Even routine monitoring of air and water pollution will be subject to review before being released. Think about this for a second: routine reports over air pollution have to be reviewed by Trump's political staff before being released. Not even China is that authoritarian over its science agencies.
And if you think that this is being partisan, a guy that worked for Bush on the EPA called this "going down a very dark road."
During the campaign I thought Mr. Trump was a cynical man pulling the levers that would work to secure a victory for victory's sake. Most folks who are willing to run-for president are somewhat cynical, narsacistic manipulators (who else would go through this process or want this job?), but when they get to the top they have a ideology to implement that they really believe will make things better, and will change positions in the best interests of the country (or more-selfishly their "legacy" which amounts to the same thing) when new information/perspective/advice comes to light.
I'm beginning to think that he actually believes his own BS though, and that's a little scary. Birtherism, climate change denial, throwing red-meat to the bad angles and fears of society (alt right agenda, xenophobia, islamophobia, etc.), and the general portrayal of the country as a desolate wasteland with unemployment >40% suffering from unprecedented crime and drug abuse; these ended up being smart tactics which with to win the electoral college. Imagine if he really believes all of them?
His popular vote loss (as predicted by those polls he lambasts) does not go away because he attacks those who remind of it opens an investigation of only the states where he lost by wide margins. His inauguration crowd doesn't get bigger because he attacks the media for posting pictures of it. Climate change doesn't go away because he censors and de-funds the science studying it. He can't defeat ISIS in weeks with his secret plan (which still appears to be a secret). He can never wipe radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth. He cannot really build a 50ft wall along our entire southern border. He cannot really force Mexico to pay for the that wall. He cannot repeal the ACA and implement a replacement that is cheaper, provides better coverage, and covers everyone. He cannot bring back coal mining jobs (natural gas is too cheap) He cannot bring back unskilled high paying manufacturing jobs (robots) If he forces manufacturing back into the US via tax policy, trade war, or bullying; then the cost of goods broadly will go up significantly resuling in lower real income for workers.
All I can really want at this point is for everyone to agree on the measuring sticks with which to judge his failure or success. Bugdet Deficit is pretty clear (he says he'll improve it) GDP Growth is pretty clear (he says he can get it to 4%) Unemployment he would rather measure anecdotally, but let's use U-6 from the BLS which is currently 9.1% Average Individual Health policy premium increase from 2017 to 2021 (we should have 2021 projections in before the 2020 election) Average Individual Health policy deductible in 2021 (he's going to bring deductibles down) % of Americans without Heath insurance (access to healthcare doesn't count as everyone has always had access to healthcare, many just can't afford to take advantage of that access)
That's a start. Curious as to other suggestions. If he succeeds then I'll be both thrilled and surprised, but I don't like it when leaders move the goalposts to declare victory so the goalposts should be set now.
I used to sort of agree with @Luke. I feel like the constant hand-wringing and "safe place" generation is almost doing an active disservice to any real political discourse. Yeah, Trump will likely suck and some things are troubling. But let's not be emotionally compromised victims or something more dramatic. Dear Mr./Ms. Can't Handle It - I think you'll live.
Then week one happened. Executive Order to further the Keystone pipelines, national parks are having their tweets removed and regulated about climate, and Trump's administration will oversee scientific observations. I get it now. This really is something different.
Also if the Tea Party caucus who shut down the government because they couldn't get spending cuts commensurate with increases in the debt ceiling sits-still for paying for the wall, spending on infrastructure, spending on the military, and cutting taxes at the same time; then they have no soul.
I'm seriously...ssserrriously considering turning the March for Science into a family vacation. A Mama, a Dada, 4 yr old & a lap baby. Start 'em young. Itching to burn some miles I got stockpiled. Visiting our nation's capital is still an unchecked box. In the words of beloved H.C. Westermann: SEE AMERICA FIRST.
Some Non-Republican Positions: - Healthcare. Insurance for everyone. Not touching Medicare. - Anti-Trade - Anti-Federalist. Investigatiing state elections, dictating city policies (so-called Sanctuary Cities), threatening to send the "Feds" into Chicago without help being requested, ending state regulation of health insurance marketplace (get rid of the "lines") - Pro-Russian - Pro-Deficiit (actions speak louder than words) - Anti-Free-Market. Interfering directly in the business decisions of specific businesses for publicity - Some Pro-LGBT. For transgendered bathroom access, but VP and Supreme Court list is anti-LGBT
Certainly some ongoing "imperial presidency" issues with executive orders not to enforce the law (ACA), and borderline-appropriatiating funds prior to asking congress for them (wall, ICE officers), immigration policy via executive order, etc. Obama was heavily criticized for this kind of governance, but this doesn't look to be a changing.
Maybe he can fire up that 40% or whatever tariff in China too while he's at it. That wall will be paid for in no time and all our problems will be solved.
Mexico is currently our 3rd largest goods trading partner with $531 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2015. Goods exports totaled $236 billion; goods imports totaled $295 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico was $58 billion in 2015.
China is currently our largest goods trading partner with $598 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2015. Goods exports totaled $116 billion; goods imports totaled $482 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with China was $366 billion in 2015.
They're already backing away from the 20% tariff plan after it got a few hours of criticism. It's almost like they ... haven't thought any of this out. Hmm.
They're already backing away from the 20% tariff plan after it got a few hours of criticism. It's almost like they ... haven't thought any of this out. Hmm.
I get what they're doing. If you throw enough ideas out there, eventually people will be "ok" with one of them, that's the one you go with.
If Trump/GOP is able to "proof" voter fraud, it will enable them to put extra restrictions in place for people who want to vote. That is: stricter registration and identification requirements. Coincidentally (ahum) these additional requirements put a relatively high burden on people in low income urban neighboorhoods (who more often than not vote Democratic)
TL;DR "proof" voter fraud > making voting more difficult > lower the Democratic vote.
They're already backing away from the 20% tariff plan after it got a few hours of criticism. It's almost like they ... haven't thought any of this out. Hmm.
hmmm. It turns out that Trump has businesses in Turkey, Egypt,Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where terrorists have come from.
Now, I am not in favor of any bans. But if this doesn't make it clear that the whole Muslim ban thing is a cynical ploy to benefit from people's fears, I don't know what will. And if you are a Trump supporter, I don't know how you don't feel like a fool by now.
hmmm. It turns out that Trump has businesses in Turkey, Egypt,Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where terrorists have come from.
Now, I am not in favor of any bans. But if this doesn't make it clear that the whole Muslim ban thing is a cynical ploy to benefit from people's fears, I don't know what will. And if you are a Trump supporter, I don't know how you don't feel like a fool by now.
I have good friends who are Persian, and their family that still lives in Iran visits and lives with them for months at a time, have been doing it for years. Now under this order their parents very well may not be able to come back. Just over example of the "American Carnage" to come under Trump. Do the people who said "oh, don't take Trump literally" during the election get it now? Seriously, fuck Paul Ryan and all the spineless GOP-ers for going along with this just so they can stay on Trump's good side and get their precious tax cuts through.
Why is needing an ID card to vote a "high burden"? I'm not trolling, I'm asking seriously. I understand that republicans try to minimize places and times you can vote to disenfranchise certain people, but how is requiring ID voter supression? Everyone has an ID, or can get one for free especially if your low income. I'm not a Republican or Trump supporter, but I never understood the problem with needing ID to vote.
@Vasilnate1 Just some info I found. These articles highlight some of the indirect ways that republican legislatures disenfranchise the minority vote.
With regard to Texas voter ID Laws:
"That is, according to the state's own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification. Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver's license or a personal identification card issued by DPS, and that disparity is statistically significant."
"Texas has no driver's license offices in almost a third of the state's counties. Meanwhile, close to 15 percent of Hispanic Texans living in counties without driver's license offices don't have ID. A little less than a quarter of driver's license offices have extended hours, which would make it tough for many working voters to find a place and time to acquire the IDs. Despite this, the Texas legislature struck an amendment that would have reimbursed low-income voters for travel expenses when going to apply for a voter ID, and killed another that would have required offices to remain open until 7:00 p.m. or later on just one weekday, and four or more hours at least two weekends."
"In particular, the court found that North Carolina lawmakers requested data on racial differences in voting behaviors in the state. "This data showed that African Americans disproportionately lacked the most common kind of photo ID, those issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)," the judges wrote.
So the legislators made it so that the only acceptable forms of voter identification were the ones disproportionately used by white people. "With race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African Americans," the judges wrote. "The bill retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess."
Why is needing an ID card to vote a "high burden"? I'm not trolling, I'm asking seriously. I understand that republicans try to minimize places and times you can vote to disenfranchise certain people, but how is requiring ID voter supression? Everyone has an ID, or can get one for free especially if your low income. I'm not a Republican or Trump supporter, but I never understood the problem with needing ID to vote.
Theoretically, an ID requirement shouldn't be a high burden. The problem is that the way that the law is implemented makes it very, very clear what it is about.
The law that they passed in Texas and was struck down, for example, would accept gun permits as valid IDs, but not student IDs, even if the student IDs were issued by a state university. In Alabama, after passing a voter ID law, the state government closed DMVs in most of the majority black counties. In North Carolina, the law that was struck down prohibited the use of state employee ID cards.
And then there is the biggest discrepancy of all: none of these voter ID laws do anything about absentee ballots. As of 2014, only 6 of the 31 states with voter ID laws in the books had the same requirements for absentee ballots and in person voters. Now, if the point of voter ID laws are really about fraud and not disenfranchisement, why is it that someone who shows up to vote in person has to provide an ID, but someone who votes absentee doesn't have to do anything to verify their identity? There is no official explanation, but the real reason is that in person voting tends to be more common among people who vote democratic and absentee voting tends to be more common among people who vote republican. So let me turn the question to you: if voter ID laws are not about voter suppression, why are absentee ballots and in person ballots treated differently in most states?
Why is needing an ID card to vote a "high burden"? I'm not trolling, I'm asking seriously. I understand that republicans try to minimize places and times you can vote to disenfranchise certain people, but how is requiring ID voter supression? Everyone has an ID, or can get one for free especially if your low income. I'm not a Republican or Trump supporter, but I never understood the problem with needing ID to vote.
Check your priv, mate
Make them free to obtain,
free to re-obtain as many times as you needed to,
apply-less,
available to order 24/7,
available without the need to take time off work,
available without needing to travel anywhere,
available without needing to have a computer
available without needing access to the internet
available without needing to have an address
available without needing to be able to read well
available without having to fill out complex forms
available without needing another form of ID like birth certificate
etc...
and there'd still be people who wouldn't have IDs.
Comments
https://apnews.com/c1423276fb574b07953651a68a082db9/EPA-science-under-scrutiny-by-Trump-political-staff
Even routine monitoring of air and water pollution will be subject to review before being released. Think about this for a second: routine reports over air pollution have to be reviewed by Trump's political staff before being released. Not even China is that authoritarian over its science agencies.
And if you think that this is being partisan, a guy that worked for Bush on the EPA called this "going down a very dark road."
1 week in and this guy is going to start a war.
I'm beginning to think that he actually believes his own BS though, and that's a little scary. Birtherism, climate change denial, throwing red-meat to the bad angles and fears of society (alt right agenda, xenophobia, islamophobia, etc.), and the general portrayal of the country as a desolate wasteland with unemployment >40% suffering from unprecedented crime and drug abuse; these ended up being smart tactics which with to win the electoral college. Imagine if he really believes all of them?
His popular vote loss (as predicted by those polls he lambasts) does not go away because he attacks those who remind of it opens an investigation of only the states where he lost by wide margins.
His inauguration crowd doesn't get bigger because he attacks the media for posting pictures of it.
Climate change doesn't go away because he censors and de-funds the science studying it.
He can't defeat ISIS in weeks with his secret plan (which still appears to be a secret).
He can never wipe radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth.
He cannot really build a 50ft wall along our entire southern border.
He cannot really force Mexico to pay for the that wall.
He cannot repeal the ACA and implement a replacement that is cheaper, provides better coverage, and covers everyone.
He cannot bring back coal mining jobs (natural gas is too cheap)
He cannot bring back unskilled high paying manufacturing jobs (robots)
If he forces manufacturing back into the US via tax policy, trade war, or bullying; then the cost of goods broadly will go up significantly resuling in lower real income for workers.
All I can really want at this point is for everyone to agree on the measuring sticks with which to judge his failure or success.
Bugdet Deficit is pretty clear (he says he'll improve it)
GDP Growth is pretty clear (he says he can get it to 4%)
Unemployment he would rather measure anecdotally, but let's use U-6 from the BLS which is currently 9.1%
Average Individual Health policy premium increase from 2017 to 2021 (we should have 2021 projections in before the 2020 election)
Average Individual Health policy deductible in 2021 (he's going to bring deductibles down)
% of Americans without Heath insurance (access to healthcare doesn't count as everyone has always had access to healthcare, many just can't afford to take advantage of that access)
That's a start. Curious as to other suggestions. If he succeeds then I'll be both thrilled and surprised, but I don't like it when leaders move the goalposts to declare victory so the goalposts should be set now.
Then week one happened. Executive Order to further the Keystone pipelines, national parks are having their tweets removed and regulated about climate, and Trump's administration will oversee scientific observations. I get it now. This really is something different.
- Healthcare. Insurance for everyone. Not touching Medicare.
- Anti-Trade
- Anti-Federalist. Investigatiing state elections, dictating city policies (so-called Sanctuary Cities), threatening to send the "Feds" into Chicago without help being requested, ending state regulation of health insurance marketplace (get rid of the "lines")
- Pro-Russian
- Pro-Deficiit (actions speak louder than words)
- Anti-Free-Market. Interfering directly in the business decisions of specific businesses for publicity
- Some Pro-LGBT. For transgendered bathroom access, but VP and Supreme Court list is anti-LGBT
Certainly some ongoing "imperial presidency" issues with executive orders not to enforce the law (ACA), and borderline-appropriatiating funds prior to asking congress for them (wall, ICE officers), immigration policy via executive order, etc. Obama was heavily criticized for this kind of governance, but this doesn't look to be a changing.
Bur that's just a euphemism for "How can we make it harder for Democratic voters to prove that they are eligible to vote?"
Which is something the Republicans have been working on for decades.
The Voter-Fraud Myth http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/29/the-voter-fraud-myth
Read the article? It explains it pretty well.
If Trump/GOP is able to "proof" voter fraud, it will enable them to put extra restrictions in place for people who want to vote. That is: stricter registration and identification requirements. Coincidentally (ahum) these additional requirements put a relatively high burden on people in low income urban neighboorhoods (who more often than not vote Democratic)
TL;DR "proof" voter fraud > making voting more difficult > lower the Democratic vote.
This 6 minutes audio clip from the On The Media podcast summarizes is well:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/myth-voter-fraud/
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/01/27/511861645/trumps-immigration-freeze-omits-those-linked-to-deadly-attacks-in-u-s
So the Muslim ban doesn't actually include any of the countries where people responsible for the deadly attacks since 9/11 come from.
Why would that be?
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/tracking-trumps-web-of-conflicts/
hmmm. It turns out that Trump has businesses in Turkey, Egypt,Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where terrorists have come from.
Now, I am not in favor of any bans. But if this doesn't make it clear that the whole Muslim ban thing is a cynical ploy to benefit from people's fears, I don't know what will. And if you are a Trump supporter, I don't know how you don't feel like a fool by now.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-executive-order-could-block-legal-residents-from-returning-to-america
Also, everyone should read through this Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/Stl_Manifest?s=09
Theoretically, an ID requirement shouldn't be a high burden. The problem is that the way that the law is implemented makes it very, very clear what it is about.
The law that they passed in Texas and was struck down, for example, would accept gun permits as valid IDs, but not student IDs, even if the student IDs were issued by a state university. In Alabama, after passing a voter ID law, the state government closed DMVs in most of the majority black counties. In North Carolina, the law that was struck down prohibited the use of state employee ID cards.
And then there is the biggest discrepancy of all: none of these voter ID laws do anything about absentee ballots. As of 2014, only 6 of the 31 states with voter ID laws in the books had the same requirements for absentee ballots and in person voters. Now, if the point of voter ID laws are really about fraud and not disenfranchisement, why is it that someone who shows up to vote in person has to provide an ID, but someone who votes absentee doesn't have to do anything to verify their identity? There is no official explanation, but the real reason is that in person voting tends to be more common among people who vote democratic and absentee voting tends to be more common among people who vote republican. So let me turn the question to you: if voter ID laws are not about voter suppression, why are absentee ballots and in person ballots treated differently in most states?