Soc Worker|The Election of Trump and the Struggle Ahead 1. The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States is a shocking and dangerous turn of events--not only for the U.S., but for the entire world. It is a decisive shift, representing the latest failure of center-right and center-left parties in the advanced capitalist countries in the wake of the Great Recession, opening the way for the triumph of a candidate who used right-wing populism to stoke racism, xenophobia and reaction. Trump's electoral success on a platform of criminalizing immigrants--Muslims and Mexicans in particular--will give confidence to racist and anti-immigrant forces worldwide, such as the National Front in France, whose leader Marine Le Pen congratulated Trump and said that France would be next, and openly Nazi outfits like Greece's Golden Dawn. Trump's contempt for women, his history as a sexual predator and his vow to severely restrict abortion will boost reactionaries who want to roll back the gains of the women's movement in this country and beyond.
NYT|What Republicans Really Think About Tump Photo CLEVELAND — The arena here at the Republican National Convention echoes with applause for Donald Trump, but the cacophony and extravagant stage effects can’t conceal the chaos in the G.O.P. and in the Trump campaign. Republican senators suddenly are busy fishing, mowing the lawn or hiking the Grand Canyon; conservative celebrities mostly sent regrets. Pundits like me are gnashing our teeth as Trump receives the presidential nomination of the party of Lincoln, but, frankly speaking, we don’t have much credibility in Cleveland since many of us aren’t all that likely to support a Republican nominee in any case. So instead of again inflicting on you my views of the danger of Trump, let me share what some influential conservatives said about him during the course of the campaign. “He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot. “I don’t think this guy has any more core principles than a Kardashian marriage.” — Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska “Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud.
TC |Trump’s victory spells trouble but also exciting, unimagined opportunities A Donald Trump presidency is as unpredictable as it was unexpected. While some have welcomed the result, for many Americans, as for America’s friends and allies, there is a deep sense of unease about the future. Yet, strange as it may sound, the outcome of this election may depend more on what we make of it than on what Trump and his advisers intend. Though daunting, the challenge is pregnant with possibilities. Some observers have argued that the Trump victory is a reaction to economic hardship, job insecurity, casualisation and an out-of-touch political elite. People in the US and around the globe are feeling disconcerted by a rapidly changing world and a bewildering, often frightening, set of problems: terrorism, refugees, climate change, a global arms trade, and heightened racial tensions, to name but a few. That opens the way for people with simple solutions. The Trump approach Contrary to simplistic reports, Trump seems unlikely to ditch alliances. America’s friends and allies
RS|Donald Trump Cannot Be President of the United States It's easy to make fun of the hats. It's not so easy to contemplate what makes so many people think America's greatness is in desperate need of reformation, or what would make them turn to someone like Donald Trump to make it a reality. America has flaws as deep as its founding, when the men who laid down basic principles of human rights – principles that have endured 240 years – were fed and clothed by human beings they owned. That paradox still defines the fault lines of our nation, and it's along those lines we are drawing the ugliest election in modern history. It isn't just economic anxiety or trade deals or the opioid epidemic driving the mostly white, mostly male movement behind Trump's campaign. It is the existential fear of displacement from a world that has slowly – too slowly, for too long – been chipping away at white male supremacy. The "grab 'em by the pussy" moment was disastrous for Trump's campaign; it reinforced the defining narrative of his sexism.
RS| Donald Trump: Fearmonger in Chief As human beings, our capacity to forget is astonishing, second only to our capacity to believe just about anything. So in 2016, we find ourselves in a place we never thought we'd be in this century: Witnessing, and in many cases supporting, the rise of leaders proposing such things as restricting freedoms of specific groups of people, sending political opponents to prison, employing crueler methods of torture, killing families for an individual's crimes, cracking down on the press and scapegoating entire ethnicities. And unfortunately, it's not just Donald Trump, who at last night's debate refused to accept the legitimacy of the sitting President, the FBI, the election process, and, as moderator Chris Wallace put it, "the peaceful transition of power" in this country. Around the Western world, the Great Panic of 2016 is very real and very ugly, with various increasingly popular politicians and parties espousing nationalist policies that threaten democratic freedoms and human rights.
TC|4 key times presidential nominees failed to gain Senate confirmation Republicans are rushing to begin confirmation hearings for Cabinet appointments even before the FBI has finished its background checks. For President-elect Donald Trump’s opponents, this makes uncovering flaws in his nominees all the more challenging. As a scholar of U.S. history, I have studied the many cases in which presidential nominees, particularly judges, have failed to gain Senate confirmation. However, according to the Senate Historical Office, there were four cases since 1970 in which a Senate controlled by the president’s party did not confirm the president’s nominees. In each case, the failed nominee had either ethical, financial or legal lapses in their records. Here’s a list of their roadblocks, which might give you an idea of potential obstacles to Trump’s nominees. Four failed nominations In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Zoe E. Her candidacy stumbled on the disclosure that she had hired undocumented immigrants and had not paid appropriate taxes on their wages.
Plan to Eliminate Natl Endowments for Arts & Humanities|Hyperallergic The Hill has gotten a first look at the federal budget in the works by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, and it is, to put it mildly, brutal. In an effort to reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years, the plan calls for the complete elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). In addition, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) would be privatized. The NEA’s current budget is $146 million, which, according to the agency, represents “just 0.012% … of federal discretionary spending.” The website notes that the Trump budget is modeled after a plan published last year by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank “that has helped staff the Trump transition.” Trump has not yet announced his pick for a chairman to lead the NEA. This is hardly the first time the NEA and NEH have been targeted by conservative politicians. President George W.
Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo. — The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (1871) There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. During the last five years, the news media have been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics of Washington. These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend to be disregarded as background noise. Photo: Dale Robbins
How Trump’s White House Could Mess With Government Data Numbers and data are a backbone of modern life. We cite them buzzily at bars and soberly to bosses so often that “studies show” might as well be given its own entry in the dictionary. Much of what we cite comes from government data — weather patterns, the population or average income of a city, even honeybee activity — collected across innumerable departments, agencies and centers, then made public. Now, watchdogs are worried that a Donald Trump administration could erode the quality of government data collection and systems. More Politics Certain steps being taken by the president-elect’s transition team have raised alarm bells for some who worry that Trump’s glibness with the truth could take root in a more institutional form. Widespread government data tampering remains unlikely given the vast numbers of career bureaucrats working across agencies, according to Alex Howard, senior analyst at the Sunlight Foundation, an open government advocacy organization.
Outline|Trump appears to be muzzling scientists just like Canada did A North American nation elected a leader known for hostility to science and affection for the domestic oil industry. After the new administration took power, government scientists stopped speaking freely to the press. Questions had to be sent by email and routed through central approval. That’s what happened in Canada after Prime Minister Stephen Harper was elected in 2006. According to an internal email sent Monday and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the Agricultural Research Service, which is responsible for about half of the agency’s $2.5 billion research and development budget, is shutting itself off from the public. There is little doubt that this muzzling is in line with the wishes of the Trump administration. Some foresaw that Trump might try to muzzle scientists. In Canada, muzzling was followed by government funding cuts and thousands of scientist layoffs. Canada is a world leader in scientific publications and discoveries, but the US still dominates science internationally.
Trump campaign promise tracker - Washington Post DB|Man Without Grace Meets Party Without Conscience Just one week into the Trump presidency, Republicans have already shown they are unwilling to stand up to the worst of his instincts. Donald Trump is off to quite a start. He sits atop a globally despised kakistocracy whose first 24 hours included historic opposition marches around the country (and indeed around the world) and top White House flaks beclowning themselves and eviscerating their credibility with shouted lies and the absurdity of “alternative facts.” The first week of the Trump administration included revelations that the president of the United States personally ordered the head of the Parks Service to produce pictures of his sparsely attended inaugural that might mitigate the humiliation of the day he grandly declared a “Day of Patriotic Devotion”; and evidence that he spends much of his time obsessively live-tweeting cable TV news. If Trump is a man without grace, his daily outrages would not be possible were he not surrounded by men and women without honor. Thank You!
INDUK|US in the middle of a coup by Donald Trump - The Independent The US is in the middle of a coup and hasn't realised, according to Michael Moore. The filmmaker and journalist, who was one of the few famous people to publicly predict that Donald Trump would become President, has warned that the US state is being overthrown by Mr Trump and the people he has appointed to govern alongside him. Linking to a New York Times piece about the role of senior advisor Steve Bannon, he posted on Twitter: "If you're still trying to convince yourself that a 21st century coup is not underway, please, please snap out of it". The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The article described how Mr Bannon, who until recently ran the far-right news site Breitbart News, had taken a major role in national security policy that usually would only be occupied by senior generals. That move was a major break with precedent and it and Mr Bannon himself have been credited with many of the extreme policy pronouncements coming from the White House in recent days.
Snopes|No Evidence Trump Told People Magazine Republicans Are the "Dumbest Group of Voters" Claim: Donald Trump said in 1998 that he would one day run as a Republican because they are the "dumbest group of voters." Origin:The above-reproduced image and quote attributed to Donald Trump began appearing in our inbox in mid-October 2015. The format is easily recognizable as one wherein questionable or offensive words are attributed to the individual pictured, and in this case image claims that Donald Trump made the following statement in a 1998 interview with People magazine: If I were to run, I'd run as a Republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. Despite People's comprehensive online content archive, we found no interview or profile on Donald Trump in 1998 (or any other time) that quoted his saying anything that even vaguely resembled the words in this meme. Trump's political endeavors (or the absence of them) did rate some space on the magazine's pages, though. By October 1999, Trump had become more serious about dipping his toes in political waters. Mr.