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DEAL FROM STRENGTH OR GET CRUSHED EVERY TIME???
Holy shit that's fascistic. Blatantly fascistic. I can't believe he got away with that.
Probably got away with it because it was fan written/performed. The fact it was approved by the campaign managers though....
He didn't? this was a huge deal back when it happened. Especially since he refused too pay them, and the dad (the guy who wrote the song) sued Trump
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...fing-them.html
Hii
Black Texas man's SUV burned, house defaced with n-word graffiti
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.2928923
Black Texas man's SUV burned, house defaced with n-word graffiti
A Houston-area man said he woke up to find his SUV on fire and his house defaced with racist graffiti. (HCFMO)
BY
CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Friday, December 30, 2016, 1:42 PM
A black Texas man says he woke up to find his SUV burned in his driveway and n-word graffiti scrawled on his home.
The unidentified man’s house in Highlands, outside Houston, was spray-painted in red with “get out” and “leave” in addition to repeated uses of the racial slur.
Firefighters were called to the home at 5 a.m., when the owner was still inside asleep and did not know what was going on outside, Harris County Fire Marshal spokeswoman Rachel Moreno told the Daily News
The 51-year-old man told KPRC that he lives alone at the home and told the station “Why me? I don’t do much. I don’t go a lot of places. I pretty much stay home.”
Queens mob goon told gambler 'you'd be dead' if he wasn't white
Harris County Fire Marshals are investigating a vehicle fire at a home that was vandalized with the n-word. (HCFMO)
He said that there have been previous times where someone in a car yelled the n-word at his home, but that he is not afraid and has no plans to move.
The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office said that it is meeting with the FBI, and that the fire and vandalism are being investigated as a possible bias incidents.
Moreno said that firefighters used a power washer to clean the graffiti from the house.
© Copyright 2016 NYDailyNews.com. All rights reserved.
I for one have always felt the USA has the unique cultural and economic 'triggers' that could eventually lead to fascism (IE past glory, American exceptionalism widely accepted, war-time economy, threat of scapegoats etc) even before the partriot act, 9/11, NSA, DHS, etc, but with these new tools the ABILITY is CLEARLY there for the taking. All fascism in the USA has missed in the past is a coherent, centralized group with INTENT to do so.
Is Trump fascist, probably not. Hes more of a twitter-maniac. But the USA is clearly fascistic as of this point, and any rebuttal only lacks the will to take the facts to their logical conclusion.
IMO, the Trump administration could move in a fascistic direction following a major crisis.
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First he attacked Leslie Jones, now they’re giving him a book deal
First he attacked Leslie Jones, now they’re giving him a book deal
Book publisher Simon & Schuster is paying hatemonger Milo Yiannopoulos $250,000 to write a book.
Don’t let Simon & Schuster spread hate speech. Demand they immediately cancel the white supremacist book deal!
TAKE ACTION
Dear Chris,
One of the largest book publishers in the country, Simon & Schuster, just rewarded a white supremacist spokesperson with a massive book deal.
Milo Yiannopoulos - a Breitbart publisher and spokesperson for white supremacy - has made a name for himself as a mouthpiece for hate speech. Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter last year after leading a campaign of racial, anti-Black and sexual harassment against actress Leslie Jones. The harassment driven by Yiannopoulos was so severe that Jones had to temporarily quit Twitter. Now he’s getting $250,000 from Simon & Schuster to promote his hateful ideas.
The Simon & Schuster book deal will give Yiannopoulos exactly what Twitter took away from him: a mainstream platform, one beyond the openly white supremacist Breitbart, that he can use to spread his views of hate for Black people, women, Muslims, and transgender people.
Demand Simon & Schuster cancel the white supremacist book deal!
Simon & Schuster is enabling white supremacists and is openly peddling hate speech for profit. Simon & Schuster is banking on white supremacists all over the country buying this book. Not surprisingly, white supremacists have already pushed the book’s pre-sales to No. 1 on Amazon, giving it a sleek “bestseller” label that further legitimizes Yiannopoulos’ hate speech.1 This book deal is so disturbing that even some segments of Simon & Schuster are speaking out against the book deal.2 The United Kingdom branch of Simon & Schuster has already publicly refused to sell this hateful book.
Simon & Schuster claims that they “do not and never have condoned discrimination or hate speech in any form,” but handing a purveyor of hate speech and white supremacy a $250,000 megaphone is a clear statement that this publisher is willing to enable and profit from calls to harm people of color.
Demand Simon & Schuster cancel the white supremacist book deal!
This is not normal. White supremacists should not be getting six-figure deals to promote their hate under the guise of mainstream platforms. Black communities know all too well how perpetuating stereotypes and hateful rhetoric can empower a racist and violent agenda.
In the week following the election, more than 900 incidents of harassment and hate crimes targeting Blacks folks, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women have been reported.3 The violence of these emboldened cowards will only continue if companies like Simon & Schuster continue to normalize white supremacy.
We will not stand by and let companies profit from white supremacy. Join us in demanding Simon & Schuster cancel the white supremacist book deal!
Until justice is real,
--Brandi, Rashad, Arisha, Anika, Jade, Evan, Bernard, Corina and the rest of the Color Of Change team.
References:
1. "Simon & Schuster stands by Milo Yiannopoulos book despite backlash," The Guardian, 30 December 2017.
https://act.colorofchange.org/go/723....872082.1JyzcO
2. "S&S UK will not publish controversial Milo Yiannopoulos," The Bookseller, 3 January 2017. http://act.colorofchange.org/go/7233....872082.1JyzcO
3. "Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election," Southern Poverty Law Center, 29 November 2016. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/723....872082.1JyzcO
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I'd agree more with you if I could. Well said. Fascism has always had spectacle front-and-centre. Nuremberg Rally much Mr.Trump?
- - - Updated - - -
That prick-faced oxygen-thief couldn't have a more punchable face if he tried.First he attacked Leslie Jones, now they’re giving him a book deal
Book publisher Simon & Schuster is paying hatemonger Milo Yiannopoulos $250,000 to write a book.
Don’t let Simon & Schuster spread hate speech. Demand they immediately cancel the white supremacist book deal!
TAKE ACTION
"It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. " - Buenaventura Durutti
"The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth." - Ernesto Che Guevara.
"Its Called the American dream, because you gotta be asleep to believe it". - George Carlin
Tone ~ Emmet ~ Larkin ~ Connolly ~ O Donnell
www.union.ie
Idk if it can beat the Zodiac Killer...
u-s-senator-ted-cruz-r-tx.jpg
An injury to one is an injury to all -Industrial Workers of the World
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all -Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free -Eugene V. Debs
Petition asking Sessions if he'll continue Justice Dept contempt case on Arpaio
Petition asking Trump AG pick Sessions if he'll continue Justice Dept criminal contempt case on Arpaio
Sign on NOW!
Please sign the petition to Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake!
Ask Trump AG nominee Sessions if he will continue Justice Department criminal contempt proceeding against Arpaio
Sessions' Senate confirmation hearings start on Tuesday!
Everyone knows Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions as one of the most anti-immigrant lawmakers in Congress. He has opposed every practical immigration reform plan during his 20 years representing Alabama.
Since Donald Trump nominated Sessions to be Attorney General, the senator has misled the Senate and the nation about his 1980s civil rights record as U.S. Attorney in Alabama. Sessions claimed he “personally” litigated four civil rights cases then. But the former Justice Department attorneys who actually brought three of the lawsuits wrote a Jan. 3 article in the Washington Post clearly stating Sessions had no real involvement in any of them. All he did was sign his name on the lawsuits as U.S. Attorney.
An even more important question arises as Sessions’ Senate confirmation hearings take place this week: Will Sessions as Attorney General pursue a criminal contempt of court proceeding that could put former Maricopa County (Phoenix, Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio in jail for ignoring a 2011 federal judge’s injunction?
Arpaio was found guilty of unlawfully detaining Latinos and immigrants during discriminatory neighborhood raids and police stops where people were racially profiled solely because of their race and language. The 2011 federal court injunction ordered Arpaio to stop these illegal practices. Arpaio, who was overwhelmingly defeated for re-election last November, deliberately refused to obey the judge’s order. Now he faces jail time.
Arpaio was an early key supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign. The U.S. Justice Department’s chief duty is enforcing the laws of our country. As Attorney General, will now-Senator Jeff Sessions continue pushing to put Trump ally Arpaio in jail for flouting the judge’s order? That is a key question Senator Sessions should be made to answer during his Senate hearings.
Please sign the petition asking Arizona U.S. Senator Jeff Flake to get Senator Sessions to answer whether he will continue enforcing the Justice Department criminal contempt proceeding against former Sheriff Arpaio.
http://action.ufw.org/sessions117
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The White House Press Corps Needs To Hear From You
The White House Press Corps Needs To Hear From You
Dear Chris,
I wanted to give you a quick update on the petition to the White House press corps that you recently signed...
On Donald Trump’s first full day as president of the United States, he went to CIA headquarters and informed the national intelligence community that he has an “ongoing war with the media.”[1] At his first White House press briefing, Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer berated the press corps for accurately reporting the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration, then warned them that the president will hold them “accountable” for this kind of reporting in the future.[2] On Sunday morning, Trump’s team blacklisted CNN.[3]
GROW THIS PETITION: CLICK HERE TO SHARE THIS PETITION NOW ON FACEBOOK and/or CLICK HERE TO SHARE ON TWITTER
Even more disturbing, Trump’s aide Kellyanne Conway announced that the Trump administration will rely on “alternative facts” when pressed on their falsehoods. [4] (Note: There’s no such thing as “alternative facts.” Alternative facts is just another way of saying lie.)
As we warned when we launched this action, the Trump administration has already started crowding out reporters in the White House press corps in favor of extreme right-wing and fake news sites like Breitbart, Alex Jones, and other fringe sources you’ve probably never heard of. [5]
We will be engaging directly with the White House Correspondents Association later this week and doing a formal delivery of our petition next week.
Going into this, let’s make our voices as loud as possible. We already have 290,000 signers! Let’s get it 350,000!
SHARE NOW TO HELP HIT 350K: CLICK HERE TO SHARE THIS PETITION NOW ON FACEBOOK and/or CLICK HERE TO SHARE ON TWITTER
This is a crisis. We need to raise all of our voices to ensure that the media stand up to Trump’s growing blacklist before it’s too late. It’s a scary thing to say, but the truth is that they have to stand together before they all fall -- one by one..
Want to do even more than share it?
CLICK HERE to tell the White House Correspondents' Association and their board directly, via Twitter, that you will stand with them if they stand up to Trump's blacklists.
Thanks for your participation. It matters. I’ll be sure to keep y’all updated.
Onward!
Angelo
@GoAngelo
Footnotes:
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/21/medi...ith-the-media/
[2] https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/0...d-press/215076
[3] https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/0...uration/215079
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...rnative-facts/
[5] https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/0...ng-room/215043
This message was sent to Chris Kaihatsu by Angelo Carusone, Media Matters through MoveOn's public petition website. MoveOn Civic Action does not endorse the contents of this message. To unsubscribe or report this email as inappropriate, click here: http://petitions.moveon.org/unsub.ht...1831516-ijkK_5
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news.google.com
1984 hits No. 1 on Amazon after Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts' quote
EW.com - 3 hours ago
George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 has topped Amazon's best seller list just three days after Kellyanne Conway used the phrase “alternative facts” in an interview on Sunday's Meet the Press.
Trump banned the EPA from telling the public facts!
Trump banned the EPA from telling the public facts!
Trump: Reverse the Gag Order on the EPA
Sign Now
Chris,
Trump has placed a gag order on employees of the Environmental Protection Agency. This means that folks with an expertise in issues of pollution, environmental protections, and climate change can no longer speak with the media, the public or members of Congress. This horrifying stifling of the free exchange of information is a devastating instance of censorship and it cannot be tolerated.
Sign on to tell Trump that you demand he lift the order and allow the EPA to continue to disseminate accurate information about the state of our environment.
Trump's press secretary has argued that this is a normal act for an incoming administration, but that's not true. Trump's climate denial and anti-science stance is a clear and present threat to the safety and sustainability of our planet.
If we allow Trump to censor the kind of information experts can share, we allow him to tell a twisted and inaccurate story for his own benefit. We know that Trump is pro oil drilling, even though it's harmful to our environment and that does not even promise the best and most sustainable jobs. But if he can suppress those facts, his story will begin to be what folks believe.
We have to fight for facts and information. Lying about the state of the environment doesn't change it, it only puts us behind in dealing with what is the biggest threat to our world right now.
If you care about the planet, please sign on to demand the new President ungags the EPA.
Thank you,
Kelsey B.
The Care2 Petitions Team
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Week one of the Trump administration: A government of war and social reaction
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../pers-j28.html
Week one of the Trump administration: A government of war and social reaction
By Joseph Kishore
28 January 2017
It is one week since the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States, and the actions and orders of the new government make clear what the working class can expect from the next four years.
At the center of Trump’s “America First” agenda is a massive escalation of military violence. At a swearing-in ceremony at the Pentagon Friday for the new secretary of defense, retired general James Mattis, Trump signed an executive order to begin a major “rebuilding” of the military. The order directs Mattis to prepare a policy to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal and prepare for conflict with “near-peer competitors,” a term that traditionally refers to China and Russia.
The action follows Trump press secretary Sean Spicer’s reaffirmation of a statement by incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, that the US would seek to bar Chinese access to islets in the South China Sea, implying military actions that would amount to a declaration of war.
Trump has also pledged to establish “safe zones” in Syria, which will be coupled with a temporary ban on all immigration from a number of majority Muslim countries. While Democrats have denounced Trump for being “too soft” on Russia, during the elections the Clinton campaign called for the setting up of “safe” no-fly zones, policed by US military aircraft, as part of an effort to counter Russian backing of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. In a speech at CIA headquarters, Trump also said that the US should have “taken the oil” in Iraq, and pledged that the CIA would have another chance to do so.
On domestic policy, Trump signed a series of executive orders that freeze hiring on all federal workers, freeze all pending government regulations and remove all obstacles to the completion of the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines. Early in the week, he held meetings with the CEOs of the largest US manufacturing companies and with US auto companies, promising to “cut regulations 75 percent” and shift the business climate from “truly inhospitable to extremely hospitable.”
On Wednesday, Trump announced that his administration would proceed with the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border, while launching a crack-down targeting millions of immigrant workers for detention and deportation. The same day, he said that the White House would seek a “major investigation” into completely unfounded allegations that “voter fraud” by millions of people cost him the popular vote in November—a claim aimed at creating the conditions for a further assault on the right to vote.
As part of a policy of extreme economic nationalism, early in the week Trump signed an executive order blocking US entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and pledged to renegotiation the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Many of the policies of the incoming administration were outlined in Trump’s interview Wednesday night with ABC News anchor David Muir, during which Trump interspersed lying claims about his own popularity and the size of his inauguration with casual threats of war, torture and repression. The overall impression of Trump during the interview was that of a gangster in the Oval Office, the assumption of power by an underworld reflecting all that is corrupt and filthy in American capitalist society.
On torture, Trump proclaimed that if Mattis and incoming CIA Director Mike Pompeo “want to do [waterboarding], that’s fine. If they do wanna do, then I will work toward that end.” A draft memorandum is circulating in the White House that would reopen secret CIA prisons and torture centers overseas.
And this is only the first week. With the support of Democrats, Congress is moving rapidly to approve Trump’s cabinet of billionaires, former generals and corporate CEOs, and it has already approved Mattis, Pompeo and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly. Trump’s other cabinet picks are committed to a policy of destroying public education, eliminating basic social services and slashing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
There is no doubt that the election of Trump marks a watershed in American politics. However, when future historians examine this period, they will inevitably direct attention to what preceded it, to the conditions and climate out of which the Trump presidency arose. Many factors could be pointed to—the extraordinary decay in the political culture of the United States, the domestic consequences of unending war and violence abroad, the extreme growth of social inequality and the rise of a parasitic financial oligarchy.
Rather than a complete break, the Trump presidency represents a transformation of quantity into quality. He is, in the final analysis, the product of the desperate crisis that afflicts American and world capitalism.
For four decades, the ruling class in the United States has been engaged in a campaign of social counter-revolution, systematically eliminating all the gains won by workers through bitter struggles in previous decades. The Obama administration accelerated these processes. Obama’s White House continued and expanded the bank bailouts initiated under the Bush administration and helped funnel trillions of dollars to Wall Street through the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” programs, while working, as in the 2009 auto restructuring, to slash wages for the working class.
The results are expressed in the extraordinary growth of social inequality. According to a recent report by University of California Berkeley economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, between 1980 and 2014, the share of pre-tax national income going to the bottom 50 percent of the population fell from 20 percent to 12 percent, while the share going to the top 1 percent increased from 12 percent to 20 percent. The gains for the top .1 and .01 percent of the population are even more extreme.
The foreign policy of the Trump administration likewise does not arise out of nowhere. For a quarter century, the American ruling class has been engaged in a desperate project to reverse its economic decline through military force—in the Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia. Fifteen years of the “war on terror” have metastasized into an ever more direct conflict with larger competitors. Trump’s focus on China is in fact in continuity with the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” which has seen the deployment of US military resources throughout the South Pacific and East Asia.
What Trump adds to these processes is the distinct odor of fascism, of extreme nationalism and the threat of violent repression of opposition. His declaration in his inaugural address that the “bedrock of our politics will be total allegiance to the United States of America” is a threat to criminalize dissent, which will be associated with treason.
However, here too Trump is giving naked expression to the long-term decay of democratic forms of rule. It was, after all, Obama who will go down in history as the president who proclaimed the power to assassinate US citizens without due process. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, drone assassination, NSA spying—this is the toxic mix out of which Trump’s particular contempt for constitutional norms emerges.
In July, as Trump was formally nominated as the candidate of the Republican Party at the Republican National Convention, the WSWS noted that “Trump’s particular fascistic personality was forged not in the beer halls of Munich and the trenches of World War I, but in the real estate market of New York City. With his casinos, his fictional universities and his endless stream of failed businesses, this personification of corporate fraud could hardly be a more fitting symbol for the state of American capitalism.”
There are sharp and bitter divisions within the American ruling class, but these divisions are over tactics, not basic class policy. It will not take much for Trump to bring on board many of his present critics within the political establishment and media, or, for that matter, more privileged sections of the upper middle class.
It is not from such forces that enduring opposition to the new administration will develop, but from the working class, in the United States and internationally. Trump’s absurd posturing as a defender of the “forgotten man” will, sooner rather than later, give rise to bitter class conflict as the impact of the new administration’s policy are felt. It is to the broad mass of the working class that socialists must now turn, and, through systematic organization and education, forge a political leadership to prepare for the struggles on the horizon.
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Donald Trump vs. Civil Rights
Donald Trump vs. Civil Rights
Congress has to choose a side: Trump or the civil rights of all Americans
Don't eliminate the Civil Rights Division!
TAKE ACTION!
Dear Chris,
2017 could be the year Civil Rights dies in this country.1 For the past 50 years the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has protected the rights of all Americans--including voting rights, the rights of Black folks and other people of color, women, people with disabilities, and religious minorities.2 And now, Donald Trump wants to eliminate all of that.
Hours after being sworn in, Trump announced that over the next 10 years, he will cut over 10 trillion dollars from the country’s budget.3 The Civil Rights Division will take major hits, and could possibly be eliminated. This is clear and blatant racism in action. We have to fight back and create a firestorm of pressure. Republicans in districts that rely heavily on the votes of Black people and other people who care about our rights will need to stand on the side of justice. And Democrats will have to pick a side: Trump or the civil rights of all Americans. The road ahead is long and the journey won't be without struggle, but we can save the Civil Rights Division with your help, Chris. Will you sign this petition?
Ask Members of Congress: “Which side are you on?” Protect civil rights, not bigots.
The Civil Rights Division has a long legacy of fighting for the freedoms we all deserve. Our movement leaders, known and unknown, fought and organized selflessly for years to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957--and this sparked the creation of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.4 For them, this meant access to equality and equity for future generations -- us. Cutting this division is a slap in the face to the struggle and resistance of Black folks in this country. Civil rights protect every citizen in this country, not just the marginalized and oppressed. To cut its funding shows the priorities of this administration: they’d rather spend money building a wall than protecting the rights of anyone who isn’t a wealthy white man.5
The Civil Rights Division exposed the Ferguson criminal justice system for extorting money from poor Black folks with a scathing report issued after the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. in 2014. They investigated the Baltimore Police Department after the killing of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in 2015. And the report uncovered rampant racism and sexual assault. The Civil Rights Division even forced policing reform with a consent decree in Cleveland after the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice and 37-year-old Tanisha Anderson in 2014. The department currently enforces similar decrees around the country to guarantee crucial civil rights victories like school desegregation and voting rights.
We know the fight for our freedom isn’t over--just in the first two weeks of Trump’s presidency we saw over 300 acts of violent hate crimes. White nationalist are literally trying take away our rights to live, breathe, and be in our communities. So there’s no way we can afford to cut out the one federal agency that’s been fighting against hate.
Stop Trump from killing civil rights in this country as we know it.
Until justice is real,
Arisha, Rashad, Scott, Malaya, Enchanta, and the rest of the Color Of Change team
References:
“Trump budget draft target cops, crime victims, ” The Marshall Project, 01.19.2017. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/730....872082.mdLWQE
“U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights division accomplishments 2009-2012 ,” Department of Justice, ">https://act.colorofchange.org/go/730....872082.mdLWQE
“Trump team prepare drastic cuts” The Hill, 1.19.2017 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/7309....872082.mdLWQE
“The Civil Rights Act of 1957, ” House of Representatives, http://act.colorofchange.org/go/7311....872082.mdLWQE
“Trump signs order for Mexico border wall” Aljazeera, 1.25.2017 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/7312....872082.mdLWQE
Color Of Change is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change. Help keep our movement strong.
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Federal employees resist administration attempts to impose media gags
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../feds-f03.html
Federal employees resist administration attempts to impose media gags
By Bryan Dyne
3 February 2017
Orders given last week by top officials at various federal agencies—including the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Parks Service, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services—have caused confusion and concern among a number of the employees and scientists that work for these departments.
The Monday after Trump’s inauguration, the new administration imposed a freeze on new contracts and grants given by the EPA, $4 billion which funds research, redevelopment of industrial sites, outreach, water and air quality, according to Reuters. A media gag order was simultaneously put in place, with employees being told to halt all forms of external communications, including press releases, social media, blogs, list servs, webinars, speaking engagements and updates to the EPA website.
One EPA employee, who spoke to the non-profit investigative publication ProPublica anonymously, said that the hiring freeze wasn’t uncommon during a presidential transition, but that a freeze on grants and contracts seemed extraordinary. The employee also said that the freeze appeared to be nationwide.
Other agencies were given similar instructions. Employees at the Department of Health and Human Services were told not to send “any correspondence to public officials,” including members of Congress. A memo sent to employees at the Department of Agriculture stated that all communications with the media and social media posts had to be reviewed by the new administration. Officials at the Department of the Interior ordered the National Parks Service to halt posting on their social media accounts.
The next day, the Trump administration ordered the EPA’s communication team to remove the agency’s climate change web page. This includes information on the causes of global warming, an overview of greenhouse gases and projected trends of climate change. The site also includes a compilation of peer-reviewed climate research and a variety of detailed environmental data. This would be similar to what has already occurred on the White House web site, which had all references to climate change deleted minutes into the Trump presidency.
This immediately prompted climate scientists and computer experts outside the government to copy, archive and mirror all the data on the EPA’s web site. The goal is to ensure that the data remains publicly available.
There was a backlash to these repressive measures among government employees and scientists. The departments initially hit by the media gags regularly discuss the impacts of climate change in their respective fields. The moves at the EPA in particular have sparked worry that the Trump administration is going to follow through with the pro-corporate policies that have been put forward by Trump EPA transition team leader Myron Ebell, who has stated he wants to cut 5,000 of the agency’s employees and halve its budget.
Their fear is not unfounded. There have already been two executive orders which reduce the EPA’s ability to provide environmental oversight on new infrastructure and manufacturing projects and another mandating that for every new government regulation, two old ones must be abolished. Moreover, Trump’s pick for EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, filed numerous lawsuits against the agency while he was Oklahoma state attorney general, and has in the past fervently argued for the deregulation of greenhouse gases in order to aid the coal, oil and gas industries.
One of the few widely publicized employee reactions came from the Badlands National Park Twitter account, which posted three tweets on different aspects of climate change. While the tweets were soon deleted, other national parks, including Golden Gate National Park and Redwood National Park, soon followed suit, posting more of the science behind global warming.
Death Valley National Park tweeted a more political post, a photo of a Japanese-American interned during World War II as the news spread that Trump was going to sign executive orders withholding visas and blocking refugees from mostly Muslim countries.
This also prompted the creation of “alternative” or “rogue” government Twitter accounts, including for the National Parks Service, the EPA, the USDA, and the Department of Health and Human Services, each claiming to be the “unofficial resistance” accounts of employees opposed to the Trump administration. Over the course of the next few days, dozens of such accounts have appeared and have begun posting tweets in opposition to the new government’s policies. At first, the accounts all claimed to be run by an employee of the given department, but now many have posted that government employees no longer run them, likely to prevent any violations of the Hatch Act (legislation which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity while working).
Alongside the growth of the “rogue” social media accounts, a “March for Science,” tentatively scheduled for April 22, has been called in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies. It is loosely based on the various protests that occurred during and immediately after Trump’s inauguration, in this a case a protest against the rejection of a variety of scientific facts by different members of the new administration.
In the meantime, some of the new administration’s repressive measures have been relaxed. On January 25, the EPA suspended plans to remove climate change from its web site and the National Parks Service resumed posting on social media. A memo was sent to employees at the US Department of Agriculture stating that the previous email, telling employees to halt outside communications, “should not have happened.” Lastly, the freeze on EPA grants was lifted last Friday and there are no reported contract delays resulting from the temporary freeze.
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Internal American rhizome: the Quebec mosque attack: Bissonette is a Lakota name, and the risk is sabotage to the Lake Superior pipeline.
Vnutrennie amerikanskie kornevishcha: ataka mecheti Kvebec Bissonette eto imia Lakota, i risk vreditel'stvo k truboprovodu ozera.
Sharia 'path to water.'
Shariat 'put k vode.'
