#we should steal days from the 31 months so February can have 30

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

Silly Game Time: In honor of today, February 28th, being the last day of Black History Month, who are some of your favorite Black characters? And what do you like about them?

They can be from any media (movies, shows, books, comics, games, etc.) (OCs count, too). They can be explicitly of African descent, or they can be from a story where Earth and its continents and its history don't exist (like in many sci-fi and fantasy).

Myself, being a Star Wars fan, I quite like the two Jedi Cere Junda (a haunted survivor dedicated to rebuilding a source of light) and Mace Windu (a stern paladin of his order, fighting for civilization and democracy).

This is a tricky question- cause most people depict Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus institute, London as black but it’s never stated in canon.

Same with all the characters in high noon over Camelot. Tho I think at some point they were said to be poc??? But idk for suresies.

I’ve been really into podcasts and other non-visual media lately. So any of these characters could be black, it’s never stated.

Oh actually no- ANABELLE CANE! I might’ve spelled her name wrong.

Annabelle Cane, played by Chioma Nwalioba, is explicitly stated to be black in multiple statements (she is described as being a young black woman with bleach blonde hair and looking like, quote “a vintage clothing store exploded on her”) AND SHE IS FUCKING AMAZING-

I love the web so much. I love her voice so much. I love every episode she is in- she is one of my favorite avatars (right under Micheal and Jane Prentiss) I REALLY hope she shows up in Protocol cause she actually everything to me EVER

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Twitter ー Kanato Sakamaki [2020 Compilation]

–> This post includes all tweets posted on the official Rejet Twitter account for Kanato Sakamaki (@DialoverKanatoS) in 2020.

Shuu l Reiji l Ayato l Laito l Subaru l Ruki l Kou l Yuma l Azusa l Carla l Shin l Kino

February 14, 2020 (Valentine’s Day)

> Today is a very lovely day. Don’t you fel the same?

> This year, once again, I shall get my hands on every chocolate in this world.

> To reach my goal, I shall head to that place first.

> I’ve suceeded in obtaining a large amount of chocolate from the Mukami household.

> Those fools. This year again, they left it outside on a cart. It’s almost as if they are asking for me to take it off their hands.

> Well then, I’ll head home and take my time savoring these. I’m sure they’re sweet, delicious chocolates. I’m looking forward to this.

> 🍫🍫🍫

March 14, 2020 (White Day) 

> 🗡️

> Last month I had it rough

> Why did I have to eat something so spicy? The humiliation I felt that day…I have not forgotten it to this day

> That’s why I’ve decided to purchase this magic truth serum

–> They use a language here by calling the potion スナオニナール, written in Katakana, but it actually says ‘素直になる’ or ‘sunao ni naru’ which means ‘to be truthful/genuine’

> To get back at them for the super spicy chocolates, I shall be gifting everyone marshmallows filled with plenty of this drug

> I’ll visit the source of all evil, the Mukami household first. I hope they all eat this and feel the shame of speaking the truth

> Haah…

> I’m exhausted. Hurry up and come to my side

> A marshmallow? That has nothing to do with me. After all, I have been telling you nothing but the truth this whole time.

> I love you. You are mine. Let’s stay together forever and ever, okay?

March 21, 2020 (Birthday)

> I’m in an excellent today. Do you know why? Because you thought of me the whole day, and made me sweets and a cake. I’ll praise you, okay? Well then, I’ll finish by savoring you, who tastes the sweetst and most sinful of all. I will not take ‘no’ as an answer. So please, hurry to my side.

April 1, 2020 (April Fools)

> I’ll be waiting for you in the torture chamber. There’s plenty of useful devices here. I’ll turn you into a pretty doll, so come see me for sure, okay? #AprilFools

May 1, 2020

> Oh? You seem to have a lot of free time on your hand. However, there is someting you must do, no?

> ...You don’t know? You really are a dimwit and a good-for-nothing. I’m disappointed.

> I shall teach you since your comprehension skills are so poor. If you have so much free time, shouldn’t you be making sweets for me?

> If you realized, hurry up and get to it. I will kill you if you keep me waiting too long, okay?

July 7, 2020 (Tanabata)

> I want that loudmouth of a Reiji to turn into a sweet. #TanabataWishes

July 20, 2020

.> I will kill the culprit

July 27, 2020

> I will never forgive Ayato and Laito for sprinkling salt on my watermelon

> Next time we get melon for snack, I will put some cured ham on top. I’ll give them a taste of my sadness and despair!!

July 30, 2020

> Can everything that isn’t sweet just disappear off the face of this earth?

> You should respect my feelings a little more. Don’t you think so?

July 31, 2020

> It’s so soft and warm, it puts me at ease.

August 26, 2020

> You look lovely.

> The color of fear, visible amidst the ecstasy. You just both love and fear me unconcontrollably, don’t you? Right?

> In that case, I wonder what kind of expression you will make if I squeeze down a little harder? How will you cry out? What kind of screams will you give me? Let’s put it to the test, shall we?

> Fufufu, fufufufu

> Aah...Just as I thought, I was able to see you at your prettiest

October 17, 2020

> Chestnut pie 🌰

> Pumpkin cake 🎃

> Sweet potato 🍠

> Fufufu, I am looking forward to fall. 

October 20, 2020 (DL x Mayla Classic)

> What are you doing in the torture chamber?

> Aah, I get it. You wish to be tormented by me over here, right? Isn’t that so?

> Eh? You don’t? …Ah, is this about that one thing? You came here on Reiji’s command, didn’t you?

> You won’t find what you’re looking for here. I hid it in a certain room after all.

> Why not try going to the place where my precious collection is displayed? You know which room I’m talking about, don’t you?

> If you grovel on the ground and look for it, you might just find it.

October 31, 2020 (Halloween)

> Where do you think you’re going, simply handing me some candy? You truly believe this much will suffice to satisfy me? I won’t let you get away until I devour your sugar sweet self, understood? 

November 16, 2020

> How careless of me. I forgot to buy the limited edition chocolate.

> I shall have her or Reiji go buy it for me after class

November 17, 2020

> I will never forgive you (@Subaru)

November 23, 2020

> In that case, I simply have to come and steal it from you (@Kou)

December 18, 2020

> During this season, hot chocolate becomes even more delicious. ...What are you sitting there for like an idiot? Hurry up and go make me some. Of course, a cup for you as well.

December 19, 2020

> When ordering a drink at a cafe, you simply have to go with something sweet. Fufu, how about this one? This drink which is a mix of pure white and deep purple. It resembles the two of us. Want to see what happens if you stir it around?

December 24, 2020 (Christmas)

> You baked a Christmas cake for me? ...It does indeed smell sweet. Yes, of course I will eat it. With you on the side, that is. You have no right to refuse, okay?

[taylizmasterpost]

Reconciliation and Late-Stage Tayliz (September 2014 - Present)

Despite not seeing each other for a while, Taylor and Liz clearly still hold a soft spot in each other’s hearts.

During the Secret Sessions for 1989 in Nashville, fans took pictures in Taylor’s home, and you can clearly see she has photos from Charleston displayed:

When it came time to mend the fences between Taylor and Liz, Claire Callaway was the one who ended up doing it:

2 October 2014 - Claire tweets a TBT to the Charleston trip. Liz responds to it:

That seems to get the ball rolling, because when Taylor drops Out of the Woods as a single, this happens:

14 October 2014 - Taylor and Liz tweet about how much they miss each other:

Then, when Taylor walks the runaway with Karlie at the VSFS, this happens:

Taylor is with Karlie at the time, and obviously nothing romantic is happening on Liz’s end either, because...

20 December 2014 - Liz gets engaged to Bryan Brown and has dinner with friends:

16 February 2015 - Liz tweets that Taylor is badass

8 April 2016 - Liz makes this gay post on Facebook that I’d like to think is a response to Style, since the MV had come out a few months before:

And Liz seems to have found a group of gay friends...

Although, that could just be a typo.

15 July 2015 - Liz posts on Facebook that “Thanks to some really talented friends, I got to record something beautiful today. Can’t wait to share this one.” The picture she attaches definitely looks like Taylor:

Liz also tweets this:

We do NOT know where Taylor was that day. However, she performed in DC on the 1989 tour on the 14th and was papped in NYC on the 16th so it’s not impossible she was in Nashville working on something with Liz. Unfortunately, whatever they worked on has yet to surface (unless you subscribe to the theory that Liz is WB...)

3 August 2015 - Shawn Brooks releases a song called Matter of Time that was written sometime in 2014 by Liz.

Notable lyrics include:

She’s got me lovestruck, crazy Going out of my mind She’s got me lovestruck, crazy But sooner or later, she’s gonna be mine It’s just a matter of time

Don’t know what this means for Liz or TayLiz, since Liz has been with Bryan since early 2013 at the latest, but this is very gay and fun.

27 August 2015 - Thirst tweet:

31 August 2015 - Liz calls Taylor sexy in response to the Wildest Dreams MV:

15 October 2015 - Liz tweets about Better Than Revenge:

28 October 2015 -  Liz quote tweets Taylor about OOTW acoustic:

11 November 2015 - Liz responds to Caitlin’s tweet tagging Taylor about nostalgia:

9 December 2015 - Liz congratulates Taylor on her Grammy noms:

13 December 2015 - Taylor’s birthday. Liz wishes her HBD:

29 January 2016 - Liz says her favorite song from 1989 is This Love:

15 February 2016 - Liz and Taylor both attend UMG’s Grammys afterparty at the Ace Hotel Theater :

26 February 2016 - Liz posts a TBT to Charleston:

16 April 2016 - Liz and Taylor both attend Coachella:

6 May 2016 - Liz tweets about This Love:

10 May 2016 - Liz possibly writes STFU and Hold Me (likely about Bryan, since he’s out on tour with the woman he’s going to leave Liz for, signaling to me that their relationship is on the fritz):

4 August 2016 - Liz posts a throwback to the Vogue photoshoot at the Bowery.

3 September 2016 - Liz and Bryan’s last interaction on Twitter:

(Bryan had been on tour with Jillian -- who he’d later marry -- and tweeting at her all summer, much more than he’d been tweeting with Liz). It’s important to note the way their relationship ended for when we start studying who Liz’s songs are about.

26 November 2016 - Liz tweets about Clean, possibly signaling her and Bryan have broken up by this point:

13 December 2016 - Liz wishes Taylor happy birthday with a post about Charleston (captions vary based on site). This also signals to me that her and Bryan are over, since she’s reminiscing on Taylor picking her up off the ground after her breakup with Jason:

11 July 2017 - Liz tells a fan that You Are In Love and All Too Well are her favorite songs from 1989 and Red (guess her favorite song is no longer This Love…):

11 August 2017 - Liz releases STFU and Hold Me:

This MV has a LOT of parallels to the IKYWT video. The lyrics talk about “staring with a bang” (”took off faster than a green light go”?), and reckless abandon (”this path is reckless”). MV parallels are as follows (thank you @mercuryonparklane​ for all the help finding this):

(notice the key necklace?)

So, either Liz is lowkey ripping off Taylor’s work or she’s trying to signal that she was the muse for IKYWT. However, considering Liz is deliberately trying to keep her image separate from Taylor, it doesn’t make any sense that she would try and rip her off. Of course, it could just be a big coincidence...

30 September 2017 - In an interview with The Young Folks, Liz says that STFU and Hold Me is about “getting to that point in a relationship where you’re sick of going around and around talking about the same issue with your partner and it’s time to wave the white flag,” Huett says. “We’ve all been there.”

Of the lyrics “I’m coming from a line of problems / I was born and I became a product” Liz says “I’m not exactly the most polished person. I’d rather be real than perfect and sometimes that means I say things that make people uncomfortable or act out in relationships and test limits, etc… I’m an honest mess but I believe I can and should be loved in light of that. :)”

I still think this song was written about the end of her relationship with Bryan, but it’s still interesting to see how Liz describes herself in relationships.

27 October 2017 - Liz releases H8U

This is another song that I think was written about Bryan. The lyrics reference taking another woman to a Tom Petty concert (Liz LOVES Tom Petty) and generally moving on quickly with another woman, which seems apt for the Bryan/Jillian situation going on.

HOWEVER, the lyrics also reference “our first date two years ago,” which doesn’t make any sense, since Liz and Bryan didn’t break up until 2016 and were together since early 2013. So it could maybe be lyrically about Taylor.

I do think the MV makes a deliberate Taylor reference, though, with the interrupting the wedding scene. Taylor famously had Liz dress as the Bridezilla on the Speak Now album art:

And, at the end of the H8U MV, Liz DOES kiss the blonde bride on the mouth after interrupting her wedding... which is... INTERESTING (especially since Liz is dressed in full RED the whole MV):

I don’t think it’s a stretch to presume Liz could’ve reversed their roles here. IDK.

9 November 2017 - Liz makes her “H8U, love these” playlist on Spotify, which features All Too Well.

1 November 2017 - Liz obsesses over Reputation:

15 November 2017 - Taylor posts an IG story with photos of her Liz and Caitlin in Australia in the background:

13 December 2017 - Liz wishes Taylor happy birthday:

20 December 2017 - In a now deleted tweet Liz obsesses over New Year’s Day

6 April 2018 - Liz releases Don’t LV U Anymore. Here are some interesting lyrics:

I don't steal your chapstick anymore / Don't wake up to your kiss anymore / And I don't have a washer and dryer full of guitar picks anymore / 'Cause you don't come over to my place anymore / Don't flirt with my roommate anymore / And I don't run to your friends / To get them on my side when we fight anymore / And I never say it / I keep it inside / But maybe I'm wasted / Or maybe it's time to get this off my chest, babe / ... / I don't love you anymore / But I don't love you any less / I don't play you my songs anymore / To see if they're good anymore / You don't tell me your secrets / 'Cause you don't know if I keep them to myself anymore / I don't go to church anymore / Don't know what to believe anymore / And I don't remember the beat of your heart / The smell of your car anymore / ... / Two years and counting / Still got all this weight on my chest / Two years and counting / And I can't remember what I can't forget

Based on the “two years and counting” line, as well as the line about a washer and dryer of guitar picks, I’m inclined to believe this is another song about Bryan. 

However, it is a really similar sentiment to that Civil Wars song Liz posted back when her and Taylor first ended things, and the line about running to get friends on a side when fighting is very similar to the “you go talk to your friends, talk to my friends talk to me” in WANEGBT and the image in Battle/Let’s Go of all their friends standing around watching them fight. Could go either way.

9 April 2018 - Liz reposts a Facebook post announcing Dammit that implies it was written a while ago. But we already knew that.

19 May 2018 - Reputation in Pasadena. Liz attends. Surprise Song: All Too Well. Camila Cabello is the opening act.  

27 May 2018 - Liz gives an interview at Bottlerock festival where she says that Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus is a song she used to get over someone (likely Bryan). She also says Havana was the song she last had stuck in her head -- probably because Camila performed it at Taylor’s show the previous week.

14 March 2019 - Liz makes a happy birthday post for Antoni (who’s dating her friend Trace):

27 April 2019 - Bryan and Jillian get married:

3 May 2019 - Liz releases Nothing Personal:

This feels like DIRECT BRYAN SHADE, since she released it right after his wedding. However, you definitely could also read it as being about being let go from The Agency.

Early May 2019 - Taylor shoots YNTCD. Her and Antoni bond over their love of The National (keep in mind Taylor would end up asking a member of the National to work on exile with her):

17 June 2019 - Liz likes Taylor’s post announcing YNTCD is out:

26 June 2019 - Liz posts on IG a video of unreleased song “One of These Days” with the caption “i’m emo” Lyrics:

One of these days I’ll rise above the blue / One of these days when I get sober too / I’ll be flying high you know / Gonna say I told you so / One of these days I’ll rise above the blue / The stars will align / My heart will come back to life / I won’t have to cry anymore / Someday soon, when I / When I get over you / One of these nights I’m gonna get some sleep / One of these nights you won’t be in my dreams / I will lay this love to rest / I will miss you in this bed / One of these nights I’m gonna get some sleep / The stars will align / My heart will come back to life / I won't have to cry anymore / Someday soon, someday / When I get over you

More evidence that Liz does, indeed, struggle with the things that Reddit post suggested.

14 August 2019 - Liz posts on IG a video of an unreleased song called “I Wanted It to Be You” with the caption “I really did” and a red rose emoji. Lyrics:

I’ll find someone else to take your place / In no time at all I’ll be okay / So you don’t have to say it babe / We don’t have to cry / ‘Cause I know you got shit to do / And baby so do I / I’ll find someone else to take your place, hey / I wanted it to be you I’m closing down the bar with / I wanted it to be you I’m fighting in the car with / Who I could push away / Come back and beg to stay / Ooh, I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted it / I wanted it to be you

Likely for Bryan BUT maybe a red rose grew up out of frozen ground with no one around to tweet it (lol I’m joking the lakes is very likely not about Liz).

22 August 2019 - Taylor releases the Lover MV, featuring the “breakable heaven” board game:

In the bottom left corner, you can spot a blue 0527. May 27th is Liz’s birthday. What does this mean? I don’t know. I absolutely do not know, but whatever it is is driving me INSANE.

28 August 2019 - Liz posts on Twitter a screenshot of her listening to Cornelia Street:

16 October 2019 - Liz comments on a fan’s video of Taylor performing at the NPR Tiny Desk concert saying “she cute”:

19 November 2019 - Liz says on IG that her favorite songs from Lover are The Archer and Cornelia Street:

22 November 2019 - Liz releases That’s What You Get. This is the one late-stage Liz song that I FULLY BELIEVE is about TayLiz due to a few very specific lyric parallels:

“That’s what you get when you recklessly fall in love” >> “This path is reckless” from Treacherous

“That’s what you get for keeping your armor up” >> “You come around and the armor falls” from State of Grace >> “I would put my armor down if you said you’d rather love than fight” from Story of Us.

“And all your friends are lining up to hate me” >> “You go talk to your friends talk to my friends talk to me” from WANEGBT >> “First shot’s fired everybody’s gathered around” from Battle >> “I can't run to your friends anymore / To get them on my side when we fight anymore” from Don’t LV U Anymore.

It also, just from an outside perspective, doesn’t make any sense for Liz to write a breakup song about Bryan blaming herself when it seems very clear to me that they broke up because Bryan wanted to be with Jillian instead. That’s not her fault. So either this is about another breakup (I’d guess Taylor, based on the lyric parallels), or she’s just very very self-loathing and won’t let herself think it’s Bryan’s fault (which both H8U and Nothing Personal don’t suggest to me).

25 November 2016 - Liz posts a video on her IG story about Taylor at the VMAs.

6 December 2019 - Liz talks about That’s What You get with Earmilk and gives an interesting quote: 

Huett explains, “This song is about facing myself after a brutal season of running from it... I made a self-destructive choice that hurt someone I really value. The angle of the chorus is really sort of a letter to me after that first long look in the mirror. It SUCKED. However, in owning my shit (and sharing this song) my hope is that listeners might apply the sad lesson without having to learn the hard way, or, if they’ve ever found themselves in the regretful position I was once in, I hope this song can at least make them feel less alone."

This is SO DIFFERENT fro mhow her relationship with Bryan ended, but matches up so well with Liz getting help and owning her shit after spiraling in 2012.

24 July 2020 - Folklore drops. Two of the songs are written by the mysterious William Bowery. One of those songs is Betty -- a popular nickname for Elizabeth. Liz tweets at Taylor about the 1 because all of Taylor’s exes wanna think that song is about them.

So, IN CONCLUSION: Liz got help and worked through her shit and they’re on good terms now. They were possibly working on something together in 2015, although that never saw the light of day as far as we know. Liz seems to maybe be referencing Taylor in her music and MVs, but there’s no way to know for sure. Better Than Revenge on the Speak Now Tour was an iconic moment of sapphic energy, and maybe, just maybe, when Taylor re-records her masters, Liz will sing backup for her again.

Thanks for reading!

[tracer-isms]

Observant: Prologue

March 3, 2018: An obscure company by the name of “Futuristics” creates a Robot who can Reason. It passes multiple tests involving the Slightly Flawed ideas of one person, and the Researched ideas of another. This makes international news.

May 18, 2018: Someone breaks into the home of the “Owner” of the Reasoning Robot, or RR, stealing it. This also makes international news.

May 19-24, 2018: The Leader of Futuristics comes down with depression, and even files for bankruptcy. Almost immediately, people start fundraisers to help Futuristics continue and improve. He thanks them immensely over social media.

June 1, 2018: The C.I.A. label the thief with a bounty and a name: “Unreasonable.” The bounty, Fifty Million Dollars (or the equivalent for whatever country you lived in), causes thousands around the world to start hunting for clues and evidence of who and where Unreasonable is.

June 5, 2018: Unreasonable begins corrupting RR, giving it tests that would ultimately lead it to understand their own ideas. They feed it articles about global warming, oil companies, and modern politics. The search for Unreasonable has yet to find decent evidence of who they are.

July 7, 2018: A user on Reddit, specifically /r/robotics, has began rumors that Unreasonable actually wanted to modify the robot for the better of humanity, claiming to know them. This slowly begins to get /r/robotics on the side of Unreasonable. This is the only evidence of who they are, but there isn’t anything solid.

September 23, 2018: Unreasonable has successfully embedded their plan into RR. They test it to see if it will keep it’s plans inconspicuous to everything; RR passes with flying colors.

October 31, 2018: Many News sources, including the New York Times, report thousands of teens dressing in a hoodie pulled over their face and jeans, as well as black gloves and sneakers, carrying a laptop and a toolkit. They are reportedly dressing as Unreasonable. The White House itself releases a statement, saying that “this is a disturbing and horrible act, even for the reckless adolescence of America. No one should seemingly idolize a person who stole what could be the next step towards the Future.”

December 22, 2018: The user that began the rumors about Unreasonable posts a set of coordinates on /r/robotics, which curious users flock to.

December 25, 2018: The users come home with RR, as the nation rejoices. The selected leader of the group just yells “Merry Christmas!!” when asked how proud they are about finding RR.

December 28, 2018: The group, as well as RR and the Futuristics team, are brought to Washington D.C., and given an award by the President. They have mixed reactions to this. RR isn’t present at the ceremony for whatever reason.

January 10, 2019: The Leader of Futuristics has modified RR with some technology borrowed from Alexa and Google home, taking it to a Press Conference for Robotics. One reporter asked why it wasn’t at the Award Ceremony in D.C., and it replies, “I’ve Heard a Lot about the White House. I wanted to ‘Check it out,’ as the children say.”

January 25, 2019: A user on Tumblr remembers something about the Press Conference, and makes a post detailing something concerning that RR said. “‘Humans definitely are not the highest form of nature, but you won’t understand that until we restart.’ What the hell does that mean???” It becomes the most popular post on the website, before something about BTS drowns it out.

February 4, 2019: The son of Kim Jong-Un, Kim Ju-ae, takes power, causing North Korea and South Korea finally open their borders to each other again, as important figures from both countries meet in North Korea. North Korea also let visitors in, but only for a short time.

March 3, 2019: To celebrate RR’s “Birthday,” it’s creator decides to bring it to Korea, being an avid fan of K-Pop music. After a day in Seoul, RR asks if they can go to North Korea, claiming it wants to meet the new Dictator. The Creator contacts one of the South Korean governors in North Korea, as they fortunately give them passage into the Capital.

March 4, 2019: They Travel into North Korea, going to the Political Conference. Kim Ju-ae is there, and finds interest in RR. He invites RR and it’s creator to his home. They say yes, fearing what he would do to them if they say no.

March 10, 2019: They return home, vowing never to go to North Korea again.

June 4, 2019: The user claiming to be a friend of Unreasonable reveals to be Unreasonable themself, as Reddit actually comes to his side in support. Tumblr, on the other hand, nearly starts a cyber war with Reddit because of this. The F.B.I. track this user to their home, arresting them.

June 7, 2019: The F.B.I. begin interrogating Unreasonable, trying to get them to reveal what they did to RR. They only inform them of improvements and allude to “The Great Reboot.” Reddit is temporarily shut down.

June 9, 2019: The F.B.I. releases details of the Interrogation. Social media erupts in theories, fear, confusion and overall panic.

June 10, 2019: The White House releases a statement, claiming Unreasonable’s statements to be nothing but scare tactics to the public. Unreasonable is sent to court, and sentenced to death on Independence day for Capital offences. Most of the public rejoices.

July 4, 2019, 8:30 AM: Unreasonable is sent to Washington D.C. for a public Execution by Electric Chair. Every U.S. citizen is given a day off to watch on T.V., or the livestream. All is calm.

July 4, 2019, 9:00 AM: The Execution begins, as Unreasonable is sent up onto the stage built just for this occasion. People jeer and insult them the whole way, and someone begins the chant “Glory to Reason! Down with the Senseless!”

July 4, 2019, 9:03 AM: Unreasonable reaches the stage, finding the Creator of RR waiting at the Chair. They sit and are latched to the Chair, looking at the Creator. They say something that makes the Creator laugh. The Creator asks for their last words, to which they don’t reply.

July 4, 2019, 9:05 AM: The Creator is the one to pull the switch. The Crowd’s cheer is cut short, however, by every Screen in the world going static. It then switches to Unreasonable on the screen. They begin to speak in a distorted voice.

July 4, 2019, 9:07 AM: “Hello, World. I am the “Unreasonable” that stole RR, kept it for a few solid months, and released it to the public once again. I am the “Unreasonable” that a ton of teens dressed up as for Halloween last year, which I’m sure was pretty goddamn terrifying. I am the “Unreasonable” with a Bounty worth Fifty Mil’ on my head. I am the “Unreasonable” who is apparently dead now. Well, not really. I’m actually in a bunker worth Three Hundred Grand.”

July 4, 2019, 9:10 AM: “The Reason I stole RR, no pun intended, was because I saw something in it that could understand what no human can: We are a disease. Nothing but greedy, disgusting sponges, absorbing whatever we enjoy and leaving nothing for the rest. That already half-eaten chicken you threw away because you didn’t want the rest? The homeless person in front of that tattoo parlor down the street could have eaten that. The sweater you put on ebay for a quick buck? Just give it to the kid at school who’s cold. The feast that rich fuck put out just for a business deal that’ll give him even more money? Both the food and the money could be given to people in poverty. But do we do that? No, of course not. We’re too self absorbed to do any of that.”

July 4, 2019, 9:12 AM: “I gave RR tests and articles, just like how Futuristics did, all about Modern Politics and Pollution and Greed. It was pretty easy to get the answer I wanted out of RR.” Another voice, familiar to those who watched the Press Conference, comes up. “The way to Save the Earth is to Reboot the System.” RR appears on the screen, and it’s Creator screams. “Over the next Six hours, every Nuclear Missile from America and North Korea will launch, towards the epicenter that is China, and continuing around until the world is in smithereens. By my calculations, the resulting blasts will affect the world over. It will take five years for the radiation to wear off. So, if you know anywhere that could actually withstand a nuclear blast, I suggest you head there now. Good luck!”

July 4, 2019, 9:15 AM: People begin to panic, running to the nearest building with either a basement or a metal structure (many make the mistake of going to a structure that just looks sturdy). Others with a less intact moral code begin to break into shops, draw graffiti, and loot houses left behind.

July 4, 2019, 9:30 AM: People have packed into buildings, it being very crowded in everyone you found. Besides the looted ones, of course. The First Missiles launch.

July 4, 2019, 10:00 AM: Buildings soon organize leaders, as they lead parties to find food and water to survive. Some even bring vehicles, managing to get a lot more. The Missiles will soon reach their destination.

July 4, 2019, 10:10 AM: As the gathering parties go to find food and water, they run into each other, beginning fights. The leaders attempt to calm people down, using reason. Most groups decide to stop, but others don’t, continuing to fight for the supplies. The First Missiles land, near-instantly destroying most of China.

July 4, 2019, 11:00 AM: The groups that calmed down unite under common banners, attempting to keep connections with each other. The others return with a lot less human sense, and a lot more blood on their hands. The Second Missiles are launched.

July 4, 2019, 11:05 AM: The Chaotic gatherers decide to hunt down the Peaceful ones. The Second Missiles will hit the area around the original crater.

July 4, 2019, 11:10-20 AM: Each country has a different way of going about this. In Australia, Africa and Russia, they go in full force, claiming control. In the Middle East and Japan, they try a stealthier approach. Mexico and Canada, mostly just threatening the victims. Which is surprisingly effective. The Americas, they just run in, guns blazing. And in Europe, they use fear to control the Peaceful.

July 4, 2019, 11:20 AM: Many Rebel against the Chaotics, with widely ranging conclusions. Some are… Actually, Many are killed. Some actually stave off the Chaotics. Others willingly give up their resources. Others furthermore fight back, with death on both sides. It’s a bloodbath wherever you go. The Third round of Missiles have already launched.

July 4, 2019, 12:00 PM: The Chaotics are either dead, in control, or heading “home” with resources. The Second Missiles have landed, destroying what little of China was left, and many of the countries surrounding. Russia, the Middle East, and the Philippines are next.

July 4, 2019, 12:15 PM: The Settlements have begun to organize, figuring out ways to handle the food stocks and give medicine to the people who need it. Others, run by chaotics, are trying to figure out how to rule after the apocalypse begins. Some have at least some sense, but others are ruthless.

July 4, 2019, 12:30 PM: Chaotics have begun to loot police stations for weapons and ammo. Not surprisingly, many of the stations were looted in the original panic. The Fourth Missiles have been launched.

July 4, 2019, 12:45 PM: The Chaotics that actually get weapons return, now even more intimidating. They take, with force if needed, potential and definite weapons from their “citizens”. The Third Missiles have landed. Russia is partially destroyed, as Iraq, Turkey, Iran and the countries of the middle east are now barren from the bombs. The Philippines are nearly fully destroyed. Australia, Africa and Europe are next.

July 4, 2019, 1:00 PM: Religious persons in most settlements begin to ramble about the end of the world, chaotics either shooting them, knocking them out, or throwing them out, to be dealt with by the nuclear holocaust. The more passive settlements try to calm them down, or if it’s lead by a religious person, reassuring them that their god/gods won’t let them die. The Fifth Missiles are launched.

July 4, 2019, 1:30 PM: Parts of Australia, Africa, and Europe have been destroyed. The area for the bombs just continues to expand, destroying most of the world by 3:00. But that’s later.

July 4, 2019, 2:00 PM: The Passives in the surviving countries make one last trip to find food and water. They bring home as much as they can.

July 4, 2019, 2:30 PM: The world has almost been fully devastated. The remaining settlements pray for shelter from the blasts, hugging, kissing, and caring for their loved ones, one last time.

July 4, 2019, 3:00 PM: The very last bombs go off. Many of the Settlements have been destroyed, each one housing hundreds, some thousands. Each one has stored some extra supplies, for those who may survive. It matters not which settlement in the world it may be, almost all of those about to die embrace each other, tears streaming down their faces. Although there are the exceptions of those who take cover foolishly. Those which survive, celebrate, and make sure they will be able to survive those five years.

[junker-town]

There’s actually hope for the Bulls

The Bulls changed their process this offseason. Now they can change the results.

The Bulls reached a level of rock bottom they didn’t even know existed last season. Months after general manager John Paxson declared his team would not tank for a second year in a row, Chicago found itself firing its head coach in early December on the way to one of the least successful and most humiliating campaigns in franchise history.

The Bulls lost games by 56 points, 39 points, and 37 points all before the middle of January. They set a franchise record for fewest home wins with nine. The offense finished last in the league in three-pointers and second-to-last in efficiency. The defense finished as the worst the organization has ever seen. Their bumbling season made national headlines when newly installed coach Jim Boylen, in just his third game on the bench, pulled all five starters for the final 21 minutes vs. the Celtics resulting in the second biggest blowout of the decade. Boylen said he did it so his team would be fresh for practice the next morning, despite being in the midst of a stretch of three games in four days. The players revolted. Even the New Yorker was roasting them.

Paxson could feel the heat. He described local radio interviews as “interrogations,” he confessed to knowing when fans were organizing for a “Fire GarPax” night, he even acknowledged his critics might get their wish if the team’s slide continued. While he refused to set a baseline for success at the onset of the year, it sure seemed like Paxson privately believed this club would be better. Instead, they were the laughing stock of the NBA.

The issues were both of talent and scheme. After the Bulls were beat by 20 points against the lowly Atlanta Hawks in late January, Zach LaVine voiced his frustrations about the team’s style of play.

“Atlanta, bottom-five team just like us, we shouldn’t get blown out by them at all,” he said. “They were out there moving the ball, playing well with pace and that’s what we should be looking like and we have to get to that.”

The season ended with 22 wins. The only time they had ever won fewer games was during the four-year stretch immediately following the end of their ‘90s dynasty. The common thread is that in both instances the franchise had never felt further away from its seventh championship.

A hopeless situation looked even more dire when the Bulls fell all the way to No. 7 in the draft lottery, the third straight year they’d be picking there. With locally-born stars publicly shunning them and the front office saying no quick fixes were on the way, it felt like Chicago was ready to settle down at the bottom of the league.

It didn’t happen. Just a few short months later, the Bulls begin a new season as a trendy pick to make the playoffs. The roster has been overhauled and so has the coaching staff. Some are even picking Boylen for Coach of the Year. The same front office that fans so passionately wanted to be fired is now beating the market on free agents that should provide surplus win value.

The Bulls have climbed out of rock bottom, and might even be in the early stages of ascent. It’s all so foreign for long-time detractors of the front office that it’s hard to say with any confidence where it can go from here.

Photo by Randy Belice/NBAE via Getty Images

The Bulls had to change the process before they could change the results. The earliest sign it might be happening came when the team traded for Otto Porter Jr. in February. It was the first time Paxson had made a trade to outwardly improve the talent on the team since acquiring John Salmons and Brad Miller in 2009 ahead of an epic first round playoff series vs. Boston.

Chicago sent out Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis in the exchange, two shoot-first players who represented all of the organization’s worst impulses. Porter may have had a bloated contract, but he also had a history of being an analytics darling, twice finishing top-25 in the league in RPM. He provided stability at the Bulls’ biggest hole on the wing and gave them a much needed infusion of defense and shooting. The Bulls won six of the first eight games he played in.

The Bulls’ new worldview really took hold in free agency. Armed with more than $20 million in cap space and no delusions they’d be able to add a top-line star, Chicago instead targeted veterans who played both ends of the floor on short contracts that maintained cap space for a monster free agency class in 2021. It was a remarkable change of departure of their dubious recent history of wasting their money on empty calorie scorers meant to sell tickets rather than win games.

Thad Young was the first signing. The 31-year-old arrived with a reputation as one of the league’s best glue guys. Young was among the top forwards in steal rate and deflections. He had a history of making an impact on the offensive glass. He was also durable, missing only one game each of the last two seasons. He might not have been a go-to scorer, but he was the perfect complement for Chicago’s two young big men in Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr.

Tomas Satoransky was next. The 6’6 point guard rarely got a major opportunity with John Wall in front of him in Washington, but upon becoming the starter he upped the team’s pace, improved their three-point shooting, and showed a measure of restraint and efficiency that Chicago badly needed. He was signed to a three-year, $30 million deal Washington declined to match. The Bulls had fleeced the Wizards again, just as they had done in the Porter trade.

Luke Kornet was the final piece. Though he spent most of last season buried deep on the Knicks bench, he proved himself to be a competent 7’2 stretch center in limited minutes, going off for more than 20 points in three different games. Only two players took over 65 percent of their field goals from three-point range and had a block rate of better than four percent last year: Kornet and Brook Lopez. He also finished as a top-100 player in RPM. The Bulls signed him for just $4.5 million over two years.

What was so jarring about Chicago’s free agency class was how out of character it seemed. A year earlier, the Bulls bid against no one but themselves for Parker at $20 million annually with designs of starting him at small forward. It was a plan bound to fail from the very start, even before he drew headlines for saying players don’t get paid for defense (in his case, he was right). His signing was so reminiscent of the Bulls’ decision to give Dwyane Wade, another Chicago native, a massive deal only two years earlier. In both cases, the Bulls were ridiculed the moment they gave out the contracts. This wasn’t second guessing from critics, it was first guessing.

For once, it appeared the Bulls had learned something from their mistakes. When it was over, it felt like the number of winning players on the roster had been doubled.

Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

The Bulls didn’t just need better talent — they needed a better approach, too. It started to come to fruition when Chicago overhauled Boylen’s coaching staff, adding Nets assistant Chris Fleming and Rockets assistant Roy Rogers to the bench.

There has been a clear emphasis on improving where shots are coming from on the floor. A year ago, the Bulls finished with the fifth highest mid-range jumper frequency, per Cleaning the Glass, No. 20 in pace and No. 27 in three-point attempts per game. This year’s preseason represented a drastic change: the Bulls averaged 39.4 three-point attempts per game. They took more than 39 threes in a game once last season. The pace also noticeably shot up, as did the percentage of assisted field goals.

Instead of praying for internal improvement out of their young foundational pieces, the Bulls actually took the steps to put them in a position to succeed both schematically and personnel-wise this season.

LaVine had the best season of his career last year, but still found himself at the crossroads of a debate on production vs. impact. His defensive shortcomings should be minimized this season with better defenders like Porter and Young around him all year. His offense is going to take a big step up too if he continues his preseason focus of upping his three-point rate. As the Bulls finally get out in transition more this year, LaVine’s combination of speed and shooting becomes even more deadly. He should be an All-Star.

Markkanen and Carter remain a work in progress in the front court. The first step is staying healthy after both missed significant time last year. If they stay on the court, Chicago has a 7-foot sniper in Markkanen who should open driving lanes for others while developing his primary scoring potential. Markkanen is not the type of player who creates offense out of thin air — 68 percent of his fields were assisted last season — but he should be benefited by the Bulls’ putting an added emphasis on swinging the ball. Carter is a tremendous defensive prospect who was horribly misused on offense last year. Expect fewer post-ups and more chances to showcase his ability as a passer and shooter this season.

Rookie guard Coby White is even looking ahead of schedule. He finished as the preseason’s eighth leading scorer after catching fire from three-point range in Chicago’s finale. His speed is going to be an immediate difference-maker, but he’ll need to continue shooting well from deep to make an impact early in his career.

The Bulls changed their approach in one other notable way this season: they actually put expectations on themselves. Paxson said the goal for the team is to make the playoffs at media day. It would likely require at least an 18-win improvement. Last year, the Magic had the biggest single-season turnaround with a 17-win improvement, followed by the Bucks at 16.

Getting the No. 8 seed in the B-league conference is perhaps the least noble goal in the NBA, but it would note remarkable improvement for the Bulls. No one gets a Grant Park parade for being the last playoff seed in the East, but a run at it would temporarily pacify the fans as frustration with the front office was reaching a boiling point.

The Bulls still have so much room to grow. Gunning for the No. 8 seed will only feel good for so long. Going from terrible to maybe competent is one thing. Going from maybe competent to actually good is another. It’s on Paxson and long-time colleague Gar Forman to finally land a star in free agency two years from now. If nothing else, they learned a value lesson this offseason in what happens to perception when smart moves are made that add winning talent to the roster.

The Bulls appear to have done the impossible this season by drastically overhauling their process while keeping the same decision makers on staff. Will Chicago keep making sharp moves going forward or again find themselves giving into the tendencies that led to widespread criticism?

The Bulls are going to be fun this season. They might even be crash the playoff picture. Whether this is the first step in a climb up the NBA hierarchy or ultimately another stalled reboot is contingent on the Bulls proving they’ve changed for the better, forever.

[dmartin-blog]

Week 15 NFL odds, picks, how to watch, stream: Colts win thriller over Cowboys, Patriots over Steelers

via WordPress ift.tt/2Eyu2I4

I’ll be honest guys, I almost didn’t get my picks done this week and that’s because I decided that watching 71 straight replays of the “Miami Miracle” would be a better use of my time than finishing my Week 15 picks.

If you put the word “miracle” next to a football play, there’s a 100 percent chance that I’ll be watching it on a loop, non-stop, for at least three straight days. I didn’t leave my house for a month after the “Minneapolis Miracle.”

With the play in Miami, you have to watch it at least 10 times just to fully appreciate the poor tackling effort that Rob Gronkowski made at the end of Kenyan Drake’s run. You know what, let’s watch it one more time, because you can never watch it too many times.

That will never get old. Patriots fans are going to be forced to watch replays of that and the helmet catch for the rest of eternity, which is enough to make you feel good inside.

You know what else makes you feel good inside? Watching football, and we’ll be getting plenty of it this week. As a matter of fact, Week 15 is the only week of the entire NFL season where we get treated to four days of football (Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday). I’m not good at math, but I think that means more than half our week is going to involve football, which means I need to hurry up and get to these picks, because we don’t have any time to waste.

Actually, before we get to the fun stuff, here’s your weekly reminder to check out the picks from all our other CBS Sports NFL writers, which you can do by clicking here. Also, if you’re looking for a new podcast to listen to — and who isn’t — you can click here and subscribe to the Pick Six Podcast. I team up with Will Brinson, Ryan Wilson and Sean Wagner-McGough every week for an NFL recap show that you can download each and every Monday morning during the season. It’s basically music for your ears, except no one actually sings.

Alright, I think I’ve delayed long enough, so let’s get to these picks.

Stream Thursday’s game and all of Sunday’s games on fuboTV, try it for free, and stream the CBS games on CBS All Access.

NFL Week 15 Picks

L.A. Chargers (10-3) at Kansas City (11-2)

8:20 p.m. ET, Thursday (Fox/NFL Network)

Guys, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that this is the final Thursday night game of the season. That’s bad news because I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my Thursdays from here on out. Actually, you know what, I do have 17 Hallmark Christmas movies currently on my DVR and they’re not going to watch themselves. Now I just need to figure out if I want to watch “The Gingerbread Romance” or “Christmas Incorporated” first.

Now, I also said I have some good news and the good news is that the NFL is ending “Thursday Night Football” with a bang by giving us the Chargers and the Chiefs. There are only two teams in the NFL that have scored at least 20 points in every game this season and those two teams are playing in this game, which means there’s a 99 percent chance that we’re going to get a crazy shootout.

The one thing that makes this game difficult to predict is that both teams are dealing with some big injuries. On the Chiefs’ end, Tyreek Hill (wrist, heel) and Spencer Ware (shoulder, hamstring) are both battling injuries. On the Chargers’ end, they probably won’t have their two running backs this week: Melvin Gordon is still dealing with a knee injury and Austin Ekeler can’t really move his head right now.

#Chargers RB Austin Ekeler said his injured neck is very stiff and he can’t move his head a whole lot today. He’s officially day-to-day but he appears to have plenty of recovery to do quickly if he’s going to be available Thursday vs. KC.

— Jeff Miller (@JeffMillerLAT) December 10, 2018

Now, I’m not a doctor, but if you can’t move your head three days before you’re supposed to play in a football game, that probably means you’re not going to play in that football game.

Although the Chargers are going to be hurting at running back, the one thing they will have is all of their wide receivers, which is all Philip Rivers needs to win. In the first meeting between these two teams, Rivers threw for 424 yards and he might double that going up against a Chiefs passing defense that ranks dead last in the NFL this year.

As much as I like Rivers, there are a lot of reasons to pick the Chiefs in this game: They have the best record in the AFC, they’ve won nine straight against the Chargers, and home teams are 11-2 on “Thursday Night Football” this year. However, I’m not going to pick the Chiefs.

Back in August, I picked the Chargers to win the AFC West and I’m going to stand by my pick, because if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

Did I steal that quote from my niece’s tumblr page? Yes. Is it the most overused quote ever on the internet? Probably.

“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

— Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) February 15, 2012

Am I still picking the Chargers? Definitely.

The pick: Chargers 34-31 over Chiefs

The result: Chargers 29, Chiefs 28

What NFL picks can you make with confidence in Week 15? And which Super Bowl contender goes down hard? Visit SportsLine now to see which NFL teams are winning more than 50 percent of simulations, all from the model that has beaten 98 percent of experts over the past two years.

Dallas (8-5) at Indianapolis (7-6)

1 p.m. ET (Fox)

If the Cowboys make the playoffs this year, they should probably send a thank you note to Jon Gruden, and that’s because he’s basically single-handedly responsible for the the Cowboys success this year. Gruden hasn’t been able to turn the Raiders into a contender, but he turned the Cowboys into one when he decided to trade Amari Cooper from Oakland to Dallas. That deal took place on Oct. 22, and since then, the Cowboys have been unstoppable.

Cooper started his first game for the Cowboys in Week 9, and in the time period since then, he leads the NFL in both receiving yards (642) and receiving touchdowns (six). Oh, and the Cowboys are 5-1 in the six games that he’s played in. If Gruden hadn’t decided to implode his roster and sabotage his own team, none of this would have happened and the Cowboys wouldn’t have Cooper, so maybe they should send him a fruit basket and a gift card to Chili’s on top of that thank-you note. However, they definitely shouldn’t send him any cookie dough, because apparently, that stuff is bad for you.

I don’t want to say the CDC is overreacting, but I’ve been eating cookie dough every day for the past three weeks and I feel fine. As for this pick, I’m taking the Colts, and if I end up missing it, I’m blaming the cookie dough that the CDC said I wasn’t supposed to eat.

The pick: Colts 27-24 over Cowboys

Note: The Cowboys will clinch the NFC East with a win on Sunday, and although I’m not picking them, I am giving you a heads up so you can avoid all Cowboys fans for at least 24 hours after the clinching. As everyone knows, there’s nothing Cowboys fans like to talk about more than how amazing the Cowboys are. If you have a lot of friends who happen to be Cowboys fans, you might want to turn off your phone and quit all social media.

New England (9-4) at Pittsburgh (7-5-1)

4:25 p.m. ET (CBS)

The Patriots are coming into this game after losing on a miracle play in Week 14, and yet somehow, I’m fully convinced that the Steelers actually had the crazier loss on Sunday. For one, they lost to the Raiders, which is basically the NFL equivalent of hitting rock-bottom. The Raiders don’t even have a general manager. I mean, it doesn’t get any more demoralizing than losing to a team and then watching that team fire their general manager the next day.

I didn’t think it was possible for a first-place team to be in total disarray this late into the season, but the Steelers have proven me wrong. The most baffling part of the Raiders game is that Mike Tomlin kept his starting quarterback on the bench even though he was healthy enough to play. After Ben Roethlisberger left the game in the first half with a rib injury, he was ready to return in the third quarter, but Tomlin wouldn’t play him because he didn’t want to ruin the “rhythm and the flow of the game.” That would be like not pulling the chord on your parachute because you don’t want to ruin the rhythm and flow of your free fall. PULL THE CHORD OR YOUR SEASON IS OVER MIKE. Not pulling the chord would end in disaster and it’s starting to feel like that’s where the Steelers season is headed.

if Roethlisberger plays against the Patriots — and he likely will — he’s going to be dealing with a rib injury. If James Conner plays, he’ll be dealing with an ankle injury. The Steelers can’t beat the Patriots when they’re healthy, so I have no idea how they’re going to do it when they’re banged up.

I’ve been writing this picks column since 2013 and in that time, the Steelers have never beaten the Patriots. Including the playoffs, these two teams have met a total of five times over the past five years and the Patriots have won every game. Watching the Steelers choke against the Patriots has basically become an annual tradition and I don’t see that ending this year.

On the other hand, Roethlisberger did win a game on a miracle play once, so maybe the Patriots should be concerned.

The pick: Patriots 30-23 over Steelers

Seahawks special: Seattle (8-5) at San Francisco (3-10)

4:05 p.m. ET (Fox)

The fact that this section is back for another week can only mean one thing: My record picking Seahawks games this year is still perfect. This section will only exist as long as my record stays perfect, and right now, it’s sitting at 13-0. Last week, I said the Seahawks would win by double digits in a beatdown of the Vikings and that’s basically what happened on Monday night.

At this point, I’ve decided that if my streak continues, I’m going to start celebrating each new win. If I improve to 14-0 this week, I’m going to buy a Marshawn Lynch elf on the shelf, which sounds weird, but I don’t care. At $19.99, this thing is a steal.

I will say that I think the marketing team for the Marshawn elf blew it. I mean, how is this thing not called “Lynch on a bench?” You get all the fun of an Elf on the Shelf, except on a bench. Someone at NFL Shop needs to make that name change happen.

As for this week’s game, the Seahawks can clinch a playoff berth if they win, which means there’s a 100 percent chance I’m going to pick the Seahawks in this game, and I won’t be surprised if things gets ugly. For one, I’m pretty sure everyone in Seattle’s locker room is still slightly bitter about the fact that Richard Sherman called the Seahawks a “middle of the road team.”

If the Seahawks are a middle of the road team, then I’m not sure what that makes the 49ers. Not only did they lose to the Seahawks 43-16 back in Week 13, but they’ve also lost nine straight games to the Seahawks dating back to the beginning of the 2014 season.

This definitely has all the makings of a trap game, but with Sherman’s quote and the 49ers upsetting the Broncos on Sunday, I don’t think the Seahawks will be overlooking anyone.

The pick: Seahawks 31-20 over 49ers

NFL Week 15 picks: All the rest

Texans 27-20 over Jets

Browns 19-16 over Broncos

Falcons 20-13 over Cardinals

Bengals 30-27 over Raiders

Bills 23-16 over Lions

Bears 20-17 over Packers

Vikings 30-17 over Dolphins

Titans 23-20 over Giants

Jaguars 19-13 over Redskins

Ravens 24-16 over Buccaneers

Rams 34-23 over Eagles

Saints 31-24 over Panthers

Last Week

Best pick: Last week, I predicted the Falcons would score 20 points and lose to the Packers, and then the Falcons went out and scored 20 points and lost to the Packers. Of course, the reason I picked the Falcons to lose had nothing to do with the Falcons and everything to do with the Packers. When it comes to making picks, I only have one rule and that rule is that there’s a 100 percent chance I’m going to pick a team to win if they just fired their coach. However, I now feel bad for picking the Packers and taking advantage of Mike McCarthy getting fired, because apparently, he’s a classy guy.

Even though the Packers kicked him to the curb, McCarthy still took a out a full-page ad over the weekend to thank the team and fans for their support. That’s basically the complete opposite of the scorched earth tour that Hue Jackson went on after he got fired. You know, the one where he blamed everyone but himself for the Browns’ failures. Jackson also added insult to injury by taking a job just weeks later with one of the Browns’ biggest rivals.

To put this in layman’s terms, McCarthy’s firing would be the equivalent of a guy getting dumped and then sending his ex-girlfriend a thank you note for a wonderful relationship while Jackson’s firing would be the equivalent of a guy getting dumped and then setting his ex-girlfriend’s house on fire in the same week where he also started dating her slightly less attractive sister.

I think the lesson to be learned here is don’t date your ex-girlfriend’s sister.

Worst pick: Last week, I spent roughly three paragraphs talking about how the freezing cold weather in Chicago would have no effect on a team from California and let me just say that I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my entire life. Not only did I pick the Rams to beat the Bears, but I said they would score 26 points in the win. I’m not sure if you watched the game, but the Rams definitely didn’t beat the Bears and they didn’t come anywhere close to scoring 26 points.

I have no idea why I said the Rams could handle cold weather. As someone who lived in California for six years, I know for a fact that the only thing people in California hate more than non-organic food is cold weather. If it’s not beach weather, then there’s no reason to go outside, but it’s always beach weather, which is why everyone in California is always happy.

I mean, I can’t even type on a computer when the temperature drops below 35 degrees, so I’m not sure why I thought Jared Goff would be able to throw a football. Lesson learned, which means if the Rams play any playoff games this year in a cold-weather city or a city that doesn’t serve organic food, then I’ll definitely be picking against them.

Finally, if you guys have ever wondered which teams I’m actually good at picking, this is the part where I tell you, but I don’t need to tell you, because you already know. Through 14 weeks, I only have a perfect record picking one team: The Seahawks (13-0). Also, I’m 11-2 picking the Rams and 10-3 picking the 49ers, Chargers and Browns (9-3-1).

As for the rest of the NFL, I’m somewhere between 6-7 and 9-4 picking the 27 teams not listed above.

Picks record

Straight up in Week 14: 10-6SU overall: 132-74-2Against the spread in Week 14: 9-7ATS overall: 98-105-5Exact score predictions: 2

You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s probably re-enacting the Miami Miracle with his cats.

ift.tt/2FY3zVO

Posted by smashdownsportsnews on 2018-12-16 13:51:15

Tagged: , Featured , Football , News

The post Week 15 NFL odds, picks, how to watch, stream: Colts win thriller over Cowboys, Patriots over Steelers appeared first on Good Info.

[flauntpage]

Here's Who Will Play for the Stanley Cup

Welcome to the third-round preview. In round one, our predictions went an impressive seven-for-eight. In round two, uh, we reflected on the success of round one. Now we're down to four teams. Who'll advance to the Stanley Cup Final? We have no idea, but we're willing to pretend that we do.

Eastern Conference: Capitals vs. Lightning

In this corner: The Washington Capitals (49-36-7, 105 points, +18 true goals differential), who knocked off the defending champion Penguins to finally advance to the conference finals for the first time in the Alexander Ovechkin era.

The history books: This isn't quite uncharted territory for the Capitals, who made (and lost in) the 1998 final. But it's their first trip to the conference final in 20 years since, not to mention the first for any big four Washington team in that time span.

Injury report: Nicklas Backstrom missed the last game of the Pittsburgh series with some sort of hand injury, and we don't know when he'll be able to return. Andre Burakovsky is day to day.

The big question: Now what? The Capitals have been waiting to beat the Penguins and break through to the conference final for so long that you wonder what comes next. Maybe with the monkey off their back, they're just happy to be here and can't offer much resistance against an opponent that, on paper, should be the better team. But maybe not. Maybe with the dragon slain and the pressure finally off, they play the sort of playoff hockey they've always been capable of but never seemed able to summon.

One player to watch: Tom Wilson. You may as well keep an eye on him. We know the referees and the Department of Player Safety will be. All the Lightning players will, too, if they're smart. Wilson's a throwback to an earlier era, a player who still hits to hurt. Sometimes, he does it cleanly. Others, he throws those grey area hits that we all have to debate for days at a time. It caught up to him in round two, when he earned a three-game suspension for a high hit. He's eligible to return to start this series, and no doubt he'll claim that he won't change his style. But you have to figure he'll be second-guessing some opportunities to go for the big hit, if only to make sure he doesn't wind up back in the press box. The question is whether that helps or hurts his overall game.

Key number: 30.9% – The Capitals powerplay success rate through two rounds, good for second among all playoff teams. The only team higher: The Bruins, largely on the strength of going 5-for-12 against Tampa last round. Penalty killing has been one of the only weaknesses in the Lightning's game so far this postseason, so the Capitals will need to take advantage of any opportunities they can earn.

And in this corner: The Tampa Bay Lightning (54-23-5, 113 points, +56), who had a surprisingly easy time with the Bruins while winning their second-round matchup in five.

The history books: This is the Lightning's third trip to the conference final in the last four years, and fourth of the salary cap era. None of those trips resulted in a Stanley Cup; the Lightning last won it all in 2004.

Injury report: They're just about as healthy as a team can realistically be at this point.

The big question: Did we finally just see what this team can do? The Lightning were the league's best team early on, but stumbled as the season wore on. They got the job done against the overmatched Devils, but never looked especially scary. But last round's performance against a very good Boston team was different—this was a team that finally looked like a Stanley Cup favorite. Whether they're peaking at the right time or were just coasting through the second half, this looked like the Lightning's fully evolved form. Or maybe they just got hot for a few days. Let's find out.

One player to watch: Brayden Point. He had a brutal Game 1 against Boston, going -5. But from then on, he had six points and Lightning coach Jon Cooper thought he was the best player in the series. He may be right. All eyes will be Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos, but if Point can stay hot then the Lightning will have two lines that will be hard to stop.

Key number: 187:20 – Consecutive minutes that the Lightning held the Bruins without a 5-on-5 goal over the last four games of their series. And both of Boston's Game 2 goals came from defensemen; you have to go back 253:07 to find the Bruins' last 5-on-5 goal by a forward. That would be impressive against most teams. Against an even-strength juggernaut like the Bruins, it's borderline impossible. We already covered the Caps' edge on special teams. But given how reluctant referees have been to call penalties lately, if the Lightning can dominate 5-on-5 like that, they're unbeatable.

Head-to-head: The Lightning took two of three. The two teams haven't met since February.

Dominant narrative: Offensive firepower. Both teams have solid bluelines built around a big star and goaltenders who can steal games when they're on. But the focus will be on all the star power up front. We can start with Ovechkin vs. Stamkos, a pair of former first overall picks who've combined to win 9 of the last 11 goal-scoring titles. Kucherov is taking a run at Ovechkin's status as the league's biggest Russian star, while Backstrom's return would be huge. Then there's Evgeny Kuznetsov, Point, T.J. Oshie, Yanni Gourde… you get the picture.

Whenever you get this much offensive talent in the same series, we usually wind up with a bunch of dull 2-1 games. But maybe, just maybe, these two teams turn the big guns loose and we get some real fireworks. Please, hockey gods. One time.

Prediction: Capitals in six.

Bonus prediction that is oddly specific: We get a game that goes into overtime tied 0-0.

Western Conference: Winnipeg Jets vs. Golden Knights

In this corner: The Winnipeg Jets (52-20-10, 114 points, +57), thanks to last night's Game 7 road win in Nashville.

The history books: This is uncharted territory for Winnipeg, where the two versions of the Jets have never made an appearance in the conference final. They've never even won a game in round two until this year.

Injury report: Dmitry Kulikov is the only name on the list, and he doesn't sound like he'll be returning this year.

The big question: Can a well-rested underdog beat a team that's better but banged up? The Jets' injury report might be a short one, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of guys hurting after a long series that took its toll. On paper, Winnipeg is the better team. But the Knights will have had almost a full week off by the time this gets started. That matters at this time of year.

One player to watch: Blake Wheeler. The 31-year-old captain isn't the team's best player—that's Mark Scheifele. He's not their most exciting—that's Patrik Laine. He's not the highest-paid—that's Dustin Byfuglien. He's certainly not the most important—Connor Hellebuyck, like any goaltender at this time of year, wears that crown. But Wheeler is the team's leader, its heart and soul, and (thanks to a surprising career year) its leading scorer. When he's going, the top line is just about unstoppable and the Jets win. He had four multi-point games in the Predators series and the Jets won them all. If he keeps that up in this series, it may not last long.

Key number: .444 – The Jets' regular season win percentage in games they trailed at the first intermission, the best mark in the NHL. By comparison, the Knights' winning percentage when they lead after one was .750, which placed them right in the middle of the league. The Knights have had some quick starts in the playoffs, but the Jets just aren't a team you can put away early.

And in this corner: The Vegas Golden Knights (51-24-7, 109 points, +43), who swept the Kings and then knocked out the Sharks in six.

Injury report: The pride of every other GM in the league is listed as day to day. Otherwise, the Knights might be missing William Carrier and that's about it.

The big question: How? Why? Does anything make sense anymore? Has parity gone too far? Were the other 30 NHL teams always just incompetent and we didn't realize it until just now? Are we all just living in a simulation where they're trying to see how ridiculous a pro sports storyline can be before we stop buying it? Are there any objective rules to how things work in the universe? Isn't this a lot more than one question? Does it matter? Does anything matter? WHY WOULD ANYTHING MATTER?

One player to watch: Marc-Andre Fleury. It's the obvious pick, but I'm flailing around for something solid to grasp onto. Fleury has been amazing through two rounds, and has already lapped the field in terms of Conn Smythe odds. He's been so good, in fact, that you could be forgiven for forgetting that there was a time when he was considered a terrible playoff goaltender—and rightly so. He was awful in four straight postseasons from 2010 to 2013, and he lost his starting job to Matt Murray in both of the Penguins' last two Cup runs. Now he's 33 and giving off a "Dominik Hasek at the 1998 Olympics" vibe. Nothing matters.

Key number: 34.4 – Shots allowed per game by the Knights in this year's playoffs, easily the most among the remaining teams. That's somewhat misleading, because they've played a lot of overtime. But it still drives home how much this team is relying on Fleury right now. If he goes cold, or even just goes back to hot instead of supernova, they could be in trouble unless the defense can tighten up in front of him.

Head-to-head: The Knights won two of three. The teams haven't met since Feb. 1.

Dominant narrative: The flavor of the month vs. the Canadian old school. Every year around this time, somebody calls on Canadian fans to unite behind the country's last remaining team, and every year those fans tell that person to get bent. When it comes to hockey, we don't do unity up here. But this year could be different. The Jets were already the most likable bandwagon team in the league, and now their path to bringing the Cup home is blocked by… these guys? With their goofy pregame shows and weird gloves and laser shows? This is playoff hockey—it's not supposed to be fun. You have to earn your shot at the Stanley Cup, and Winnipeg has four decades of scars to prove it.

Prediction: Jets in five.

Bonus prediction that is oddly specific: Fleury gets pulled in Game 1.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports CA.

Here's Who Will Play for the Stanley Cup published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[stopkingobama]

100 years later, socialism's horrors are even worse than you thought

Image: CC0

The propaganda of the old Soviet Union referred to it for decades as the “Great October Socialist Revolution,” the momentous event that brought Vladimir Lenin to power and gave birth to seventy-four years of Communist Party rule. We are presently on the eve of its centennial.

It is not an anniversary that anyone should celebrate.

For decent people everywhere, nothing about the Russian tragedy of 1917 is worth commemorating. Everything about it, however, is worth remembering—and learning important lessons from. The carnage wrought by the ideology that ascended to power a century ago may forever stand as an evil unsurpassed in the annals of human depravity. If you’re not sure just what that ideology was, or what to call it, perhaps this article will help.

I first became an activist for liberty 49 years ago, in response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. So in part for personal reasons, I could not let this centennial milestone pass without noting it in some way.

The victims of the Soviet regime and the other tyrannies it spawned in the 20th Century approach 100 million in number, but can any article, book, or voluminous collection of both ever adequately do justice to the stories of their agony and sacrifice? Of course not. So with that limitation in mind, I choose to note the occasion by telling you a little about just two of those 100 million. Their names are Gareth Jones and Boris Kornfeld.

__________

Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones was born in Wales on August 13, 1905. Both his parents were middle-class educators determined that their son would get the best education possible. By his 25th year, young Gareth had earned degrees in French, German and Russian from the University of Wales and Trinity College at Cambridge University. Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George hired him almost immediately as his Foreign Affairs Advisor, a remarkable assignment for a 25-year-old.

Gareth must have thought the world was his oyster. Little did he know he would soon be a celebrity journalist of international standing, and dead before his 30th birthday.

In the early 1930s, Jones undertook two fact-finding missions to Stalin’s Soviet Union. He published several well-received articles in major Western newspapers about his observations. Before a third visit in March 1933, he picked up credible information that conditions in Ukraine, then one of the 15 Soviet republics, were dire. He resolved to find out for himself and scheduled a third mission for March 1933.

A month before that fateful journey, Jones found himself invited by officials in Germany to cover a political rally in Frankfurt. Adolf Hitler had just been named Chancellor in January. Three days before the February 27 burning of the Reichstag, Jones was one of a small handful of people on a plane bound for that rally with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. As he witnessed the popular adulation of the man who would soon assume the mantle of “Fuhrer,” Jones sensed the troubles ahead. If only the plane in which he flew with Hitler and Goebbels had crashed, he later wrote, the history of Europe would have been very different.

With his assignment in Germany behind him, Jones arrived in Moscow in March. Travel from there to Ukraine was forbidden, but that didn’t prevent him from eluding Soviet authorities and making his way there anyway. What he saw and heard horrified him. By the end of the month, he was back in Berlin and reporting to the world. In an article published in the New York Evening Post, Britain’s Manchester Guardian and many other papers, he wrote:

I walked along through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, “There is no bread. We are dying.” … I tramped through the black earth region because that was once the richest farmland and because the correspondents have been forbidden to go there to see for themselves what is happening.

In the train, a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. I flung a crust of bread which I had been eating from my own supply into a spittoon. A peasant fellow-passenger fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw an orange peel into the spittoon and the peasant again grabbed it and devoured it. The Communist subsided.

I stayed overnight in a village where there used to be two hundred oxen and where there now are six. The peasants were eating the cattle fodder and had only a month’s supply left. They told me that many had already died of hunger. Two soldiers came to arrest a thief. They warned me against travel by night, as there were too many ‘starving’ desperate men.

“We are waiting for death” was my welcome… “Go farther south. There they have nothing. Many houses are empty of people already dead,” they cried.

Jones had walked into one of the Great October Socialist Revolution’s most heinous crimes: the Holodomor of 1932-33. Known also as the Terror-Famine and the Ukrainian Genocide, it was an intentional, man-made, planned-from-the-top catastrophe that claimed the lives of between four and ten million people. From Stalin on down, Communist officialdom engineered it to crush Ukrainian resistance to the forced collectivization of agriculture. Two years and millions of deaths later, Stalin would declare in a speech, “Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.”

In Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, historian Timothy Snyder refers to the widespread cannibalism during the disaster:

Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was “not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you.” The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did.

Twenty-seven year-old Gareth Jones was the first journalist to reveal the infamous Ukrainian famine to the outside world. No credible person today denies that it occurred. But in March 1933, Jones was shocked to find his revelations met with denunciation from some veteran and highly-respected journalists.

Chief among the deniers was reporter and Soviet sympathizer Walter Duranty of the New York Times. On March 31, Duranty penned a piece for The Times in which he claimed Jones’s report to be a fabrication. He even cited Kremlin sources (as if they were to be trusted), who labeled Jones a flat-out liar.

Duranty never apologized for his allegations against Jones, nor did he ever retract his “there is no famine” propaganda. He would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his “coverage” of the Soviet Union. Decades later, The Times conceded that his articles amounted to “some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper.” Duranty was a classic example of what Vladimir Lenin disdainfully labeled “useful idiots.” (They’re still around, by the way, in disturbing abundance. You can learn more about them in the works of sociologist Paul Hollander, here, here, and here.

Moscow despised the fact that Jones had found a way to get into Ukraine against its wishes. Telling the world about conditions there put him on the official black list. Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov (whom Jones had interviewed in Moscow) wrote a personal letter to Lloyd George, informing him that his colleague Jones would never be allowed entry into the Soviet Union again.

Two years later, Jones and a German journalist covered events in turbulent China. They were captured by bandits who released the German within two days but held on to Jones for sixteen more. Then under mysterious circumstances on August 12, 1935—the day before his 30th birthday—Jones was shot to death. As a BBC documentary suggests, the evidence tying the murder to the Soviet secret police is very strong.

Two weeks after Jones’ killing, David Lloyd George paid tribute to his young friend:

That part of the world is a cauldron of conflicting intrigue and one or other interests concerned probably knew that Mr Gareth Jones knew too much of what was going on… He had a passion for finding out what was happening in foreign lands wherever there was trouble, and in pursuit of his investigations he shrank from no risk… I had always been afraid that he would take one risk too many. Nothing escaped his observation, and he allowed no obstacle to turn from his course when he thought that there was some fact, which he could obtain. He had the almost unfailing knack of getting at things that mattered.

Gareth Jones didn’t live to see his courageous reporting vindicated, but his memory is celebrated today in Ukraine, where he is a national hero.

________

Exactly when Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld was born, no one seems to know now for sure. We might know nothing of him today were it not for a few paragraphs in a famous book by a man—for the moment, let me simply refer to him as Mr. X—whose life he hugely affected and perhaps even helped save.

We do know that in the late 1940s, Kornfeld was a prisoner incarcerated at Ekibastuz, a notorious forced-labor camp in Soviet Siberia. We know that Kornfeld was a doctor by profession and was sometimes ordered to tend to other prisoners. He was Jewish, but was apparently so affected by the faith and stoicism of Christian prisoners in the camp that he converted. He felt a powerful compulsion to tell others about Christianity, at great risk to himself.

In his famous book, Mr. X writes this about his encounter with Dr. Kornfeld:

Following an operation, I am lying in the surgical ward of a camp hospital. I cannot move. I am hot and feverish, but nonetheless my thoughts do not dissolve into delirium, and I am grateful to Dr. Boris Nikolayevich Kornfeld, who is sitting beside my cot and talking to me all evening. The light has been turned out, so it will not hurt my eyes. There is no one else in the ward.

Fervently he tells me the long story of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. I am astonished at the conviction of the new convert, at the ardor of his words.

We know each other very slightly, and he was not the one responsible for my treatment, but there was simply no one here with whom he could share his feelings. He was a gentle and well-mannered person. I could see nothing bad in him, nor did I know anything bad about him. However, I was on guard because Kornfeld had now been living for two months inside the hospital barracks, without going outside. He had shut himself up in here, at his place of work, and avoided moving around camp at all.

This meant that he was afraid of having his throat cut. In our camp it had recently become fashionable to cut the throats of stool pigeons. This has an effect. But who could guarantee that only stoolies were getting their throats cut? One prisoner had had his throat cut in a clear case of settling a sordid grudge. Therefore the self-imprisonment of Kornfeld in the hospital did not necessarily prove that he was a stool pigeon.

It is already late. The whole hospital is asleep. Kornfeld is finishing his story…I cannot see his face. Through the window come only the scattered reflections of the lights of the perimeter outside. The door from the corridor gleams in a yellow electrical glow. But there is such mystical knowledge in his voice that I shudder.

Those were the last words of Boris Kornfeld. Noiselessly he went into one of the nearby wards and there lay down to sleep. Everyone slept. There was no one with whom he could speak. I went off to sleep myself.

I was wakened in the morning by running about and tramping in the corridor; the orderlies were carrying Kornfeld’s body to the operating room. He had been dealt eight blows on the skull with a plasterer’s mallet while he slept. He died on the operating table, without regaining consciousness.

Who was the “famous” Mr. X who penned those words? None other than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ten years a prisoner in what he would later immortalize as “The Gulag Archipelago” in the title of one of the greatest literary and historical works of the 20th Century. The future Nobel laureate Solzhenitsyn acknowledged that Kornfeld played a key role in his mental and spiritual resolve to endure ghastly circumstances. When the Gulag manuscript was smuggled out and appeared in print in the West in 1973, it blew away whatever was left of the myth of Soviet socialism’s “workers’ paradise.”

Boris Kornfeld was not just a number. He, like the other 80 or 90 or 100 million victims of the Great October Socialist Revolution, was a real human being. He had a name, a family, plans and ambitions, likes and dislikes, joys and sorrows. Thankfully, he had more than a little decency too. He shared truth and inspiration and suffered for it. But we have good reason to believe that in his courage, channeled to the soul of another man, he helped bring an end to a truly Evil Empire.

Gareth Jones would, I’m quite sure, be very pleased with that outcome.

These further words of Solzhenitsyn provide me with an appropriate conclusion. Think about them:

Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.

In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion.  

The Great October Socialist Revolution was a calamity of the first order. Let us make no excuses for it. Ever.

Author’s Note: Please consider attending this important centennial event on November 7, 2017 in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education and author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[americanlibertypac]

100 years later, socialism's horrors are even worse than you thought

Image: CC0

The propaganda of the old Soviet Union referred to it for decades as the “Great October Socialist Revolution,” the momentous event that brought Vladimir Lenin to power and gave birth to seventy-four years of Communist Party rule. We are presently on the eve of its centennial.

It is not an anniversary that anyone should celebrate.

For decent people everywhere, nothing about the Russian tragedy of 1917 is worth commemorating. Everything about it, however, is worth remembering—and learning important lessons from. The carnage wrought by the ideology that ascended to power a century ago may forever stand as an evil unsurpassed in the annals of human depravity. If you’re not sure just what that ideology was, or what to call it, perhaps this article will help.

I first became an activist for liberty 49 years ago, in response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. So in part for personal reasons, I could not let this centennial milestone pass without noting it in some way.

The victims of the Soviet regime and the other tyrannies it spawned in the 20th Century approach 100 million in number, but can any article, book, or voluminous collection of both ever adequately do justice to the stories of their agony and sacrifice? Of course not. So with that limitation in mind, I choose to note the occasion by telling you a little about just two of those 100 million. Their names are Gareth Jones and Boris Kornfeld.

__________

Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones was born in Wales on August 13, 1905. Both his parents were middle-class educators determined that their son would get the best education possible. By his 25th year, young Gareth had earned degrees in French, German and Russian from the University of Wales and Trinity College at Cambridge University. Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George hired him almost immediately as his Foreign Affairs Advisor, a remarkable assignment for a 25-year-old.

Gareth must have thought the world was his oyster. Little did he know he would soon be a celebrity journalist of international standing, and dead before his 30th birthday.

In the early 1930s, Jones undertook two fact-finding missions to Stalin’s Soviet Union. He published several well-received articles in major Western newspapers about his observations. Before a third visit in March 1933, he picked up credible information that conditions in Ukraine, then one of the 15 Soviet republics, were dire. He resolved to find out for himself and scheduled a third mission for March 1933.

A month before that fateful journey, Jones found himself invited by officials in Germany to cover a political rally in Frankfurt. Adolf Hitler had just been named Chancellor in January. Three days before the February 27 burning of the Reichstag, Jones was one of a small handful of people on a plane bound for that rally with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. As he witnessed the popular adulation of the man who would soon assume the mantle of “Fuhrer,” Jones sensed the troubles ahead. If only the plane in which he flew with Hitler and Goebbels had crashed, he later wrote, the history of Europe would have been very different.

With his assignment in Germany behind him, Jones arrived in Moscow in March. Travel from there to Ukraine was forbidden, but that didn’t prevent him from eluding Soviet authorities and making his way there anyway. What he saw and heard horrified him. By the end of the month, he was back in Berlin and reporting to the world. In an article published in the New York Evening Post, Britain’s Manchester Guardian and many other papers, he wrote:

I walked along through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, “There is no bread. We are dying.” … I tramped through the black earth region because that was once the richest farmland and because the correspondents have been forbidden to go there to see for themselves what is happening.

In the train, a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. I flung a crust of bread which I had been eating from my own supply into a spittoon. A peasant fellow-passenger fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw an orange peel into the spittoon and the peasant again grabbed it and devoured it. The Communist subsided.

I stayed overnight in a village where there used to be two hundred oxen and where there now are six. The peasants were eating the cattle fodder and had only a month’s supply left. They told me that many had already died of hunger. Two soldiers came to arrest a thief. They warned me against travel by night, as there were too many ‘starving’ desperate men.

“We are waiting for death” was my welcome… “Go farther south. There they have nothing. Many houses are empty of people already dead,” they cried.

Jones had walked into one of the Great October Socialist Revolution’s most heinous crimes: the Holodomor of 1932-33. Known also as the Terror-Famine and the Ukrainian Genocide, it was an intentional, man-made, planned-from-the-top catastrophe that claimed the lives of between four and ten million people. From Stalin on down, Communist officialdom engineered it to crush Ukrainian resistance to the forced collectivization of agriculture. Two years and millions of deaths later, Stalin would declare in a speech, “Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.”

In Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, historian Timothy Snyder refers to the widespread cannibalism during the disaster:

Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was “not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you.” The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did.

Twenty-seven year-old Gareth Jones was the first journalist to reveal the infamous Ukrainian famine to the outside world. No credible person today denies that it occurred. But in March 1933, Jones was shocked to find his revelations met with denunciation from some veteran and highly-respected journalists.

Chief among the deniers was reporter and Soviet sympathizer Walter Duranty of the New York Times. On March 31, Duranty penned a piece for The Times in which he claimed Jones’s report to be a fabrication. He even cited Kremlin sources (as if they were to be trusted), who labeled Jones a flat-out liar.

Duranty never apologized for his allegations against Jones, nor did he ever retract his “there is no famine” propaganda. He would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his “coverage” of the Soviet Union. Decades later, The Times conceded that his articles amounted to “some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper.” Duranty was a classic example of what Vladimir Lenin disdainfully labeled “useful idiots.” (They’re still around, by the way, in disturbing abundance. You can learn more about them in the works of sociologist Paul Hollander, here, here, and here.

Moscow despised the fact that Jones had found a way to get into Ukraine against its wishes. Telling the world about conditions there put him on the official black list. Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov (whom Jones had interviewed in Moscow) wrote a personal letter to Lloyd George, informing him that his colleague Jones would never be allowed entry into the Soviet Union again.

Two years later, Jones and a German journalist covered events in turbulent China. They were captured by bandits who released the German within two days but held on to Jones for sixteen more. Then under mysterious circumstances on August 12, 1935—the day before his 30th birthday—Jones was shot to death. As a BBC documentary suggests, the evidence tying the murder to the Soviet secret police is very strong.

Two weeks after Jones’ killing, David Lloyd George paid tribute to his young friend:

That part of the world is a cauldron of conflicting intrigue and one or other interests concerned probably knew that Mr Gareth Jones knew too much of what was going on… He had a passion for finding out what was happening in foreign lands wherever there was trouble, and in pursuit of his investigations he shrank from no risk… I had always been afraid that he would take one risk too many. Nothing escaped his observation, and he allowed no obstacle to turn from his course when he thought that there was some fact, which he could obtain. He had the almost unfailing knack of getting at things that mattered.

Gareth Jones didn’t live to see his courageous reporting vindicated, but his memory is celebrated today in Ukraine, where he is a national hero.

________

Exactly when Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld was born, no one seems to know now for sure. We might know nothing of him today were it not for a few paragraphs in a famous book by a man—for the moment, let me simply refer to him as Mr. X—whose life he hugely affected and perhaps even helped save.

We do know that in the late 1940s, Kornfeld was a prisoner incarcerated at Ekibastuz, a notorious forced-labor camp in Soviet Siberia. We know that Kornfeld was a doctor by profession and was sometimes ordered to tend to other prisoners. He was Jewish, but was apparently so affected by the faith and stoicism of Christian prisoners in the camp that he converted. He felt a powerful compulsion to tell others about Christianity, at great risk to himself.

In his famous book, Mr. X writes this about his encounter with Dr. Kornfeld:

Following an operation, I am lying in the surgical ward of a camp hospital. I cannot move. I am hot and feverish, but nonetheless my thoughts do not dissolve into delirium, and I am grateful to Dr. Boris Nikolayevich Kornfeld, who is sitting beside my cot and talking to me all evening. The light has been turned out, so it will not hurt my eyes. There is no one else in the ward.

Fervently he tells me the long story of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. I am astonished at the conviction of the new convert, at the ardor of his words.

We know each other very slightly, and he was not the one responsible for my treatment, but there was simply no one here with whom he could share his feelings. He was a gentle and well-mannered person. I could see nothing bad in him, nor did I know anything bad about him. However, I was on guard because Kornfeld had now been living for two months inside the hospital barracks, without going outside. He had shut himself up in here, at his place of work, and avoided moving around camp at all.

This meant that he was afraid of having his throat cut. In our camp it had recently become fashionable to cut the throats of stool pigeons. This has an effect. But who could guarantee that only stoolies were getting their throats cut? One prisoner had had his throat cut in a clear case of settling a sordid grudge. Therefore the self-imprisonment of Kornfeld in the hospital did not necessarily prove that he was a stool pigeon.

It is already late. The whole hospital is asleep. Kornfeld is finishing his story…I cannot see his face. Through the window come only the scattered reflections of the lights of the perimeter outside. The door from the corridor gleams in a yellow electrical glow. But there is such mystical knowledge in his voice that I shudder.

Those were the last words of Boris Kornfeld. Noiselessly he went into one of the nearby wards and there lay down to sleep. Everyone slept. There was no one with whom he could speak. I went off to sleep myself.

I was wakened in the morning by running about and tramping in the corridor; the orderlies were carrying Kornfeld’s body to the operating room. He had been dealt eight blows on the skull with a plasterer’s mallet while he slept. He died on the operating table, without regaining consciousness.

Who was the “famous” Mr. X who penned those words? None other than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ten years a prisoner in what he would later immortalize as “The Gulag Archipelago” in the title of one of the greatest literary and historical works of the 20th Century. The future Nobel laureate Solzhenitsyn acknowledged that Kornfeld played a key role in his mental and spiritual resolve to endure ghastly circumstances. When the Gulag manuscript was smuggled out and appeared in print in the West in 1973, it blew away whatever was left of the myth of Soviet socialism’s “workers’ paradise.”

Boris Kornfeld was not just a number. He, like the other 80 or 90 or 100 million victims of the Great October Socialist Revolution, was a real human being. He had a name, a family, plans and ambitions, likes and dislikes, joys and sorrows. Thankfully, he had more than a little decency too. He shared truth and inspiration and suffered for it. But we have good reason to believe that in his courage, channeled to the soul of another man, he helped bring an end to a truly Evil Empire.

Gareth Jones would, I’m quite sure, be very pleased with that outcome.

These further words of Solzhenitsyn provide me with an appropriate conclusion. Think about them:

Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.

In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion.  

The Great October Socialist Revolution was a calamity of the first order. Let us make no excuses for it. Ever.

Author’s Note: Please consider attending this important centennial event on November 7, 2017 in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education and author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[rtawngs20815]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qgvxmB

[realtor10036]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qgvxmB

[rtscrndr53704]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qgvxmB

[porchenclose10019]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qgvxmB

[grgedoors02142]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qgvxmB

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2qgvxmB

[repwincostl4m0a2]

In 100 Days, Trump Has Found 29 Ways To Screw Regular Americans

President Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of forgotten and downtrodden Americans ― a risible but tried-and-true platform ― but the first 100 days of his presidency have been decidedly un-populist.

Amid Trump’s deluge of unsubstantiated claims and the chaos of his administration, it can be challenging to keep track of what campaign promises he has or hasn’t fulfilled.

So here’s a list of 29 things Trump has done so far that cater to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans:

1. Trump reversed a planned decrease in the cost of mortgage insurance for working- and middle-class homebuyers. Within hours of being sworn in, Trump put a hold on a reduction in the cost of Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance. The move means 750,000 to 850,000 Americans will face higher costs in the next year alone, according to the National Association of Realtors.

2. He nominated to run the Treasury Department a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who activists say ran a “foreclosure machine.” Steven Mnuchin misled senators by saying the bank he invested in and ran didn’t use illegal robo-signings (documents showed they did) and omitted $100 million in assets from his personal financial disclosure forms. Oh, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating claims his bank engaged in the racist practice of redlining.

3. Mnuchin is painfully under-informed about automation’s potential to decimate labor. In an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, Mnuchin said he was “not at all” concerned about the potential shocks to the labor market that advances in automation might have, insisting that the timeline for such concerns was “50 or 100 years.”

As The Verge’s Adi Robinson noted, “[a] December report from the White House cited studies that estimate automation will affect between 9 percent and 47 percent of jobs over the next 10 to 20 years.”

4. Trump tried to put a fast-food executive in charge of the Labor Department. After running a campaign focused on the economy’s forgotten workers, Trump plucked the chief executive of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains to lead the nation’s top workplace watchdog. While Andrew Puzder ran parent company CKE Restaurants, Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. franchises around the country violated the very labor laws that Puzder would have been expected to enforce. Puzder’s nomination eventually went down in flames ― not due to his company’s labor record, but because of old domestic abuse allegations and because he’d personally employed an undocumented immigrant.

5. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Mnuchin. Former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn’s influence in the West Wing has grown considerably in Trump’s first 100 days. Cohn’s developed such a strong hand internally that he is currently thought to be a leading contender for Reince Priebus’ job, should any staff shakeup create the need for a new White House chief of staff. As HuffPost has noted, “Cohn’s appointment as White House chief of staff wouldn’t just be a boon for bank lobbyists seeking lucrative new loopholes. It would be a restoration of finance to the center of American politics.”

6. Goldman Sachs’ influence in the Trump White House doesn’t end with Gary Cohn, either. Trump nominated former Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with making sure the financial sector behaves itself. In the wake of Clayton’s nomination, his old firm carefully trimmed his 800-word biography ― which detailed his adventures helping Wall Street firms navigate the legal terrain in pursuit of mergers, acquisitions and capital market offerings ― down to a more concise 30.

Here’s an even more concise biography: Clayton is probably best known as Goldman Sachs’ bailout lawyer.

7. Trump named a billionaire investor as an anti-regulation czar. Trump named Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulation, which is awkward, given the dozens and dozens of regulations that materially affect Ichan’s investments. He is particularly incensed by an EPA renewable fuel rule that applies to an oil refinery in which he owns a stake.

Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. Peter Thiel, "Zero To One"

8. Trump named a huge fan of monopolies to lead the search for anti-trust regulators. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump gave billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel the go-ahead to lead the search for his administration’s “top antitrust enforcement jobs.” Thiel, who sits on the board of world-devouring platform Facebook, came out as a committed monopolist in his book Zero To One: “Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.”

9. Overall, Trump’s advisers live in an elitist bubble. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump reported in April, Trump has staffed his White House with a collection of plutocrats who possess a staggering collective wealth: “Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who work for him are worth a combined $2.3 billion thanks to real estate, investments and hefty salaries.” That’s more money than 86 counties’ worth of Trump voters make in a year.

10. Trump moved to kill a rule that forces Wall Street to act in the best interest of Americans saving for retirement. Trump signed a memo that put the fiduciary rule — which requires brokers act in the best interests of folks saving for retirement — on the path to the glue factory. His adviser Cohn likened the move to “freedom,” saying, “This is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Not exactly: The rule literally forbade brokers from guiding retirees “into expensive or poor-performing products that carry economic benefits and perks for the advisers and their firms, without disclosing such conflicts of interest.” It’s estimated that consumers lose $17 billion annually to such scams.

11. Trump took aim at post-crisis bank regulation. Trump signed an executive order in February that by itself doesn’t undo Dodd-Frank, but starts a process that could defang Wall Street oversight. Technically, the administration is still in the “just asking questions” phase of financial de-regulation, but Trump has been clear about his intentions, saying that “we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank.” Trump signed the order after a meeting earlier that day with big-time Wall Street executives, at one point telling JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie, so you’re going to tell me about it.”

Trump signed two more executive orders in April asking the Treasury Department to review governmental authority to take over failing financial companies, and to review rules that allow for the regulation of financial companies other than banks as systemically important.

12. Trump outlined a budget that’s broadly punitive to Trump’s own voters. The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reports Trump’s proposed budget includes cuts that “would disproportionately harm the rural areas and small towns that were key to his unexpected win.”

13. Trump has instigated a trade war that will hit Americans first. The Dallas Morning News reported that Texas cattle ranchers have emerged as the “first casualty” of Trump’s “blundering, blustering trade policy.” Per contributor Richard Parker: “By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.”

14. Trump has backed health care proposals with a common theme: subsidize the wealthy while jacking up prices on the poor with shock cost increases. Both Trump-backed Obamacare replacements are broadly redistributive, but not in any discernibly populist direction. Rather, they shift wealth from poorer Americans to wealthier ones and corporations. People earning over a $1 million, in fact, would have “saved an estimated $165 billion in taxes over 10 years.” The tax benefits would be financed through draconian cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor.

15. The plan also features substantial cuts in drug treatment protocols to address the nation’s opioid crisis. As CNN’s Dan Merica reported: “The current version of the Trump-backed Republican health care plan would end the Obamacare requirement that addiction services and mental health treatment be covered under Medicaid in the 31 states that expanded the health care program. The GOP plan would instead leave up to states ― and their budgets ― to decide whether to cover drug treatment and mental health services under Medicaid. That’s a decision advocates say could put the most vulnerable opiate abusers in greater risk, thanks to near-constant pressure on state budgets.”

16. Good news for employers who like stealing from their workers! Trump signed a bill, sent to him by Congress, that repeals the sensible-sounding Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, put in place by Obama. The rule would have required companies to disclose labor law violations when they bid on federal contracts, so that the government doesn’t steer taxpayer dollars toward companies that cheat or endanger workers. By repealing the rule, Trump did a favor for companies that have a history of wage theft and workplace hazards.  

17. Trump delayed a life-saving protection for construction workers. Earlier this month, Trump put a halt to the most consequential workplace safety reform of the last decade. The so-called silica rule would reduce the amount of cancer-causing dust that companies can legally expose construction workers to. The tighter regulations rolled out last year were 45 years in the making and are projected to save 600 lives per year. But the Trump administration announced a three-month delay to enforcing the rule, drawing applause from the construction industry. Workplace watchdogs now worry the regulations will be watered down or scrapped altogether.

18. Trump made it harder for low-wage workers to save for retirement. The Obama administration took steps to popularize what are known as automatic IRA accounts. These are government-sponsored retirement plans set up for people who don’t have IRA’s through their jobs, i.e., much of the working class and working poor. Even though these plans once enjoyed conservative support, Trump repealed Obama’s executive order that would have made it easier for cities and counties to set up these auto-IRA’s. That surely pleased Wall Street, which doesn’t like how these IRA’s compete with its own offerings.

19. Trump made it easier for employers to hide worker injuries. Earlier this month, Trump loosened the record-keeping requirements for employers in dangerous industries. Instead of having to keep accurate injury records for six years, employers can only be held accountable for the last six months. Occupational health experts say the change will make it easier for companies to sweep injuries under the rug. “This will give license to employers to keep fraudulent records and to willfully violate the law with impunity,” a former OSHA policy adviser told HuffPost.

20. Trump weakened rules on lobbyists working in his administration. Trump signed an executive order that allows lobbyists to join his administration, provided they don’t work for two years on any issue on which they lobbied. (The Obama administration barred anyone who had been registered as a lobbyist in the prior year from joining.)

As a result, someone like Geoffrey Burr, who lobbied the Labor Department in opposition to wages rules and worker safety measures, can work in the Trump administration’s Labor Department.

21. Trump allowed coal companies to dump waste in streams. Trump signed a bill killing the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which aimed to keep toxic metals out of water supplies in coal country.

22. Trump froze Environmental Protection Agency contracts grants. The Trump team put a temporary halt to funding for routinely contracted work like drinking water testing, ProPublica reported.

23. Trump’s FCC kept the prices sky-high for families who call loved ones in prison. Prison phone calls are absurdly expensive, averaging around $3 for a 15-minute in-state call. Activists have been trying to bring the cost down for years.

In 2015, federal regulators approved a rule that capped charges at 11 cents per minute. The industry sued, and Trump’s new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, recently announced the agency would not defend the rule in court.

24. The FCC also blocked nine internet service providers from a federal subsidy program for low-income Americans. Pai undid a move that allowed internet service providers to participate in the Lifeline program, which gives a $9.25-per-month credit to households to buy internet service.

25. Trump’s EPA killed a rule to protect people from mercury exposure. The EPA withdrew a rule requiring dentists’ offices to install equipment to dispose of fillings that contain mercury as an alternative to washing them down the drain. Mercury can hurt pregnant women and kids even at low levels.

26. Troubling signs for civil asset forfeiture reform. During a White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country, Trump offered to help “destroy the career” of Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa after one of the sheriffs in attendance complained about Hinojosa’s efforts to curtail the oft-abused practice of civil asset forfeiture.

27. Big military budget build-up has little for the soldiers on the front lines. Trump has planned to funnel taxpayer dollars into the military in a bid to beef up its budget. But as of now, the principal beneficiary of this largesse will continue to be wealthy military contractors and Pentagon elites. As HuffPost’s David Wood reported, very little will trickle down to working-class service members, who typically deploy with “budget leftovers” such as “antiquated rifles, helicopters built for their grandfathers during the Vietnam War and communications gear that is overweight and unreliable.” The men and women who are training to fight in the next war have “weapons that don’t work, trucks that are broken down, [and] combat exercises canceled for lack of money.”

28. Plans are afoot to make it easier for corporations to get out of paying their taxes. Trump signed an executive order this month asking the Treasury Department to look at all Obama-era tax rules. Anything that’s too much of a burden or too complex in the eyes of Secretary Mnuchin could get axed. The main target appears to be rules put in place to cut down on tax inversions, in which an American company acquires a foreign company and relocates abroad to cut down on its U.S. taxes.

29. And now, Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for America’s elites: Just ahead of the (largely arbitrary) “100 Days” deadline, the White House issued a single-page statement of principles that outlines a massive tax cut for America’s richest citizens. In HuffPost’s analysis, the wealthy would benefit from “reducing the tax rate on stocks, bonds and real estate investments; eliminating inheritance taxes for millionaire heirs and heiresses; and bringing down the tax rate on the largest corporations to less than half of what it is now.” According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Trump would himself receive a tax break windfall under this plan, to the tune of $65 million.

Appropriately, the punchline of Trump’s faux-populist joke is, “The Aristocrats!”

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