Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse



As Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team probes deeper into potential collusion between Trump officials and representatives of the Russian government, investigators are taking a closer look at political contributions made by U.S. citizens with close ties to Russia.

Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal. We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country.


 


Charleston, W.Va. (AP) -- President Donald Trump's mining regulators are reconsidering rules meant to protect underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust -- the cause of black lung -- and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer. An advocate for coal miners said Friday that this sends a "very bad signal."

The Mine Safety and Health Administration has asked for public comments on whether standards "could be improved or made more effective or less burdensome by accommodating advances in technology, innovative techniques, or less costly methods."

Some "requirements that could be streamlined or replaced in frequency" involve coal and rock dust . Others address diesel exhaust , which can have health impacts ranging from headaches and nausea to respiratory disease and cancer.

"Because of the carcinogenic health risk to miners from exposure to diesel exhaust, MSHA is requesting information on approaches that would improve control of diesel particulate matter and diesel exhaust," the agency said.


The Trump administration has said many federal regulations, including pollution restrictions, have depressed the coal industry and other sectors of the economy.
 


President Trump’s recent denunciations of the Russia investigation recall the famous legal advice: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”

Trump shouted out his defense earlier this month: “What has been shown is no collusion, no collusion!” he told reporters over the whir of his helicopter on the White House lawn. Since then, Trump’s supporters have been waging a bitter counterattack against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, alleging bias and demanding: “Investigate the investigators.”

But what do the facts show? There is a growing, mostly undisputed body of evidence describing contacts between Trump associates and Russia-linked operatives. Trump partisans have claimed that Mueller’s investigation is biased because some members of his staff supported Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton. But Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein disagreed Wednesday, arguing that Mueller “is running his office appropriately.”

As Republicans seek to discredit the investigation, it’s useful to remember just what we’ve learned so far about how the Trump campaign sought harmful information about Clinton from sources that, according to U.S. intelligence, were linked to Moscow. This isn’t a fuzzy narrative where the truth is obscured; in the Trump team’s obsessive pursuit of damaging Clinton emails and other negative information, the facts are hiding in plain sight.

...

The next time Trump demands a probe of Mueller’s investigation or the FBI’s handling of Clinton emails, remember that he isn’t arguing the facts or the law about collusion with Russia. He’s pounding the table.
 


As scholars of authoritarianism have long advised, believe the autocrat when he speaks. The problem is that too few Americans believed in the concept of an American autocrat. Pundits ignored the threat of Trump enacting these policies through executive power. Enjoy hindsight while you can, Americans, the administration of “alternative facts” may rewrite your regrets as applause.

While the firehose of dramatic policy changes is intended to blast Americans into submission, there is one issue where the administration may find bipartisan challenge and that is the issue of the environment, in particular, the national parks. Though Trump first targeted NPS because it controls the public area where his small inauguration crowd gathered, he did so after Congress proposed to give away park land, which contributes an estimated $646bn each year in economic stimulus from recreation, 6.1m jobs, but most importantly, a core part of America’s identity and pride.

Few things bring Americans of differing political views together like love for the national parks. It is hard to find an everyday American whose dream includes having our purple mountain majesties and fruited plains sold off to the highest bidder. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have protected the national parks; even Reagan, the notorious opponent of big government, passed laws that protected the parks, along with environment regulations. That Trump’s first orders include suppression of information about the environment and prohibiting scientists and parks employees to speak suggests he sees America as little more than territory to strip down for parts.

In order to profit from national lands, he must discredit and silence those most likely to protect them: environmentalists, scientists and parks employees. That is why such a benign and beloved institution as the national parks became an object of administrative wrath.




Nearly a year ago, intuitively recognizing the Trump administration’s authoritarian aspirations, Polish journalist and activist Martin Mycielski wrote “Year 1 Under Authoritarianism.” In those early, nerve-racking days following Trump’s inauguration, the piece was shared across social media, an ominous portent of what was to come. The document — helpfully subtitled, “What To Expect?” — offered a list of predictions and warnings about Trump’s first year in office, and exhortations to fight back at every turn. In his introduction, published just days after Trump’s inauguration, Mycielski noted the article was based on his own experience in Poland, where extreme-right nationalists have taken over the government, and in a recent ugly demonstration, the streets. The piece should be read as an instructive manual of sorts, culled from firsthand observation of the “populists, authoritarians and tinpot dictators” leading right-wing movements across Europe.

“With each passing day, the [Polish] government is moving the country further away from the liberal West and toward the authoritarian models of the East,” Mycielski wrote. “Hundreds of thousands have protested against every illiberal, unlawful step. Every time we believed it couldn’t get any worse. We were wrong. This is why we want you, our American friends, to be spared the shock, the awe, the disbelief of this happening to you. Let’s hope history proves us wrong and the US wakes up in time…[H]ope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”

Mycielski’s “survival guide” has only become more disturbingly relevant with time, its predictions proved frighteningly accurate. Like https://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-eerily-perfect-match-famous-14-point-guide-identify-fascist-leaders, it presciently notes the actions and attitudes that now unquestionably define this presidency; the lies and obfuscation of truth, racist fear-mongering, historical revisionism, purposeful chaos and anti-First Amendment agenda. Manipulation and malice are the Trump regime’s forte. (To see how quickly a country can be remade by a charlatan and his abettors, go back and review some of the earliest entries from Amy Siskind’s weekly list tracking changes under Trump. It’s all pretty scary, especially seeing it unfold in real time.)

But if there’s any hope, it will only come from recognizing the reality of what’s happening here, how much damage is being done, how much earth already scorched. The year has somehow flown by, yet seemed interminable. It’s good to remember the very big, very frightening picture before us, how far we’ve already come, and to consider what recourse we have with complicit and corrupt forces standing in the way. — Kali Holloway

Here is Mycielski’s 15-point guide to surviving authoritarianism.
 


The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/12/11/new-cdc-head-faces-questions-about-financial-conflicts-of-interest/?utm_term=.cb08b77bb858 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/trump-administration-asks-court-to-toss-out-challenge-to-military-transgender-ban/2017/10/05/3819aec4-a9d5-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.410eba3483e2 (Justice), Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
 
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The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/12/11/new-cdc-head-faces-questions-about-financial-conflicts-of-interest/?utm_term=.cb08b77bb858 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/trump-administration-asks-court-to-toss-out-challenge-to-military-transgender-ban/2017/10/05/3819aec4-a9d5-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.410eba3483e2 (Justice), Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.


 
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