All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[L'Emmerdeur]

The best policies. Great achievements! MAGA™ by getting horrible job-killing restrictions off the backs of noble forward looking people.

'Trump administration eases endangered species rules'

The Trump administration announced on Monday it would change how it implements the Endangered Species Act, weakening protections that environmentalists say violate the law and make it easier for oil companies, real estate interests and the agriculture industry to develop land inhabited by vulnerable wildlife.

The revisions announced in the new rule were a culmination of more than a year of efforts to loosen restrictions written to protect hundreds of species judged to be under pressure. The Interior Department has argued that a streamlining is necessary to update how it enforces the 1973 law, including allowing the federal government to begin to measure the economic costs of protecting some species.

"The best way to uphold the Endangered Species Act is to do everything we can to ensure it remains effective in achieving its ultimate goal — recovery of our rarest species. The Act’s effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation,” said Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in statement.

The revisions spearheaded by Bernhardt, who previously lobbied on behalf of oil and agriculture sectors, include preventing Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service from automatically offering full endangered species protections to wildlife classified as “threatened” and minimizing its consideration of climate change when analyzing a species.

[Brian Peacock]

Draining the swamp... into a bigger swamp.

[Brian Peacock]

I thought this was amusing...

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has proposed a new interpretation of the famous welcome that appears on a placard at the Statue of Liberty.

The famous lines, taken from The New Colossus by the 19th-century New York poet Emma Lazarus, read: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Cuccinelli offered a change: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

On NPR’s Morning Edition, Cuccinelli defended the Trump administration decision to make it harder for migrants to be awarded permanent residence, or a “green card”, if they have ever accepted benefit programs such as food stamps, housing assistance or Medicaid...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... mmigration

Not only does is succumb to the 'Bible literalist literally don't interpret the Bible literally' kind of argument, but it seems designed to not only punish the poor, but also the once-poor.

[Joe]

Man, the covfefe is strong with this one.

[Brian Peacock]

But I thought he preferred Mr Putin's word to the assessments of US intelligence community.

[JimC]

I think Trump means his own, magnificent intelligence...

[Brian Peacock]

Ah, he's using the Royal 'we' (rather than the presidential wee).

[Joe]

Of course that bit of news was in my morning newspaper. Don't tell Tweeter.

[Seabass]

Ken Cuccinelli: Statue of Liberty Poem Was About ‘People Coming From Europe’

[L'Emmerdeur]

To be fair, politicians have often lied, even about their very own previous statements.Still, it seems to me that Trump's logorrhea of lies have encouraged members of his administration to go for the gusto when it comes to brazen dishonesty.

Why does the left insist on playing clips of me rewriting that stupid poem, when clearly I wasn't rewriting that stupid poem, but merely answering a question. My answer may have used the phrase from the poem with my tacked on bullshit, but if you say that I was rewriting the poem, you're twisting things, like the left always does. Horrible, horrible enemies of the people!

Anyway, that poem wasn't about people from shithole countries, you know.

[JimC]

Europe uber alles...

[Hermit]

Europe uber alles...

More explicitly, Identity Evropa.

[Brian Peacock]

It's just a form of political mass gaslighting - "No dear, it doesn't mean that, and it never has, and I have absolutely no idea why you would think otherwise... Now now dear, you're becoming overwrought - perhaps you should take a pill and lie down for a while... Don't worry about the dishes, you can do them in the morning..."

[Tero]

From salmon to fracking to wild life refuge drilling, Trump very consistent! Now add platics:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/politics ... index.html

(CNN)President Donald Trump is all about plastics, arguing his support for it sets him apart from Democrats, trolling them for their environmental concerns and pushing any blame for too much of the stuff onto China.

But Trump's plastics boosterism comes at a time when corporate America -- from Google to Coca-Cola and beyond -- is trying to appear more in line with environmentalists, at least attempting to associate their names with less plastic and more recycling.
It's the latest in a very long line of examples of progressive change in the era of Trump being driven not just from outside the White House, but in spite of it.

Trump took personal credit Tuesday for a new plastic manufacturing plant being built by Royal Dutch Shell in Pennsylvania. Never mind that it had been planned since 2012 and built with the promise of more than $1 billion in tax credits from state taxpayers. That didn't stop Trump from using it to push Pennsylvanians to support his reelection.

"Virtually every leading Democrat has vowed to eliminate fossil fuels," he said, overstating the calls by Democrats to pursue renewable energy and address climate change. He asked Pennsylvanians to "get out there and make sure we win."

The plant will use a byproduct of fracking to produce pellets used in the production of many many different kinds of plastic, including those that make cars lighter and more fuel efficient and in wind turbines, a point the Trump administration has echoed. Further reading: The New York Times documented how the plant is part of a larger effort to bring manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt, and the Pittsburgh TV station WTAE published a fascinating investigation that used customs records to determine that tens of thousands of tons of foreign steel was used to construct the plant despite the abundance of steel in Steeler country.

"You must be aware of all the reports that say the world is awash in plastic and the last thing it needs is more plastic," a reporter said. " What's your feeling on that?"
His answer was to blame China, but also to make clear that in his mind, plastics are OK.
"Well, we have tremendous plastics coming over from Asia, from China, and various others," he said. "It's not our plastic. It's plastic that's floating over in the ocean and the various oceans from other places. No, plastics are fine, but you have to know what to do with them. But other countries are not taking care of their plastic use and they haven't for a long time. And the plastic that we're getting is floating across the ocean from other places, including China."

Trump actually does have an anti-plastic waste accomplishment he could point to. He signed a bipartisan bill to combat garbage and plastic in the ocean, the Save Our Seas Act. At the event where he signed it, however, he managed to not utter the word "plastic."

[L'Emmerdeur]

Trump, the intrepid champion of 'religious freedom'.

'Justice Department Urges Civil Rights Agency to Flip LGBT Stance'

The Trump Justice Department is urging the federal employment rights agency to change its position and tell the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that businesses can discriminate against transgender employees without violating the law, according to sources familiar with the deliberations.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has so far maintained its Obama-era position that businesses are banned from discriminating against LGBT workers because it’s a form of sex bias. But the Justice Department disagrees and is hoping to persuade the EEOC to flip sides. Political leadership in the Solicitor General’s office wants the EEOC on board to show the high court that the Trump administration is now unified in the belief that Congress didn’t have lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers in mind when it passed a federal workplace discrimination law more than five decades ago, sources said.