Angry Peter Capaldi
I’m genuinely getting sick of talking about the Thin Skin in the White House. I had to take a break. But here I am, again, because details of his nasty budget are out, and it isn’t pretty. Dude wants to cut a whole lot of important stuff.
We’ve already seen a bit of this. The blueprint of this was released back in March. And it’s even worse than that…
From the Washington Post…
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday that sets up a commission to review his controversial allegations of widespread voter fraud, along with reports of voter suppression.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity will be led by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who has aggressively pursued allegations of voter fraud in his state.
About a dozen other election officials representing both parties will fill out the commission, which will deliver a report to the president next year, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday.
Of course we all knew that, but this is just more evidence…
In a recent op-ed in USA Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated that his Department of Justice will move away from federal oversight of local police departments plagued by abuses and officer-involved killings. In doing so, Sessions will undermine a key policy stemming from the beating of black motorist Rodney King in March 1991 by Los Angeles police officers. The subsequent LA riots, sparked by acquittals of the officers accused in King’s beating, began 25 years ago this Saturday.
After those riots ripped through LA, Congress went on to pass legislation granting federal oversight authority for police departments. Since then, the Justice Department has launched 70 investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies and has negotiated 40 reform agreements, half of which are court-enforced consent decrees. The Obama administration was particularly active with this policy, enforcing 14 consent decrees for troubled police agencies, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore. Sessions now threatens to undo that work, downplaying any systematic problems with American policing.
HEY ATHEISTS! SKEPTICS! ARE YOU OUT THERE? IS THIS AN ISSUE YOU’RE WILLING TO CARE ABOUT?
Declaring he was giving churches their “voices back,” President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at easing an IRS rule limiting political activity for religious organizations — a move that fell far short of a more sweeping order some supporters had expected.
As he marked the National Day of Prayer at the White House on Thursday, Trump signed the order on religious freedom, which directs the Treasury Department to not take “adverse action” over churches or religious organizations for political speech. The rule has rarely been enforced. Still, opponents said the restrictions have a chilling effect on free speech.
(Content warning: rape, rape survivors… and also a lot of strong, angry, ranting language)
So the fucking Rethuglicans in the fucking House voted to replace sections of the ACA, including doing away with the stipulation that health insurance companies can’t deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions… and one of those fucking conditions was fucking rape.
When House Republicans passed the American Health Care Act on Thursday, many Americans likely thought of their family and friends living with cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. These diseases are commonly referred to as “pre-existing conditions” – conditions which, under the Republican health care bill, could result in them being denied health insurance.
But another, less publicised group of people were also concerned by the bill’s passage: rape survivors.
Before Obamacare, some insurance companies considered rape and domestic abuse pre-existing conditions. One woman, Jody Neal-Post, says she was turned away after telling a potential insurance that she was a domestic violence victim – despite otherwise being perfectly healthy.
From the Atlantic…
Mick Mulvaney, the president’s budget director, said on Tuesday that the administration will replace segments of chain-link fencing with a 20-foot-tall steel fence along the southern border, despite Congress refusal to fund the president’s border wall in its spending bill.
Trump, for his part, has claimed that the administration is “beginning to build the wall,” which was a central plank of his presidential campaign, saying that “we’re putting up a lot of new wall in certain areas.” Mulvaney elaborated Tuesday that there is funding to “replace cyclone fencing with 20-foot high steel wall.” He declined repeated questions from White House reporters about where along the border the fencing would go, or how many miles it would cover.
This actually happened a year ago, but is somehow going viral now. I don’t know why, and I have to admit to some curiosity over that gap. But that’s not the point. This point, actually, is this…
See transcript below…
Transcript below the fold…
From ABC News…
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said the Trump administration has “looked at” changes to libel laws that would curtail press freedoms, but said “whether that goes anywhere is a different story.”
President Trump frequently slams the press for its coverage of him and in March suggested changing libel laws.
Libel is when defamatory statements about someone are published. But the American press enjoys some protection from lawsuits claiming libel because of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech rights.
At least, that’s how it should be…
From Gizmodo…
Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security launched a new hotline to “assist victims of crimes committed by criminal aliens.” The resulting “fuck you!” from average Americans was swift and hilarious.
Less than a day into its pitiful existence, the VOICE hotline has been rendered unusable by tipsters claiming to have seen criminal aliens of the extraterrestrial kind. I called four times. Twice all operators were unavailable. The other two attempts resulted in a busy signal. Other concerned citizens seeking to report a mothership streaking across the sky were told the line was closed despite calling during normal business hours.
(I really need a video of excessive laughter to post here. Any suggestions?)
Wow… seriously? This is entirely unprecedented and utterly ridiculous…
From Reuters…
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to allow national monument designations to be rescinded or reduce the size of sites as the administration pushes to open up more federal land to drilling, mining and other development.
Trump’s order is part of an effort to reverse many of the environmental protections implemented by his predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama that Trump said were hobbling economic growth. Trump’s agenda is being cheered by industry but enraging conservationists.
Legal challenges are expected because no president has ever rescinded a monument designation.
In announcing the order on Wednesday Republican Trump said Obama’s use of the 1906 Antiquities Act to create monuments was an “egregious abuse of federal power” that allowed the federal government to “lock up” millions of acres of land and water.