doggedly pursuing stories and firing off tweets about Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2015, before the matter was later cleared, after much consternation.

Intelligence doesn’t have a partisan angle, it’s all about facts. Listening to Russian officials discuss how they slam-dunked America’s democracy with the Republican nominee’s coordination can only lead any intelligence analyst to a singular conclusion.

It’s without a doubt now that President Trump is in deep trouble, having bullied his way into the White House with the assistance of a foreign power.

The unhinged real estate developer is compounding his problems by tweeting slander at President Obama and making up stories that at worst implicate him in the crime of the century, and at best prove that he’s unfit to remain in office.

If John Schindler’s tweets are as accurate as they are authoritative, the end of the Trump regime may happen in the near future.

[Eric the Green]

The web of relationships between Team Trump and Russia
By Philip Bump March 3
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/poli...e074d99b82

Several different types of investigations have been, or could be, launched into Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

In the most abstract sense, there is nothing noteworthy about a government official meeting with an ambassador from a foreign country. When such an interaction becomes important is when that official is an ally of a presidential campaign that’s got a complex set of possibly inappropriate relationships with other representatives of that ambassador’s country — and when that official while under oath says he did not have communications with representatives of that country.

What we’re going to endeavor to do here is to parse out that complex set of relationships, using the information we have at hand. In this case, as you’ve hopefully ascertained, the country at issue is Russia and the campaign is that of President Trump. The official, of course, is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And the ambassador is, at this point, the linchpin of a lot of the interactions between Trump and the rest of his team.

We’ll consider three Russian entities.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Russia’s man in Washington.

The Russian government. Kislyak is part of this government, of course, but we’ll use this as a shorthand for interactions with President Vladimir Putin or other government agencies (who may or may not be known). Included here is RT, the Russia-backed and -based television network.

Russian business interests. This encompasses everything from Rosneft, the Russian oil giant, to sketchy Russian oligarchs.
As for the American side, let’s start at the top and move outward through Trump’s network.


Donald Trump, president. Trump’s connections to Russian business interests are murky, thanks to his decision not to release his tax returns during the campaign. We know that the Miss Universe pageant was hosted in Moscow when Trump owned it and that he earned millions of dollars for doing so. We know, too, that he’s repeatedly explored real estate deals in the country. It’s not clear whether Trump has met Kislyak, though the ambassador attended a foreign policy speech Trump gave last spring and the reception that preceded it. We know now that Trump has been in communication with Putin — but he also claimed to have been in contact with representatives of the Russian president (and Putin himself) before the campaign.

[ Here’s what we know about Donald Trump and his ties to Russia ]

Jeff Sessions, attorney general. Sessions’s relationship with Kislyak is well-established by now. This is a good point at which to note, though, that the existence of that relationship does not in any way imply wrongdoing by Sessions. It’s just part of the network we’re establishing.

Jeff Sessions's recuses himself from Trump campaign investigations Play Video2:48

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters at the Justice Department, March 2, that he was recusing himself from any investigation having to do with President Trump's 2016 campaign. Here are key moments from that news conference. (Video: Sarah Parnass/Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Jared Kushner, adviser. Trump’s son-in-law (Ivanka’s husband) also met with Kislyak during the period between Election Day and the inauguration, according to the New York Times. Kushner also has some loose connections to Russian business interests, according to the Times, including an investment from tech investor Yuri Milner in a real estate investment company and a friendship with the wife of oligarch Roman Abramovich. (She was invited to the inauguration as Ivanka Trump’s guest.)

Michael Flynn, former national security adviser. Flynn had a number of contacts with Kislyak after Election Day, including attending that meeting between the ambassador and Kushner. (Flynn was forced to resign his position after it was revealed that his comments about the content of those meetings to Vice President Pence were falsehoods.) After resigning from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, Flynn was invited to give a paid speech at a celebration of RT. He did so and joined Putin’s table for a related banquet.

Pence 'disappointed' Flynn misled him Play Video1:02

Vice President Mike Pence said he was “disappointed” that former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn misled him on his contacts with Russia, during a visit on Feb. 20 to NATO headquarters in Brussels. (Reuters)

Donald Trump Jr., son. The younger Trump visited France last October to speak to an obscure Russian group. In 2008, Don Jr., who works for the Trump Organization, famously told a real estate conference that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets” and that “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Paul Manafort, former campaign manager. Manafort’s links to Russian interests are well established. New revelations that emerged during the campaign prompted Trump to demand Manafort’s resignation. Manafort is one of the Trump campaign staffers who reportedly made contact with Russian interests during the campaign.

Details emerge in Ukraine of alleged payments to Manafort Play Video1:15

A Ukrainian lawmaker releases more details of what he says were secret payments made to Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign chief who resigned the same day the new details emerged. (Reuters)

Rex Tillerson, secretary of state. Before he was confirmed to serve as the head of the State Department, even Republicans questioned Tillerson’s relationship to Putin. As the head of ExxonMobil, Tillerson helped negotiate a massive agreement between the Russian government and ExxonMobil-Rosneft, a partnership between the two companies. Tillerson was subsequently awarded the “Order of Friendship” by Putin.

Follow
Marco Rubio ✔ @marcorubio
Being a "friend of Vladimir" is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryOfState - MR
6:58 AM - 11 Dec 2016
9,746 9,746 Retweets 21,257 21,257 likes

Wilbur Ross, secretary of commerce. Ross’s connections to Russian business interests are less obvious than Tillerson’s. During the Clinton administration, Ross served on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, an effort to bolster businesses in post-Cold-War Russia. During his confirmation, questions arose about his ownership of a bank on Cyprus that, in the words of McClatchy’s Kevin Hall, “caters to wealthy Russians.”

Roger Stone, longtime adviser. Stone’s connection to Russia is murky. During the campaign, he drew attention for seeming to have inside knowledge on the WikiLeaks document releases — releases that have been linked to Russian interests by the government. More directly, the Times reports that Stone is possibly under investigation by the U.S. government for his links to Russia.

Carter Page, former adviser. Page is included in that alleged investigation as well, but his links to Russia are more clear. Page pretty clearly met with Kislyak last year during the Republican convention in Cleveland, as he admitted to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Thursday night. He also has repeatedly addressed Russian business groups in that country, including twice in 2016. Over a decade ago, he worked in Russia as an investment banker.

J.D. Gordon, former adviser. Page is far in the outer orbit of Trump’s circle, serving briefly as part of Trump’s national security advisory team. He’s joined there by Gordon, a onetime Pentagon spokesman who also served as an adviser to the campaign. Gordon, like Page, reportedly spoke with Kislyak in Cleveland.

This document should be considered a work in progress. As more information is released, it (and the graphic) will be updated. Again, none of the relationships above are intended to show misbehavior by those involved. The broad question at stake is the extent to which Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 election and, if it did, the extent to which it may have leveraged relationships with Trump’s team to that end. That much-bigger question is much harder to evaluate.

[Eric the Green]

Public Citizen is under attack from one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers.

Here’s what you need to know:

Carl Icahn is a notorious corporate raider with a net worth of $16.3 billion, making him the 43rd richest person on earth, according to Forbes.

He’s also a friend of Donald Trump.

And — lo and behold — Trump named Icahn a “special adviser to the president” on regulatory policy (which of course means DE-regulatory policy in this administration).

But Trump didn’t make him an actual employee of the federal government, allowing Icahn to keep his extensive investment portfolio.

So Icahn is “advising” Trump on which regulations to slash and burn, including regulations that directly impact Icahn’s investments.

For example, Icahn recently pushed the administration to change an obscure government rule about ethanol. When the proposal was announced, his stock jumped $126 million overnight.

And if the change goes into effect, Icahn reportedly would pocket another $200 million a year.

I really don’t know how much more blatant a conflict of interest there could be.

That’s why Public Citizen submitted a formal request to Congress yesterday that it determine whether Icahn is in compliance with federal lobbying laws.

He responded with a diatribe attacking Public Citizen in The Hill — a highly influential newspaper here in Washington, D.C., that is read throughout Congress and the rest of the government.

Icahn compared our work to “fake news” and asserted that we are on a “witch hunt” underwritten by “dark forces.”

Let me repeat:

An already obscenely rich man — who may make hundreds of millions more by having Trump’s ear — just called Public Citizen’s supporters “dark forces.”

Well, it’s thanks to hundreds of thousands of everyday people like you, all over America, that we’ve been standing up to powerful (if thin-skinned) corporate titans like Carl Icahn for 46 years and counting.

And we have no intention of backing down.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Not ever.

So I just wanted to say, “Thank you!”

Thank you for signing petitions, emailing and calling your members of Congress, donating, and doing all the other things you do that make this shared project called Public Citizen so effective and so resolute.

Onward,

Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen

[Eric the Green]

(03-07-2017, 10:38 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(03-07-2017, 04:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump was doing business with corrupt Azerbaijani minister and money-launderer for the Iran Revolutionary Guard, supporter of terrorists.

http://freakoutnation.com/2017/03/iran-c...dal-video/

The new president has been involved in several development debacles over the years, but journalist Adam Davidson nevertheless calls the Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku Donald’s “worst deal.” Not only is the building a hopeless boondoggle cursed by poor location and overspending, its construction appears to have been a money laundering scheme for Iran’s Republican Guard.

The project involved local organized crime, almost certainly violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The Trump Organization and The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cannot be included in the same sentence. Whereas, at normal organizations, we must take annual training in compliance with this Act, and pass a test. At normal orgs we have anonymous tip lines to report violations. In the Trump Org? Bwaaaaahaaaaahaaaa!

Reposting the video:





A long intro describes the activities of Bechtel as a typical infrastructure company, and then Maddow goes into Trump's boondoggle in Azerbaijan.

[Odin]

Trump supporters call for “liberal genocide” and deportation of Jews at Arizona rally

[Eric the Green]

Our so-called president revealed his proposed budget today. It is reprehensible. It proves beyond all doubt that Drump represents the military industrial complex and corporate profits, and not the common working people; especially those who were deceived enough to vote for him.
Drump's budget declares war on the environment on which we all depend. He considers all spending for programs to protect our Mother Earth to be "waste."
Drump wants to cut back on everything that serves the people, so that our already-bloated military can have more war toys. And those who thought Drump would be more peaceful than Hillary, should remember that he promised that America would "win again; win so much that we would get tired of winning." Can anyone believe this does not mean more troops coming home to America in body bags?
And in order to pay for this 10% increase for more war toys, he wants to make massive cuts to diplomacy, which keeps us out of war.
In May we can look forward to his enormous tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts to social security and medicare. Meanwhile his health care bill will cut 24 million off from insurance and cost 5 times more for older people.
Drump needs to be opposed in every way possible that people feel is workable and effective. Those of us who agree that Drump should be stopped, now and in Nov.2018 and Nov.2020, need to be active in the way you can and choose to be.
What is our positive alternative?
Those who say we need to be positive and speak out and act for what we are for, not just for what we are against; I agree. Just take all the things he wants to cut, and advocate more instead of less for all those things! And for the things he wants to cut the most, our poor planet Earth-- environmental protection and climate change action and research-- we need to demand the MOST increases instead!
I'm sure there's lots more to say about Drump's cuts and mischief. And where's his infrastructure spending plan? It's not there; he lied.

Here's what Trump's budget proposes to cut
By Tal Kopan, CNN
Updated 1:21 PM ET, Thu March 16, 2017
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump unveiled his first budget blueprint on Thursday, and to offset increases in defense spending, the President is proposing $54 billion in cuts to large parts of the federal government and popular programs big and small.
Trump's budget would cut off funding entirely for several agencies, including arts, public broadcasting and development groups, and also proposes steep cuts to agencies like the State Department and Environmental Protection Agency.
Virtually every agency will see some sort of cut, with only Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs getting a boost.
Congress will have the final say, and lawmakers have already expressed opposition to many of the proposals.
Here's a look at some of the major cuts in the President's budget blueprint:
Department cuts
• Health and Human Services, the department responsible for implementing Obamacare and its proposed repeal, would face a $12.6 billion cut -- a 16.2% decrease
• Environmental Protection Agency: $2.6 billion, or 31.4%
• State Department: $11 billion, or 28.7%
• Labor Department: $2.5 billion, or 20.7%
• Agriculture Department: $5 billion, or 20.7%
• US Army Corps of Engineers: $1 billion, a 16.3% cut
• Cuts National Institutes of Health spending by $5.8 billion, a nearly 20% cut. Also overhauls NIH to focus on "highest priority" efforts and eliminates the Fogarty International Center.
• Other double-digit cuts include Commerce at 15.7%; Education at 13.5%; Housing and Urban Development at 13.2%; Transportation at 12.7%, and Interior at 11.7%.
Program cuts
• Eliminates the USDA Water and Wastewater loan and grant program, a reduction of $498 million
• Cuts $250 million by zeroing out National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants and programs that support coastal and marine management, research and education
• Reduces or eliminates 20 programs within the Department of Education, including Striving Readers, Teacher Quality Partnership and Impact Aid support payments for federal property and international education programs
• Cuts FEMA state and local grant funding by $667 million, including the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program and Homeland Security Grant Program
• Eliminates funds for Section 4 Capacity Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing
• Ceases payments to the United Nations' climate change programs for the Green Climate Fund and precursor funds
• Scales back funding for the World Bank and other international development banks by $650 million over three years
• Cuts federal subsidies to Amtrak and eliminates support for Amtrak's long-distance services.
• Cuts funding to the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Program so new projects will not be funded
• Shrinks the Treasury workforce by an unspecified amount
• Stops funding for the Clean Power Plan
Programs Trump proposes to eliminate or zero out
Trump's budget would eliminate funding for some small, independent agencies entirely, as well as zero out some federal programs:
• The 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which supports before- and after-school programs and summer programs
• Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which funds research including clean energy
• African Development Foundation
• Appalachian Regional Commission
• Chemical Safety Board
• Community Development Block Grant, which in part funds Meals on Wheels
• Community Development Financial Institutions Fund grants, under Treasury
• Community Services Block Grant, under HHS
• Corporation for National and Community Service
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Delta Regional Authority
• Denali Commission
• Economic Development Administration
• Essential Air Service program
• Global Climate Change Initiative
• Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Chesapeake Bay funding, and other regional programs under EPA.
• HOME Investment Partnerships Program, Choice Neighborhoods, and the Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program, all under HUD
• Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Inter-American Foundation
• US Trade and Development Agency
• Legal Services Corporation
• Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
• McGovern-Dole International Food for Education program
• Minority Business Development Agency, under Commerce
• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• NASA's Office of Education
• Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
• Northern Border Regional Commission
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation
• State Energy Program
• Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants program, the second-largest program feds have used to influence local education
• TIGER transportation grants
• United States Institute of Peace
• United States Interagency Council on Homelessness
• Weatherization Assistance Program
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

[pbrower2a]

Nothing matters to President Trump but the profits of American elites. Yes, he has appealed to bigotry of so0me of his 'deplorable' supporters more concerned about Islam than about pay cuts... he will sell out the 'deplorable' concerns if such prove troublesome to America;s economic elites. The pay cuts will happen -- count on it. Wages aren't profits; pay cuts enhance profits.

We got a President who said "Trust me!" or his version "Believe me!"... when I hear those stock phrases of liars and cheats I smell gross dishonesty.

[Eric the Green]

(03-16-2017, 07:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Nothing matters to President Trump but the profits of American elites. Yes,  he has appealed to bigotry of so0me of his 'deplorable' supporters more concerned about Islam than about pay cuts... he will sell out the 'deplorable' concerns if such prove troublesome to America;s economic elites. The pay cuts will happen -- count on it. Wages aren't profits; pay cuts enhance profits.

We got a President who said "Trust me!" or his version "Believe me!"... when I hear those stock phrases of liars and cheats I smell gross dishonesty.

It stinks to high heaven, "believe me!"

[Odin]

President Bannon Is Laying the Groundwork for Destroying the Executive Branch

[Odin]

Trump’s hiring the Bear Stearns economist who promised the economy was fine right before it went bankrupt

DRAIN THE SWAMP!

[Odin]

Trump regret: This photo of a regretful Trump voter is going viral for all the right reasons

[Eric the Green]

I guess we'll see soon if we even have an opposition party with a backbone, or whether a minority of oligarchs and racists can continue to dominate our government. Allowing Drump to have a supreme court nominee confirmed would be a disaster. The Republicans are fanatic reactionaries who blocked a good nominee. Why are Democrats bending over and giving in? They should not be afraid to lose the filibuster; they'll lose it anyway if they use it later. Stop Drump now and we might have a chance to bring sanity back to our government before it goes bad for a whole generation. Go here and stop Gorsuch:
http://nogorsuch.org/?source=emailsh

http://nogorsuch.org/?source=fbshare

[Eric the Green]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit.../99320230/

Three Democratic senators want the government to investigate Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, following reports of Gorka's ties to a far-right group in Hungary.

Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Friday sent a letter to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, asking that they look into whether Gorka, Trump's counterterrorism adviser, falsified his naturalization application or "other illegally procured his citizenship."

At issue is whether Gorka is a member of Vitézi Rend, a group that is listed by the State Department as an organization that is under the direction of Nazi Germany. The Forward reported that Gorka was a member of the group, but he later denied any association with the group to Tablet Magazine.

The group was founded by Miklos Horthy, the ruler of Hungary from 1920 to 1944. Horthy was a Nazi ally.

"Membership in an anti-Semitic organization like the Historical Vitézi Rend should raise serious concerns regarding whether an individual holds the sort of 'hostile attitudes' that concern the administration," the senators wrote. "Failure to address this case would further confirm the intent of this Administration is to discriminate on the basis of religion, rather than combat extremist views."

[Eric the Green]

[Odin]

(03-20-2017, 11:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit.../99320230/

Three Democratic senators want the government to investigate Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, following reports of Gorka's ties to a far-right group in Hungary.

Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Friday sent a letter to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, asking that they look into whether Gorka, Trump's counterterrorism adviser, falsified his naturalization application or "other illegally procured his citizenship."

At issue is whether Gorka is a member of Vitézi Rend, a group that is listed by the State Department as an organization that is under the direction of Nazi Germany. The Forward reported that Gorka was a member of the group, but he later denied any association with the group to Tablet Magazine.

The group was founded by Miklos Horthy, the ruler of Hungary from 1920 to 1944. Horthy was a Nazi ally.

"Membership in an anti-Semitic organization like the Historical Vitézi Rend should raise serious concerns regarding whether an individual holds the sort of 'hostile attitudes' that concern the administration," the senators wrote. "Failure to address this case would further confirm the intent of this Administration is to discriminate on the basis of religion, rather than combat extremist views."

Cue our resident Uncle Tom telling us how Neo-Nazis like Gorka aren't actually racist and how we left-wingers are somehow the real racists.

[Odin]

(03-20-2017, 11:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

Or Meals On Wheels! THE HORROR!

[Snowflake]

(03-21-2017, 07:08 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-20-2017, 11:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit.../99320230/

Three Democratic senators want the government to investigate Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, following reports of Gorka's ties to a far-right group in Hungary.

Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Friday sent a letter to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, asking that they look into whether Gorka, Trump's counterterrorism adviser, falsified his naturalization application or "other illegally procured his citizenship."

At issue is whether Gorka is a member of Vitézi Rend, a group that is listed by the State Department as an organization that is under the direction of Nazi Germany. The Forward reported that Gorka was a member of the group, but he later denied any association with the group to Tablet Magazine.

The group was founded by Miklos Horthy, the ruler of Hungary from 1920 to 1944. Horthy was a Nazi ally.

"Membership in an anti-Semitic organization like the Historical Vitézi Rend should raise serious concerns regarding whether an individual holds the sort of 'hostile attitudes' that concern the administration," the senators wrote. "Failure to address this case would further confirm the intent of this Administration is to discriminate on the basis of religion, rather than combat extremist views."

Cue our resident Uncle Tom telling us how Neo-Nazis like Gorka aren't actually racist and how we left-wingers are somehow the real racists.

Who are you referring to as 'Uncle Tom'?