Saturday, February 15th, 2020
IGOR DERYSH, Staff Writer - Salon
Stephan: Forget all the partisan commentary, just consider facts. It is clear on that basis that the Trumplican Party does not care about the integrity of American democracy, or foreign meddling in our election process as long as it supports their continued power. Here is a glaring fact proving the truth of this statement.
Oh, and people of Tennessee, could you please vote this dreadful woman out of office, and do the world a favor?
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee notable for her ignorance, and hate-mongering.
Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., blocked Democratic efforts to unanimously pass three bills related to election security despite warnings that Russia will interfere in the 2020 election. (emphasis added)
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., tried to pass a bill that would require campaigns to report offers of foreign election assistance to the FBI, and another that would require campaigns to report such offers to the Federal Election Commission.
“The appropriate response is not to say thank you, the appropriate response is to call the FBI,” Warner said, according to The Hill.
“There is no doubt that [Trump] will only be emboldened in his efforts to illegally enlist foreign governments in his reelection campaign,” Blumenthal added.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also tried to pass the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act (SAFE Act), which would provide additional funding to the Election Assistance Commission and would ban voting machines from being connected to the internet as well as machines […]
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Saturday, February 15th, 2020
Amy Goodman & Nermeen Shaikh,, - truthout
Stephan: Speaking as a historian specializing in the life and thinking of Benjamin Franklin and George Mason, the idea of bowdlerizing the national archives so that future historians will never be able to get an accurate picture of what criminal Trump did about immigration is horrifying. This is the stuff of fascist authoritarianism.
Last month, the National Archives and Records Administration apologized for doctoring a photo of the 2017 Women’s March to remove criticisms of President Trump. The shocking revelation that the agency had altered the image was first reported in The Washington Post. In an exhibit called “Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote,” the National Archives had displayed a large image of the first Women’s March. But signs referencing Trump had been blurred to remove his name — including a poster reading “God Hates Trump” and another reading “Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women.” Other signs in the photo referencing female anatomy were also blurred. The National Archives initially stood by its decision to edit the photo, telling The Washington Post that the changes were made “so as not to engage in current political controversy.” For more, we turn to a historian who says this was only the latest example of “a great and growing threat to our nation’s capacity to protect and learn from history.” The National Archives reportedly is allowing millions of documents, including many related to immigrants’ rights, to be expunged. We speak with Matthew Connelly, professor of history at Columbia University and principal investigator at History Lab. His recent piece […]
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Saturday, February 15th, 2020
Stephan: The stupidity and incompetence of criminal Trump's barrier wall is usually discussed only as a political issue. But there is another perhaps even more important, in the long term, disaster this wall is producing. Here is an essay explaining what I mean.
Oh, here's a fact worth noting in the controversy and billions of dollars wasted on this ill-conceived and stupid wall. The Border Patrol just issued a report saying that when you get to the lick log, the reality is 99 miles of old barrier have been replaced by a new barrier, and only ONE MILE of new barrier has been built.
Criminal Trump’s border wall
I have spent the past seven years studying the rich biological communities of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert.
Few places there are more captivating than the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The monument is home to breathtaking cacti that have stood for over a century, as well as several endangered animal species. It’s also the rightful, sacred land of the Indigenous O’odham Nation.
Despite the awe I have felt there in the past, I haven’t visited Organ Pipe recently. It’s just too heartbreaking.
Why? Because right now, President Trump’s border wall is turning the landscape into an ecological dystopia.
The Department of Homeland Security is leveling this precious habitat with absolutely no regard for the delicacy of this place’s unique cultural and ecological resources, ravaging one of the most iconic sites in the Western hemisphere. They’re even blowing up mountains like Monument Hill, an O’odham sacred site, to make way for the wall.
This irreversible destruction is an atrocity for our communities and our planet.
Wall construction is shaping up to be an […]
2 Comments
Saturday, February 15th, 2020
Josh Dawsey and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, - The Seattle Times/The Washington Post
Stephan: You want to know what America's grotesque wealth inequality looks like as part of the political process? Well here's your answer. This is disgusting and illustrates why I feel so strongly that we must overturn Citizens United and fund all elections publicly.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will be the guest of honor at a Saturday fundraiser at the palatial Palm Beach estate of billionaire Nelson Peltz. Trump’s fellow guests: donors who gave $580,600 per couple to support the president’s reelection, making it the most expensive such fundraising event since Trump took office.
The dinner, taking place a few miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, shows how enthusiastically the president has embraced big-dollar fundraising in his bid for a second term — a dramatic about-face from 2016, when he criticized the influence of wealthy donors on the politicians who court them.
It also shows the special access enjoyed by many of Trump’s wealthiest donors, including business executives and lobbyists, who get the chance to air their grievances with the president’s tariffs or promote their pet projects, often while dining on Trump’s favorite foods.
Since October 2017, Trump has attended at least 48 intimate gatherings with the Republican Party’s elite donors, including dinners or roundtable discussions, according to a Washington Post analysis of his fundraising schedule. Tickets to these events can range from $50,000 […]
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Friday, February 14th, 2020
Stephan: Greed and willful ignorance, two besetting and calamitous traits of humanity that may destroy us. What is going in the Amazon ought to be obviously wrong to anyone. And yet it isn't because of those two traits. There is nothing that guarantees humankind will survive climate change.
A lone burnt tree stands on a deforested area in the surroundings of Porto Velho, Rondonia State, in the Amazon basin in west-central Brazil, on Aug. 24, 2019. Credit: CARL DE SOUZA / AFP/Getty
An extensive study that looked at a decade of carbon emissions found that nearly 20 percent of one of the world’s largest carbon sinks is actually releasing carbon instead of capturing it, according tso the BBC.
The decade-long study led by professor Luciana Gatti, a researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), measured carbon by flying airplanes equipped with carbon sensors over various parts of the forest every two weeks. The results, which have not yet been published, showed that around 20 percent of the forest, especially in the southeastern section, had become an emitter of greenhouse gases instead of a carbon sink, as The Inquistr reported.
The southeastern part of the forest, […]
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