#FCC deregulation history

[jhsharman]

Babysitting

In 1968 the default setting for games played by ruffian boys was "Cowboys and Indians". By 1988 they would not be excising such a referernce from reprinted materials as yet, but have a natural inclination to go elsewhere for this purpose with anything new -- even in this a derivative. Patriotic heroes -- Rambo, I guess. GI Joe. Fodder from the kind of Saturday morning cartoons which became allowable due to FCC relaxations where in the previous decade the networks had to drop a "Hot Wheels" show because it was deemed a thinly veiled toy commercial for a toy line, now we got to have Transformers and GI Joe. (Possibly My Little Pony, but the intimation of concerns on violence as actual chief concern may have been enough to shove the ruling aside if it has been pressed.)

Update: between these two points, they snuck it onto a Josie cover.

[quakerjoe]

"Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Chris O'Leary:

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that 1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and 2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

[reading-writing-revolution]

A person asked the question, "Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Chris O'Leary:

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that 1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and 2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

//Meanwhile, I’m not a Liberal either, and I’m a veteran of 20 years with 13 deployments to combat zones.//

[seh406]

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. He has shown that they also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. “The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise” and that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethically and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. We’ve all witnessed this with the latest world disaster, the Coronavirus. He was warned by scientists and doctors very early on that this could happen but he totally ignored these warnings which has had un-reversible repercussions. Have you also noticed that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is thin skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ole’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is the President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Again, this has been recently demonstrated with the Coronavirus Pandemic. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. ATTACK. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Does any of this sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta and he’s done this many times now with the

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama administration. I was hoping the tide would turn before it got much worse because the thing that scared me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? Well, that ship has sailed given Trumps past record and the latest current events that have gone horribly wrong.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for reading my reasons which I hope has given you my insight rather than just some superfluous statement I could have made that would have been pretty meaningless of why I cannot and never will support this man as someone I respect, let alone support him as our President.

[myworld50]

A person asked the question, "Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Chris O'Leary:

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that

1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and

2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

*snagged from a friends wall:

[lemonbombsfjl]

Text:

A person asked the question, "Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Chris O'Leary:

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that

1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and

2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

*snagged from a friends wall:

[honeychildoz]

"Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?" Chris O'Leary:

1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and 2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethicaly and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been? "

*snagged from a friends wall:

[practicallyrational-blog]

A Brief Outline of Some Obvious Things

Let me just start off by making the obvious point that Citizens United was one of the worst things that has ever happened to this country. The other day I was listening to what was formerly known as the "Waking Up" podcast with Sam Harris, who, at the beginning of the podcast was explaining why he continues to refuse to run ads on his podcast and depends solely on individual contributions from listeners:

"If I were taking a lot of money from the New Yorker, would I be free to say that one of it's writers had just published something scandalously stupid? Maybe.

"But ... I don't want to have to think twice about whether something I think is important to say might upset a sponsor. And you don't want me to have to think about that either. My goal with this podcast is to create a forum for honest conversation of a sort that scarcely exists anywhere else ... And there is no way I can do that [while] depending on ads."

This is equally relevant in contemporary American politics which is why I've personally decided that I will never vote for another Presidential candidate that accepts campaign contributions from anything other than individual donors and is completely transparent about every dollar they receive to fund their campaign.

So let's talk about this for a paragraph or three. Currently there is a push for candidates and congresswomen and men to reject corporate campaign donations and, as of my last count, there are currently 52 members of congress who have publicly committed to rejecting donations from corporate PACs right now, and in future campaigns. This is huge. It allows these lawmakers more freedom to legislate without outside pressure from corporate interest groups and donors and this should be an automatic litmus test for anyone running for office. It is for me. So, I got to looking and of these 52 members, guess how many of them are Republicans?

2.

Francis Rooney and Phil Roe.

Every other Republican member of congress has currently refused to give up even a single dollar of their corporate funding, keeping them in submissive obedience to the interests of their donors. This should be all that anyone really needs to know about the motives and intentions of the entire GOP. Excluding, at least partially, of course, Rooney and Roe.

So think about what this means. Because the needs of you and I are often in conflict with the desires of corporate barons and billionaires, when policy creation or changes occur, who do you think is going to get their voice heard and have their needs met? In fact, who do you think is initiating the policy changes in the first place? Honest politicians?

Consider something else. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you were being literally, utterly f ... screwed by a company you worked for? Or a business you no longer wanted the services of? Your bank or a loan shark? An aggressive private towing company that won't take the boot off your car when you have to get to work? How hopeless does it feel to know that you stand absolutely zero legal chance fighting alone against a conglomerate like Wells Fargo or Walmart or Jim's Nice Guy Towing? No matter how right you are and wrong they were? Soak in that feeling for a minute. And let me ask you, and you can answer this for yourself, why do you think it's set up this way? How do you think it got like this?

So we have all this money flying around up there, above the rest of us. And to keep the masses ignorant of this greedy exchange we see an ideological media assault where old men in ties endlessly praise the Divine Virtue of "trickle down" economics and unregulated, Laissez-faire free markets. Why? Because this is the type of market within which this little dance with the devil can occur. This group of television and radio provocateurs, led early on, by Bob Grant and Rush Limbaugh, exploded onto the scene in the 80's after the revocation of the the FCC Fairness Doctrine which required broadcasters to present and report on issues of national importance with honesty and fairness. Rush Limbaugh, for example, moved to New York and started his radio broadcast in 1988 less than a year after the revocation.

The primary focus of the show, at least early on, was to create a boogeyman of what was referred to as the "liberal media" and to demonize any cooperative effort among the people to force the fair taxation of billionaires and establish social safety nets or humane legislation as GASP! SOCIALISM! The slippery slope. Which would actually make a pretty good name for a ride at an amusement park.

So, gradually at first, and then with increasing momentum through the 80's, we see an entire generation (mostly baby boomers) conflating and confusing the concept of Patriotism and the "American way" with supply side (Laissez-faire), trickle down economics, when the reality of our history tells a totally different story. I defer to the post World War II economic explosion and the 91% top marginal tax rate during that time. This economic golden era slowed drastically as the baby boomers began taking over in the 70's and came to a shit spewing halt with the Reagan corporate tax cuts and massive market deregulation in the 80's. I never knew about this growing up.

These heads with ties and mouth have made it laughably easy for policy makers to institute massive tax cuts for the ultra rich and deregulation of their companies because they had our parents and, by proxy, most of the rest of us convinced that of course, this was all being done in the name of good ole' American free market values. And we all knew, from listening to Reagan and watching watching Fox News (which exploded in the 90's) that the extra money would trickle it's way down to the rest of us in the end (wink, wink). Oh, and of course, we can say with confidence that all of this had absolutely nothing to do with the money that was and is being donated to install these cronies into our government in the first place. Citizens United is the culmination of the national corporate economic overhaul.

What's so devious about this tragic and immoral economic decay is that as it's occurring right in front of our eyes, half of the country is defending it. And it's generally the half of the country that is getting screwed the worst. None the wiser.

Fortunately, we have a newer, younger generation of internet savvy, fact checking Gen-X, Millenial and Gen-Z snowflake commie cucks who are finally starting to figure out what Mom and Dad didn't. The numbers are in and the old men are making less sense every day. Of course to any competent young google guru (say that 5 times fast) or fact checker, none of this stuff is checking out and the walls come crashing down fairly quickly. So, may I just say, Mr. Sean Hannity, hold on to your red tie, because the first wave of snowflakes were just sworn into congress earlier this month. And I have a feeling that we will be seeing some changes in an office even higher than that in the very near future. Here's to a better future for those of us left over to pick up the pieces.

[azspot]

But Pai’s history is wrong. The government regulated Internet access under Clinton, just as it did in the last two years of Barack Obama’s term, and it did so into George W. Bush’s first term, too. The phone lines and the connections served over them — without which phone subscribers had no Internet connection — did not operate in the supposedly deregulated paradise Pai mourns. Without government oversight, phone companies could have prevented dial-up Internet service providers from even connecting to customers. In the 1990s, in fact, FCC regulations more intrusive than the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules led to far more competition among early broadband providers than we have today. But Pai’s nostalgia for the ’90s doesn’t extend to reviving rules that mandated competition — instead, he’s moving to scrap regulations the FCC put in place to protect customers from the telecom conglomerates that now dominate the market.

The Trump administration gets the history of Internet regulations all wrong

[sarcasticcynic]

Dear Senator

I strongly support Net Neutrality, and strongly oppose allowing Internet Service Providers to block content, throttle speeds, or provide faster, higher priority service to some customers but not others. The current rules are common sense anti-discrimination, making it unlawful for ISPs to have “any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practice, classifications” for broadband communication service, including any “undue or unreasonable preference or advantage” or any “undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage” applied to any particular user or class of users. I urge the FCC and Congress not to eliminate the application of Title II utility-style regulation to ISPs.

Chairman Pai’s assertion that the Internet works fine without these rules is unfortunately not true. Just a few examples:

His former employer, Verizon, exempted its own video service from mobile data caps, while counting data from competitors such as YouTube and Netflix against customers’ caps. (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/verizons-mobile-video-wont-count-against-data-caps-but-netflix-will/)

Verizon also blocked an abortion rights group from sending text messages because it decided they were “controversial or unsavory.”(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html)

Comcast jammed its users’ connections to BitTorrent, which distributed movies in competition with Comcast’s pay-TV business. (https://www.eff.org/wp/packet-forgery-isps-report-comcast-affair)

AT&T censored part of a Pearl Jam concert in which the band changed song lyrics to criticize then-President Bush. (http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3467093)

Chairman Pai is also wrong when he claims that eliminating the rules will increase ISP profit margins--which are already at record highs (see https://www.technologyreview.com/s/510176/when-will-the-rest-of-us-get-google-fiber)--and thereby prompt future infrastructure investment and innovation. History has shown this to be false. First, ISPs do NOT spend more on their networks when their profits increase. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/07/24/isps-are-spending-less-on-their-networks-as-they-make-more-money-off-them) Second, when Title II regulation was applied to broadband, telecom carriers’ average annual investment was 55% higher than it became after the FCC deregulated it; the cable industry’s average annual network investments were 250% higher before the FCC declared cable modem service not subject to Title II than after deregulation; and the highest investment year in history for cable networks followed the 9th Circuit’s ruling in AT&T Corp. v. City of Portland, 216 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2000), that Title II was applicable to cable modem service. (See https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/Free_Press_14-28_Comments_7-18-2014.pdf and data sources cited therein.)

Chairman Pai’s only stated reason for eliminating these common-sense rules is to increase corporate profits. Even if his other claims were true--which, as discussed above, they are not--increased profits should never be a legitimate reason to permit discrimination. I respectfully but firmly urge the FCC to vote NO on the proposed repeal on December 14. And if the FCC acts unwisely, I respectfully but firmly urge Congress to intervene to preserve Net Neutrality.

Feel free to copy and paste, if you like.

[blogloudqueenstudent-blog]

Media History Timeline

4000 B.C. – Sumerian stamp seals

3100 B.C. – Sumerian “writing” system on clay tablets

2000 B.C. – Phoenician alphabet

1900-1800 B.C. – Semitic alphabet in Egypt

600 B.C. – Egyptian papyrus scrolls

540 B.C. – Public library in Athens

105 A.D. – Chinese paper (didn’t arrive in West for centuries)

1450 – Gutenberg press (leads to Protestant Revolution, among other things)

1517 – Martin Luther nails “Ninety Five Theses” to church door in Wittenberg, Germany

1534 – first press in America (Spanish America)

1500s – Italian gazettes

1618 – Dutch Coranto (printed in English in 1620)

1638 – first press in what would become U.S. (Harvard College)

1644 – John Milton denounces licensing of the press in Areopagitica

1665 – Oxford Gazette (first English-language newspaper) in England

1690 – First American newspaper: Publick Occurrences (lasts one issue)

1704 – First successful American newspaper: The Boston News-Letter

1735 – John Peter Zenger trial

1741 – First American magazines

1783-1833 – Rise of Party Press

1791 – Bill of Rights (including First Amendment) ratified

1798 – Alien and Sedition Acts passed

1821 – Saturday Evening Post founded

1827 – First African-American newspaper in U.S.: Freedom’s Journal

1828 – First Native American newspaper in U.S.: Cherokee Phoenix

1828 – Noah Webster publishes first dictionary

1833s – New York Sun begins publication; rise of the Penny Press

1844 – Samuel Morse granted patent for telegraph. First message, May 24: “What hath God wrought?”  Second message: “Have you any news?”

1848 – Associated Press founded

1860-1865 – Civil War brings home “necessity” of news

1877 – Thomas Edison invents the “talking machine”

1888 – Edison lab develops movie camera

1888 – George Eastman introduces the Kodak camera

1888 – Heinrich Hertz transmits wireless sound waves

1890 – Linotype machine introduced at newspapers

1891 –Edison patents Kinetoscope – first parlor opens 1894 in New York

1890s – first “New Journalism” period; “Yellow Journalism”

1890s – Edison develops mass market phonograph

1894 – Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World starts daily women’s page

1899 – “Stunt girl” Nellie Bly circles the world

1901 – Guglielmo Marconi sends and receives radio message across the Atlantic (Morse code, point to point)

1900s – Muckraking magazines

1905 – First “nickelodeon”

1906 – Reginald Fessenden broadcasts voice

1911 – Newsreels begin; continue into 1960s

1912 – Titanic sinks; leads to Federal Radio Act of 1912

1914-1918 – World War I propaganda, censorship, technology

1915 – D.W. Griffith releases Birth of a Nation, first full-length film to significantly impact culture

1917 – Charlie Chaplin becomes the first entertainer to earn $1 million

1919 – RCA founded

1920 – First radio stations in U.S. and Canada

1920s – “Jazz Journalism” tabloids

1922 – Reader’s Digest magazine founded

1923 – Lee de Forest shows first “talkie”

1923 – Time magazine debuts

1923 – A.C. Nielsen company begins

1923 – AT&T links two radio stations for first “network”

1927 – Federal Radio Act sets up commission to regulate airwaves

1927 – Philo Farnsworth applies for electronic TV patents

1927 – The Jazz Singer released

1928 – Academy Awards given for the first time (Wings wins Best Picture)

1930s & 40s – “Golden Age of Movies”

1933 – Eleanor Roosevelt insists on women-only press conferences (“the Roosevelt Rule”)

1934 – Federal Communications Commission  (FCC) established

1936 – England is first country with regular TV broadcasts

1936 – Life magazine debuts

1938 – Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast

1939 – TV is a hit at the World’s Fair

1939 – First FM radio station started in New Jersey

1941 – First TV commercial advertises a Bulova clock

1941 – Welles’s Citizen Kane released; sometimes called the best movie of all time

1942 – John H. Johnson starts Negro Digest; would later found Ebony and Jet

1947 – Red Scare leads to congressional investigation of Hollywood

1948 – Supreme Court hands down Paramount Decision

1950 – Red Channels: The Communist Influence in Radio and Television ruins careers

1950s – “Golden Age of Television”

1951 – “I Love Lucy” debuts; uses film and three cameras

1952 – FCC lifts “the Freeze” imposed in 1948

1952 – Eisenhower runs 20-second campaign spot

1953 – TV Guide magazine debuts; Lucille Ball and her newborn son on first cover

1953 – Playboy magazine introduced; Marilyn Monroe is first centerfold

1954 – Edward R. Murrow’s “See It Now” focuses on Joseph McCarthy

1954 – Elvis Presley discovered by Sam Phillips of Sun Records

1958 – videotape introduced

1959 – Quiz show scandal rocks television industry

1960 – Kennedy-Nixon debate

1963 – Network news expands from 15 minutes to 30 minutes

1963 – Betty Friedan writes The Feminine Mystique

1964 – New York Times v. Sullivan gives press new right to criticize public officials

1964 – The Beatles first tour America

1965-1970s – Second “New Journalism” period; literary journalism; underground newspapers

1967 – Congress passes Public Broadcasting Act; PBS formed

Late 1960s – Internet formed for exchange of ideas, not available to general public

1969 – Neal Armstrong walks on moon; we see it on TV

1969 – ABC introduces made-for-TV movies

1970 – Feminists stage sit-in at Ladies Home Journal

1972 – Ms. magazine launched

1972 – Life magazine died; came back as monthly from 1978 to 2000

1972 – Boylan v. New York Times sex discrimination lawsuit filed

1972 – Cigarette advertising banned from TV

1974 – Richard Nixon resigns, a result of Watergate coverage

1974 – People magazine introduced

1975 – Home Box Office (formed by Time, Inc. in 1972) begins satellite distribution of TV; Ted Turner starts first “superstation”

1975 – Sony Betamax home videocassette recorder introduced

1976 – Matsushita introduces VHS

1978 – laser disc player introduced; largely a failure, but opened door for CDs

1979 – Sony Walkman appears in Japan

1979 – Iranian hostage crisis leads to “Nightline” and loss by Jimmy Carter to a former radio broadcaster and movie actor

1980 – “Who Shot J.R.?” on “Dallas” is first TV season-ending cliff-hanger

1981 – MTV (Music Television) first airs; first video is “Video Killed the Radio Star”

1982 – USA Today begins publication

1982 – Home shopping network debuts

1983 – Sony introduces CD player

1990s – Internet access opened to general public; changes everything

1996 – Telecommunications Act of 1996 brings V-chip, deregulation, and dramatic increase in mergers and takeovers

[theuberthinker]

Sometimes you just have to applaud.

A person asked the question, "Why are people so hostile towards President Donald Trump?"

Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that

1.) I'm an independent centrist who has voted Republican way more often in my life than Democrat, and

2.) If you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. The Short, Unhappy Life of a Libertarian Paradise And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record than Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He behaves unethically and always has. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But it is RUSSIA who needs to earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He behaves and has always behaved as an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2019 See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 99% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it has been estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump? His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that it’s all him, that we’re not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to thinking The free exercise clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the free exercise clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than I may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been?

- Chris O’Leary

This Occupy Democrats post ended up in my news feed a little bit ago- and I had to comment on this. Chris hits the nail square on the head with one swing of the metaphorical hammer. He, to put it simply, just GETS it, and it’s a wonderful thing.

[tiffanytmt-blog1]

A Game of Command and Conquer

Do you recognise any of these five men? For a majority of the general public, the answer would most likely be ‘no’. And yet, in reality, these men yield immense power over the way we perceive our world, and their influences are made even more significant by how insidious they are.

We are looking at the billionaire owners and executives of the five US media companies that control 90% of the American media today. In 1983, there were 50, and then by 1992, the number had halved [1]. Today, five giant media conglomerates – namely Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T, Fox Corporation, and National Amusements – are in charge of producing and distributing much of what American audiences read, watch, and listen to [2]. This refers to books, music, magazines, radio, newspapers and television – in other words, public tools of communication and essential sources of information that can shape people’s attitudes towards social and political issues. Hence, it should come as no surprise that corporates have vested interests in controlling mass media, beyond just maximising profit.

The trend of media monopolisation in the US has always existed but had remained largely confined by government laws enacted to preserve media diversity – until the 1980s, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began to deregulate media ownership. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a major turning point that led to media consolidation at a massive and unprecedented scale in US history. The legislation, which drastically raised caps on the number of local newspapers, television and radio stations a single corporation could own, enabled the merging and cross-ownerships of many media companies [3].

Of course, media monopolies are not exclusive to the US and are common all over the world. In the UK, six companies account for over 80% of local newspaper titles [4]. In Singapore, where I am from, the two players in the industry responsible for all of local media are affiliated with the state and indirectly controlled by the government through their shareholdings. As a result, media censorship is prevalent, earning Singapore a ranking of 151 out of 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Growing up, I had never really questioned the state-owned press because it was all I had known. Internally, I justified any dissent towards the ruling party with the nation’s economic growth. Afterall, they had boosted Singapore from a third-world country to a first. I saw our low ranking in press freedom as a trade-off for our high rankings in education, technology, finance, safety, and so on… But that need not be the case.

As Bagdikian first warned in his book ‘The New Media Monopoly’ in 1983, concentrated media ownership, whether governmental or private, contradicts the fundamental principles of a democratic society and threatens its success [5]. A “free” society needs a free marketplace of ideas where citizens can access diverse sources of information to develop their own opinions on public matters. Hence, the way media and communication are owned, controlled and produced can directly impact the character of public discourse and ultimately, the possibilities for social change to occur in a democracy [6]. Media enterprises will inevitably reflect the commercial and political values of their media owners, which jeopardises the journalistic integrity of news media organisations. Apart from political biases, the economic interests that drive these capitalist corporations can also cause journalists to deviate from their duty to inform and instead, towards attracting consumers and advertisers for profit [7]. Perhaps worst of all, is the fact that the media, who are responsible for educating the public, will rarely highlight these issues themselves.

To curb media consolidation, there needs to be reform in the media landscape – the implementation of clear ownership thresholds and safeguards to ensure journalistic autonomy. But this lies in the hands of the government, which has its own underlying interests and agendas at heart. So, this begs the question – is democracy truly achievable? In this game of command and conquer, it seems as if all players are villains. Sources: [1] PBS. (2006). Democracy on Deadline: Who Owns the Media? [online] [2] Lutz, A. (2012). These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America. [online]  [3] Light, J. (2017). How Media Consolidation Threatens Democracy: 857 Channels (and Nothing On). [online] [4] Media Reform Coalition (2015). Who Owns the UK Media?. [5] Bagdikian, B. (1983). Concentration and Ownership of the Press. In: B. Bagdikian, ed., The New Media Monopoly. [6] Wright, E. and Rogers, J. (2011). Corporate Control of the Media. In: E. Wright and J. Rogers, ed., American Society: How it Really Works. [7] Barnett, S. (2010). What’s wrong with media monopolies? A lesson from history and a new approach to media ownership policy. London School of Economics and Political Science.

[thoughtsofck-blog]

The Struggle to Understand the Importance of Net Neutrality

Sorry guys, this is going to be a long one. It's important to me.

Net Neutrality is complicated. Right now the FCC is pushing to remove restrictions to Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934. Yes, our Internet laws stem from an act created 83 years ago.

A brief history - The Communications Act of 1934 was created "to provide for the regulation of interstate and foreign communication by wire or radio, and for other purposes." Title 1 outlines whom this applies to (radio broadcasts, wire communication, telecommunications, etc.), it categorized communications as a form of interstate good, and created the FCC to regulate it. I know reading laws is boring, but seriously, Title 1, Section 1 is an inspiring piece of legislature - it's only a paragraph long, check it out. [1]

Title 2 set forth additional regulations. Section 202 ensures that communications companies operated without giving any unfair advantage to particular persons or companies. Other fun facts - It also requires companies to provide the FCC and consumers a breakdown of service charges (Section 203), and made harassing phone calls and inappropriate communication to a minor via telecommunication a prosecutable offense (Section 223). [2]

Deregulating Title 2 could make it legal for your Internet Service Providers (ISPs like TWC/Spectrum, Cox, Verizon, etc.) to pick and choose which websites could use Internet speeds to their fullest capacities. For example, Cox could throttle Netflix speeds if they were pushing their consumers to instead use Cox On Demand to watch TV and movies. Now, this doesn't mean that every ISP will jump to do this if Title 2 is deregulated, but it does open the door for them to do so. 

That's like handing a kid a magnifying glass on a sunny day, pointing to an anthill and saying "Now don't go burn any ants," and walking away. You hope they'll do the right thing, but you've just provided them with the tools to do the wrong thing.

That's what current FCC chair, Ajit Pai, is banking on. Pai even suggested to Reuters that ISPs could "voluntarily agree in their terms of service to not obstruct or slow consumer access to web content." [3] During an interview with PBS News Hour, Pai says that the scenario in which ISP favoritism would occur "is hypothetical". [4] 

Has anybody ever read their Internet Terms of Service (TOS)? After checking the TOS for TWC/Spectrum [5], Cox [6], and AT&T [7] - all three say that they reserve the right to change their TOS at any time without notifying the customer. Verizon Fios will notify its customers via email as long as you opt in to receive their email communications [8]. You should read your Terms of Service sometime - it's fascinating. For instance, TWC/Spectrum say it's a violation of their TOS to let anybody who isn't a member of your household use your Wi-Fi [9].

President Trump has already deregulated part of Title 2 (Section 222) [10] with S.J.Res.34, signed in to law on April 3, 2017. S.J.Res.34 allows ISPs to sell consumer information including web browser history, location data, and other personal information. [11] S.J.Res.34 does state that it "requires telecommunications carriers to inform customers about rights to opt in or opt out of the use or the sharing of their confidential information." [12] Currently by using TWC/Spectrum services a consumer is automatically opted-in to allow them to disclose information to direct marketing such as your name, address, non-phone services you subscribe to, age, income, and other demographic information - unless you decide to opt-out. You can do this by notifying TWC/Spectrum in writing at a local office, or by emailing TWC directly. [13] How long did it take me to find that information? Over an hour. 

While companies like AT&T and Verizon have made statements saying they have no plans to sell customer browser histories, [14] [15] both companies have used tactics to trick consumers into giving up their information in the forms of discounted Internet and rewards programs.

In late 2013 AT&T introduced the "Internet Preferences advertising program" offering high-speed internet at cheaper prices to customers as long as they opted-in to making their web-browsing data available for direct marketing. Customers who chose to opt-out for their privacy were charged an additional $29 per month as a privacy fee. [16] AT&T ended this program in October 2016.

Similarly, Verizon Wireless currently offers their customers Verizon Smart Rewards - a points accumulation program that rewards you for simple tasks, like paying your bill or enrolling in auto pay. These points can be spent on gift cards and discounted dining and travel. So are these free points really free? No. You volunteer to put your personal data up for sale by Verizon. When you opt-in to Verizon Smart Rewards, you are also required to opt-in to Verizon Selects, which is a program solely for selling your personal information. You give Verizon permission to sell your web browsing history, info on apps you use, your location data, and more. [17] Verizon's 2014 press release announcing the Smart Rewards program glazes over that information stating that they are "introducing a fun new way customers can get even more from their wireless service provider." [18] And fittingly, a way for Verizon to get even more out of their customers. 

It's because of these tactics that regulations are unfortunately a necessity. I know reading your Terms of Service is akin to drinking sand, but it's better to fully understand what you're signing up for.

What does deregulating Net Neutrality hurt? It takes choice away from you, the consumer, it could play favorites to certain news outlets, and it could restrict access to independent filmmakers and other arts. Is that really what we want?

Enter John Oliver, Host of HBO's Last Week Tonight. Oliver previously defended Net Neutrality back in 2014 [19] and called on all Internet users to take the FCC up on its offer inviting public comments on the issue. Within days, the FCC commenting system had crashed because it had been overwhelmed with comments supporting Net Neutrality. Fast forward to 2017, and he's calling on the masses to do it again. The FCC has since complicated the process of getting to this commenting system, so Last Week Tonight purchased the URL www.gofccyourself.com to take you directly to where you can leave your comment for the FCC concerning Net Neutrality. [20]

Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934 is an important part of keeping the Internet accessible to everybody. Please leave your thoughts with the FCC, and regularly check in with your Representatives and Senators to make sure you know where they stand on the issue.

And in case anybody wanted to check my references, I've provided links to everything here:

GoogleDoc - Net Neutrality References

Give it a look! There's some good reading and video clips in there. 

If you took the time to read this, thank you.

- CK

[artsychica2012]

(via How to Hide Your Browsing History From Your Snooping ISP)

Congress has moved to dismantle some Obama-era rules that would have protected the online privacy of everyday Americans. This sucks. The deregulation means it will be easier for huge telecom companies to track and sell their customers’ browsing history. This sucks! But not all is lost.

Regardless of what the Capitol Hill-based wrecking ball does to the FCC’s online privacy rules, there are still steps you can take to protect yourself on the internet. The new era of anti-privacy policies in Washington does mean that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast can collect data about your everyday internet usage.

“Your ISP can sell your traffic without any permission, and it’s unclear if they would even have to tell you they were doing it,” Jeremy Gillula, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Gizmodo.

The White House has already said it “strongly supports” the repeal of the Obama-era rules. Trump is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming days.

Without the FCC’s privacy rules, it’s not just information about web pages you visit that service providers can collect. Your ISP can now track your activity any time your computer accesses the internet. If you check the weather on your phone, your ISP could know that you’re worried about the rain and serve up ads about umbrellas. More realistically, they could sell the data about your daily habits to a marketing firm so that they could serve you more relevant ads.

However, you can still go dark, if you don’t want big telecom peering into your private life. There’s a chance that your ISP will let you opt-out of certain types of data collection, although it’s unclear if they’re specifically required to do this in the absence of the privacy rules. The FTC does recommend that service providers off an opt-in option, although ISPs could just decide to ignore that recommendation. Your situation will inevitably depend on how your particular ISP decides to exploit the lack of rules. Otherwise, protecting your online privacy in these grim times essentially amounts to putting up a barrier between you and the prying eyes of large telecom companies. Let us show you how.

Use a VPN

Our first recommendation is the best one: pay for a VPN service. Using a virtual private network (VPN) is the only way to ensure that you’re accessing the internet through an encrypted, private channel. Your browsing habits can still be seen by the VPN service—and law enforcement, if it comes to that—but you’ll be safe from a spying ISP since it will see your traffic as coming from a random server instead of your house.

You can subscribe to VPN services for both desktop and mobile. But as the word “pay” implies, any decent option will cost you a few bucks a month. (Read that as: do not use a free VPN service and expect privacy at the same time.) Finding the right VPN for you can be an odyssey, although our friends at Lifehacker have this handy guide and this detailed spreadsheet that show the upsides of various services. If you’re tech savvy, you can also set up your own VPN, although the server space does cost some money.

There is some bad news, too.

“A VPN won’t protect you from all of the creepy stuff that ISPs will be able to do,” Evan Greer at Fight for the Future said in an interview with Gizmodo, noting that ISPs can still install secret traffic software and inject ads into web traffic when a VPN is in place. That’s part of the reason why the FCC passed internet privacy rules in the first place. Although they are the most comprehensive defense against snoopers, the fact that VPNs still won’t completely protect internet users highlights just how badly America needed those privacy rules.

“Without these rules, ISPs will be able to monitor, collect, and store almost everything you do online and sell that information to advertisers and data mining companies—and use it to build an almost complete profile of your online activity,” Greer explained. “In the end there are steps you can take, but also it’s the responsibility of our legislators to protect us.”

Use Tor

Now let’s get serious. If you really want to keep your browsing habits away from the prying eyes of corporations and the government, Tor is the best bet. It is not, however, the most convenient option nor is it the most comprehensive. (Using a VPN is the most comprehensive, even though it won’t protect you entirely.)

You’ve probably heard of Tor. Tor is everybody’s favorite free anonymity software and is relatively easy to install on a desktop. Tor is also available for Android through a package called Orbot, which is slightly more difficult to install. Once you’re up and running, you can browse the web anonymously, and even weasel your way into the edgy corners of the dark web, if that’s your thing.

There are a couple of major downsides to using Tor all the time. One, it only protects you from snoopers when you’re surfing the web in the Tor browser. Any other internet-connect apps, like email clients or chat apps, will not be anonymized. Two, Tor doesn’t work well with sites that run Cloud Flare’s security software, which is the majority of sites on the web. When you visit these sites, you might have to type in a captcha to prove you’re human which is fine from time-to-time, but Tor users often find themselves typing in captchas every time they visit a new domain.

Tor is not a perfect solution for browsing the web privately. It’s certainly much better than using incognito windows in Chrome or private browsing tabs in Safari. As Gillula explained to Gizmodo, these features don’t protect you at all if you’re worried about obscuring your browsing habits from an ISP or the government—not one little bit.

[savetopnow]

2018-03-30 21 NEWS now

NEWS

Associated Press

Brake failure, a blown tire? Search for clues in SUV wreck

Trump loses a trusted aide, White House anxiety lingers

California judge rules that coffee requires cancer warning

US consulate staff in St. Petersburg prepare to leave

Brother of unarmed man killed by police redirects protests

BBC News

The South Korean rock band returning to perform in Pyongyang

Volkswagen's car 'graveyard' in California

Turning bread into beer to fight food waste

Lagos street dancers go viral after Rihanna retweet

Colorado senator explains white privilege to colleagues

Chicago Tribune

Chicago woman killed in climbing incident in Wisconsin

Three people robbed on Red Line train on North Side

Robberies spike in the Loop, other downtown areas in 2018; homicides drop

Before becoming face of Loyola Ramblers, Sister Jean helped women's college through 1970 strike

2 dead, 1 wounded in seven minutes during West, South side shootings

LA Times

We shouldn't need the Paris Peace Talks to set up a safe parking program for L.A.'s homeless

Advocating for repeal of the 2nd Amendment is a gift the NRA doesn't deserve

LBJ dropped out 50 years ago this week. Might Trump do the same?

Wildfires endanger not just lives, but city budgets too

What to watch in international soccer this weekend

NPR News

For Passover, These Orthodox Jews Are Cooking On Live TV

2 Coalition Personnel Killed In Syria

Advertisers Ditch Laura Ingraham After She Mocks Parkland Activist

Democrats Call For Senate Hearing Over 2020 Census And Citizenship Question

Using Pentagon Money To Pay For A Border Wall Is Harder Than It Seems

New York Times

Russia, E.P.A., Laura Ingraham: Your Friday Briefing

Clashes on Gaza’s Border With Israel as Protests Start

Trump Attacks Amazon, Saying It Does Not Pay Enough Taxes

Thailand Bus Fire Kills 20 Migrant Workers From Myanmar

ProPublica

How Overbuilt Levees Along the Upper Mississippi River Push Floods Onto Others

Inside a Secretive Lobbying Effort to Deregulate Federal Levees

John Bolton Skewed Intelligence, Say People Who Worked With Him

New Model Shows Towns on the Wrong Side of an Illinois Levee District Are Treading Water

Takeaways From Our First Free Street Theater Journalism Workshop

Reddit News

Facebook—even as it apologizes for scandal—funds campaign to block a California data-privacy measure

Suspected drug kingpin charged in New York with trafficking enough fentanyl to kill 10 million people

FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

Jo-Ann Fabrics shooter stole rented firearm after his inability to purchase one.

How ‘Smallville’ Actress Allison Mack Became a Women-Branding Cult Leader

Reuters

Russia summons Western diplomats to set out retaliatory steps in spy rift

U.S. visa applicants to be asked for social media history: State Department

Iranian granted U.S. visa to aid brother with cancer despite travel ban

How Seoul raced to conclude U.S. trade deal ahead of North Korea talks

Toshiba says unable to meet end-March deadline for chip unit sale

Reveal News

Nation’s largest janitorial company faces new allegations of rape

A group of janitors started a movement to stop sexual abuse

The Hate Report: How white supremacists recruit online

New documents about Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sex abuse begin to leak out

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order

The Altantic

West Virginia's Teachers Are Not Satisfied

This Average Joe Is the Most Quoted Man in News

The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Eric Garcetti Isn't Expecting Much From Washington

The Particular Horror of Church Shootings

The Guardian

Palestinians march to Gaza border for start of six-week protest

‘There is a certain amount of glee at the sheer, sheer foolishness of Brexit’

Schoolgirls seized by Boko Haram tell of Christian friend's escape bid

Wayward Belgian prince’s endowment cut despite plea to MPs

‘We have to organize like the NRA’: outdoor industry takes on Trump

The Independent

People who buy puppies can't be feminists because they support exploitation of bitches, claims Peta

Woman flooded with supportive messages after posting about doctor's dismissive treatment of urinary tract infection

Oil and gas drilling blamed for sinkholes threatening to swallow parts of Texas

Judge orders coffee sellers to put cancer warnings on their products over inclusion of carcinogen

Theresa May needs to be honest with the public about post-Brexit immigration

The Intercept

Deconstructed Podcast: Will John Bolton Get Us All Killed?

The U.S. Government Is Finally Scrambling to Regulate Facebook

“We Know Where Your Kids Live”: How John Bolton Once Threatened an International Official

Why the Backlash to Former Black Panther Herman Bell’s Parole Risks Setting a Dangerous Precedent

Trump’s Nominee to Oversee Superfund Program Spent Decades Fighting EPA Cleanups on Behalf of Polluters

The Quartz

Hollywood and Nollywood are looking to an ancient African kingdom for another Black Panther hit

How to keep a crew of humans alive to Mars? Put them to bed for most of it

The Patriot missile interceptor doesn’t work, but Raytheon still makes billions

Photos: Volkswagen has bought back thousands of diesel cars in the US. Here’s what that looks like

California millennials are diving into politics in the age of Trump

Wall Street Journal

North and South Korea Set Summit, but Nuclear Omission Casts a Shadow

How the Middle East's Conflicts Shut Down Its Skies

Saudi Prince Urges Stepped-Up Pressure on Iran

Russia Lashes Back at U.S., Expelling Dozens of Diplomats

NATO Fears Its Forces Not Ready to Confront Russian Threat