Robert Reich
8 hrs ·
Another sign of Trump's increasingly unhinged paranoia: According to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the White House is mulling a proposal – from Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a former CIA paramilitary officer, assisted by Oliver North, a key player in the Iran-Contra scandal — to give CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Trump their own private global spy network.
It would enable Trump to circumvent U.S. intelligence agencies, in order to counter assumed enemies in the intelligence community that want to undermine his presidency.
As he's shown before, Trump never lets facts get in his way. When he doesn’t like official facts, he blames the messengers and creates a new apparatus to manufacture facts he likes.
But a private global spy network is truly nuts – and dangerous. It wouldn’t be answerable to the American people; it would be answerable to Trump. Another step toward tyranny.
Robert Reich
45 mins ·
Don’t for a moment believe that Trump’s ties to Russia are unrelated to Trump’s connections to rich American tycoons.
As Trump delivered his inaugural address on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in January, his new national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, told Alex Copson, a former business associate, that a plan to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East in partnership with Russian interests was “good to go,” according to a witness who spoke with congressional investigators.
Flynn assured Copson that U.S. sanctions against Russia would immediately be “ripped up” by the Trump administration, which would facilitate the deal. “Mike has been putting everything in place for us,” Copson said, according to the witness, adding: “This is going to make a lot of very wealthy people.”
Exactly. This was – and still is -- the underlying rationale for the Trump presidency: Making a lot of very wealthy people even wealthier.
Robert Reich
24 mins ·
This is a shocking example of how bad economic inequality has become in America. The United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has been sent on 15-day tour to investigate conditions in poorest parts of the country.
Normally these kinds of UN investigations focus on third world countries, but that's how far we've fallen. In rural Alabama, one of the stops on the trip, the poverty rate reaches 40 percent in some counties. Many residents also struggle to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Hookworm, a parasitic disease found in the poorest parts of the world, has even been detected.
Meanwhile, the rich have never had it so good. Today, the top 1 percent of households own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. The stock market is booming for Wall Street investors, and corporate profits are at all time highs.
In a nation as wealthy as ours, no one should be forced to live in extreme poverty. Widening inequality is not only eroding our economy and democracy, it is a moral outrage
Robert Reich
30 mins ·
This is how laws are made in some banana republic, where the ruler and his friends carve up the nation's wealth for themselves. Behind the scenes, Trump's wealthy pals have been lobbying him to make more changes to the tax bill in their favor -- even after they've already secured the elimination of the estate tax, lower individual rates, and massive corporate giveaways. This is who Trump and the Republican Party take direction from: Wall Street bankers and corporate executives, not the American people.
@edgarblythe,
My thoughts you ask?
Should've voted for Hillary.
You should have voted for Bernie.
@edgarblythe,
Let me ask you this question.
Given what Reich posted above, if you single-handedly had the ability to null and void the entire Trump presidency to date and install Hillary Clinton in his place, would you?
@maporsche,
Substitute Bernie's name and we could make some progress here.
@maporsche,
I will vote for a Clinton under no circumstance.
Robert Reich
35 mins ·
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is using your tax dollars to hire a leading-edge for-profit Republican PR firm to help Administrator Scott Pruitt’s office track and shape press coverage of the agency. It’s hired Definers Corp., whose higher-ups specialize in opposition research against Democrats. The firm offers media-tracking technology that provides “war room” style capacity to track opponent’s messages, as well as “relevant responses to their messaging, and what competitors’ actions have been.”
Call me old-fashioned but I don’t think tax dollars ought to be spent this way. The public has a right to know what Trump’s and Pruitt’s EPA is doing to eviscerate environmental protections, without financing their lies and opposition research about it.
Robert Reich
51 mins ·
With the first phase of the Koch agenda -- massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations -- almost through Congress, Trump and Republicans leaders are already gearing up for the next step: using the deficit to justify huge cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It's a Trojan Horse strategy.
@edgarblythe,
First phase was getting Trump elected.
Some of us helped make that happen and are unrepentant for it.
@maporsche,
Some of us are pure pieces of ****.
Democrats elected Trump by running the worst candidate and the worst campaign imaginable and now try to refuse to take their medicine, but it is being force fed anyway. Blaming others is a worn out excuse nobody but them buys.
@edgarblythe,
Some of us shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. But should realize and acknowledge the role they played in this disaster.
@edgarblythe,
No, see that's where you keep getting it wrong.
VOTERS and VOTES elected Trump. Democrats voted for the only candidate who could have stopped this nightmare.
Stein voters, or non-voters, have a HUGE part in allowing this to happen.
Try running an honest campaign for once. You will be amazed at the difference in the outcome.
@edgarblythe,
In the history of politics in the whole of the world has there EVER been a completely honest campaign? And did everyone agree that it was completely honest?
