Thursday, July 19th, 2018
Stephan: Scott Pruitt may be gone but Donald Trump isn't, and his EPA continues in service to the oligarchs. Like so many trends I write about today this is a jaw-dropper of stupidity and incompetence.
Democratic Representative Paul Tonko of New York: ‘It’s a thinly veiled campaign to limit research … that supports critical regulatory action.’
Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Democratic lawmakers joined scientists, health and environmental officials and activists on Tuesday in denouncing a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), backed by industry, that could limit dramatically what kind of science the agency considers when making regulations.
One lawmaker called the Trump administration proposal a “thinly veiled campaign to limit research” that “supports critical regulatory action”.
The rule was introduced by the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, before his resignation this month amid ethics scandals. Tuesday’s public hearing drew opponents and a much smaller number of industry and trade groups backing it.
If adopted, the rule would allow an EPA administrator to reject study results in making decisions about pollutants and other health risks if […]
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Thursday, July 19th, 2018
DAVID EDWARDS, - Raw Story
Stephan: This is how America's president is being described on Russian TV.
Russian TV commentator Olga Skabeeva
Credit: YouTube
A host on Russian state TV commented this week that President Donald Trump “smells like an agent of the Kremlin.”
The remarks were made on the Russian program 60 Minutes following Trump’s summit and press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It is very bizarre, you can’t bash your own country like that – especially when you’re the president,” one host noted, according to a transcript provided by Russian media analyst Julia Davis.
Co-host Olga Skabeeva added: “When Trump says our relations are bad because of American foolishness and stupidity, he really smells like an agent of the Kremlin.”
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2018
JAMES FALLOWS, National Correspondent - The Atlantic
Stephan: In my opinion, the big issue the country faces is whether the Republican congressional quislings will find a backbone and place country above their own corruption, lust for power, and party. There are clearly many things they could do.
Frankly, I don't think they will rise to the country's defense which is why I now consider them to be quislings (look it up).
Putin and Trump
Credit: Reuters/Leonhard Foeger
There are exactly two possible explanations for the shameful performance the world witnessed on Monday, from a serving American president.
Either Donald Trump is flat-out an agent of Russian interests—maybe witting, maybe unwitting, from fear of blackmail, in hope of future deals, out of manly respect for Vladimir Putin, out of gratitude for Russia’s help during the election, out of pathetic inability to see beyond his 306 electoral votes. Whatever the exact mixture of motives might be, it doesn’t really matter.
Or he is so profoundly ignorant, insecure, and narcissistic that he did not realize that, at every step, he was advancing the line that Putin hoped he would advance, and the line that the American intelligence, defense, and law-enforcement agencies most dreaded.
Conscious tool. Useful idiot. Those are the choices, though both are possibly true, so that the main question is the proportions.
Whatever the balance of motivations, what mattered was that Trump’s answers were indistinguishable from Putin’s, starting with the fundamental claim that Putin’s assurances about interference in […]
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2018
, - The Huffington Post/Reuters
Stephan: Here is just one of the many things the quisling Republicans in Congress could do to try and sort out the damage being done by the Trump administration: Yesterday a Russian spy was arrested largely for her connivance with the NRA to funnel Russian influence and money into the electoral process on behalf of the Republicans and Trump. At almost the same time the Treasury Department announced that the NRA will no longer be required to reveal where their money comes from. Do you think that might be worth some Congressional oversight? Here's the story.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin testifies to the House Financial Services hearing on state of the international financial system on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 12, 2018.
Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Treasury said on Monday that it will no longer require certain tax-exempt organizations including politically active nonprofit groups, such as the National Rifle Association and Planned Parenthood, to identify their financial donors to U.S. tax authorities.
The policy change, heralded by conservatives as an advance for free speech, maintains donor disclosure requirements for traditional charity groups organized to receive tax-exempt donations under a section of the Internal Revenue code known as 501(c)(3), the Treasury said.
But the move frees labor unions, issue advocacy organizations, veterans groups and other nonprofits that do not receive tax-exempt money from meeting confidential disclosure requirements set in place decades ago.
“Americans shouldn’t be required to send the IRS information that it doesn’t need to […]
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2018
CASEY MICHEL, - Think Progress
Stephan: One of the reasons I think the Republican Congress will not examine what went on with the NRA and the Russians, choosing instead to do another run at the Clinton emails, or maybe a new Benghazi hearing, is that so many of them were involved with Russian agent Maria Butina. Here are some facts.
The one constant in all of this is that day by day the Republicans, Trumplicans now, are revealed to be even scummier than was previously thought. And I already thought they were pretty scummy.
Maria Butina (right) accused by the DOJ of infiltrating the NRA on behalf of Russia, with former NRA head Wayne Lapierre
Monday’s bombshell Department of Justice complaint accusing Maria Butina, a Russian national, of secretly infiltrating the National Rifle Association (NRA) was full of remarkable detail, and even more remarkable implications.
All told, the DOJ complaint accused Butina and Russian official Alexander Torshin — himself previously accused by Spanish authorities of massive money laundering and mob ties — of building ties with the NRA to get close to to Republican leadership.
As one of the unnamed Americans listed in the complaint wrote in October, a month before the U.S. presidential election, Butina and Torshin had helped build a “VERY private line of communication between the Kremlin” and Republican party leaders, describing the NRA as a “conduit.”
The ties between Torshin, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in April, and the NRA have been scrutinized for the past few months — all the more as Torshin said he and Butina were the only two Russian nationals he knew […]
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