See I think they view that as something Hillary would have done anyway, so who cares. I think it will have to be something that effects his major promises, like not building a wall, or keeping ACA, etc.
What does that mean?
Like, is it gonna be dicks out all the time?
Oh, I was thinking the White House staff was going to adopt a topless dress code.
lol
This doesn’t seem to be getting much commentary.
It should. It’s a big freaking deal.
[quote]
The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules. The advisers are also seeking information on agency loan programs, research activities and the basis for its statistics, according to a five-page internal document circulated by the Energy Department on Wednesday.[/quote]
This pretty much sums up my reaction to 90% of Trump news, both before and after the election.
A purge in the DoE, wanting someone who gets suckered in by something utterly absurd like #pizzagate to be in charge of identifying threats to the country, his lack of distance between his business while serving as President. Every single thing is something that I’m baffled people aren’t out in the streets about, yet America barely seems to be able to muster a shrug.
Also not getting much commentary, the GOP bill to slash Social Security and raise the retirement age.
[quote]On the low end of the scale, for retirees who have been in the workforce the longest, a 65-year-old who made an average of $12,280 (according to an established formula called AIME) after being in the workforce for 30 years would see his benefits increase by 9 percent when he retired in 2030, as compared to the current law. A 65-year-old retiree at the earning level who was only in the workforce for 20 years would see 19 percent decrease, however, in 2030. That cut would be 32 percent, if the 65-year-old was retiring in 2050.
Up the earning scale, the reductions continue. A 65-year-old middle-income earner, someone who earned an average of $49,121 after 44 years in the workforce, would see a reduction in her benefits of 11 percent when she retired in 2030, compared to the current law. The amount of reduction would increase the longer she stayed on the rolls: when she was 75 years old, for instance, the reduction would be 14 percent compared to current law, and 16 percent when she was 85 years old.
And the cuts get more severe the later a middle-income earner is retiring. If a 65-year-old at that earning level retired in 2050, her benefits would be 17 percent less than current law. By the time that retiree was 75 years old, they would be 19 percent less, and when she was 85, 22 percent less.[/quote]
So, for my own sanity, I’ve been watching events unfold out of the corner of my eye. Taking it all in but devoting the bulk of my mental energy to family and fantasy football and woodworking. But today the week’s cumulative bullshit started tripping connections and sent me right back to ball-shrinking terror. Which is a good thing. Rule #2 of Massa Gessen’s Rule For Survival under authoritarian rule is, “Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.” The sun rises, the world turns, my dogs are entirely unconcerned by current events and all signs continue to point towards the unavoidable conclusion that our government is being overthrown by literal fascists.
There are so many pieces of evidence from the last two weeks to support this conclusion that it’s hard to know where to start but this request for the Department of Energy to release the names of people who have worked on climate policy is a good one. On the surface, it’s immediately obvious to everyone here why this is a bad thing but it’s even worse when you realize that this is probably the first of many civil service purges to come. Under current law, these folks can’t be fired but that assumes the laws will not be changed or disregarded. (Rule #3, Institutions will not save you.)
Trump’s foot soldiers have made it clear that we are now living in a post-fact world. Facts are no longer tied to objective reality – Facts are the truths they tell us. If they say that Trump won the popular vote because millions of people voted illegally, we can try to tell them they are wrong but that’s just our opinion. Enough people in this country believe this to be true that it can now be accepted as a fact, because it’s true to them.
That’s a troublesome position for the President to be staking out but it becomes all the more so when you consider what happens when he systematically strips experts and scientists from government agencies whose findings do not support his agenda. Is the FDA approving drugs based on science? That needs to change. What happens when this is applied across the board? NASA is only allowed to look at space, not at the Earth. Health and human services sure comes out with some inconvenient studies which may paint a non-rosy picture of the coming healthcare changes. What happens when the government is suddenly incapable of passing policy based on research or expertise? Every government study ever done can be ignored as it conflicts with their reality and future government studies will say exactly what they want them to say.
So, appoint someone to head the EPA who despises the EPA and everything it stands for. Appoint someone to the Department of Education who has spent her whole life fighting to undermine public education. Appoint someone to head the Department of Labor who has spent his whole life undermining the rights of workers. Etc and so on.
Their intent does not stop at cronyism – This is a considered, deliberate attack on government institutions. They are dismantling the government of the United States as we know it from the inside out. After years of behaving like an insurgent movement from without, they now are in a position to achieve their goals.
Back to the Marxist observation on fascism that I mentioned shortly after the election: “Marxists argue that fascism represents the last attempt of a ruling class (specifically, the capitalist bourgeoisie) to preserve its grip on power in the face of an imminent proletarian revolution. Fascist movements are not necessarily created by the ruling class, but they can only gain political power with the help of that class and with funding from big business. Once in power, the fascists serve the interests of their benefactors (not necessarily the interests of capitalism in general, but the interests of those specific capitalists who put them in power)”
We’ve seen this playing out this week and they’re not even in power yet. Has Boeing spoken out against Trump? Then he will fucking bury them. There will be winners and losers in Trumps America and the winners are going to be those on team Trump and the losers are going to be those who dare to oppose them. Of course he is vindictive and will abuse the power of the executive branch to enact vendettas against his foes. That is just his nature. But it’s also the nature of fascism.
As for the winners, according to The Washington Post, “With his choice of restaurant executive Andrew Puzder to serve as his Labor secretary, President-elect Donald Trump has now tapped six big donors and fundraisers to serve in his administration, lining up an unprecedented concentration of wealthy backers for top posts. Together with their families, Trump’s nominees gave $11.6 million to support his presidential bid, his allied super PACs and the Republican National Committee, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal campaign filings.”
And of course we have the continued attacks on the press, his victory rallies where he speaks directly to his most fervant supporters, the refusal to listen to intelligence agencies (and the criticism of those agencies, stating that they trust Russia more than they do our intelligence agencies), the false claims that millions of people voted illegally and that, despite his win, our system of voting is broken, and on and on and on.
Any one of these developments taken in isolation would be cause for alarm but when you add them all up, all signs point to this being more than just a kleptocracy, more than just a kakistocracy, but the start of a full on fascist movement to over throw the government of the United States.
Our brains try to fit each of these events into the familiar contexts we’ve known all our lives. Even as we are outraged, we rationalize this to an extent as typical Republican bullshit. Destructive but they’ll over reach and we can start repairing the damage in four years. We keep moving the goalposts on our best case scenarios but the fact is, it’s not going to be okay. The danger is very real and it’s becoming more and more a reality with each passing day.
It’s worth re-reading Masha Gessen’s Rule for Survival again:
I know this isn’t the optimism thread, but the optimistic way to look at this is that this is what post-Reagan GOP presidents always do, especially for those particular agencies.For me, it’s the other stuff that really scares me - the NSA, Secretary of State, and especially the Supreme Court.
I sure hope she’s OK.
How could any American, regardless of party affiliation, just so casually hand wave away something the CIA has officially stated? Yet this is what I’m seeing from Trump’s transition team and on down to his supporters. Election’s over. Hillary lost. Get over it.
If there’s been collusion, that’s an act of treason. If there has been election tampering by a foreign government, that’s an act of war.
According to several officials McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.
That’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose wife was just picked to be Trump’s Transportation Secretary. This is beyond politics, you dumb idiot! This guy would rather compromise the security of our country than admit any wrongdoing.
Who are you going to believe – US Intelligence agencies or The Russians?
I sincerely doubt there’s been collusion, because honestly there never needed to be any.
On the other hand, I’m 99.9% certain that the Russians (and/or their associates) hacked the DNC and used both this as well as fake news to influence the election. I’d be more up-in-arms about it if we didn’t try to “gently” influence elections and governments across the world, ourselves. But no, I’m not equivocating - this was pretty darn brash of them and is quite beyond the pale of what’s typical. There should be serious repercussions, but I don’t expect Trump’s administration to don the “aggrieved party” role anytime soon.
Wasn’t there issues with Diebold voting machines back in the 2000 elections? You’d think you at least made some effort to ensure the security of those devices and the institutions they served since then…
I think if this carries on his 2017 itinerary will include passing lots of grassy knolls. There are a lot of people who took an oath to defend their country seriously.
Diebold is notorious for their mix of misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance. A worse manufacturer of electronic machinery would be hard to find. The real mystery is why any state or election board would purchase their wares.
Because political connections.
As long as their suffering as a result of electing Trump is less than liberals’, they’re not going to drop him IMO. A weaker [edit: and whiter] America is something they’ll risk as long as they gain a comparative long term advantage over their opponents. (A lot of wars work this way, too.)
Nah, if they’re objectively being made worse off, they’ll switch.
The first guy I’d attack in the Trump admin is Ajit Pai- it will be easy to brand him as someone who is making your bills go up.
A strong focus on consumer issues is something that impacts white people as much as minorities, so it’s a big winner.