monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I don't know yet what if anything to make of this:
JUST IN: All 8 Supreme Court Justices Stand In Solidarity Against Trump SCOTUS Pick
http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/03/26/just-in-all-8-supreme-court-justices-stand-in-solidarity-against-trump-scotus-pick/

...When Breitbart News ran a blaring headline last week suggesting that new evidence “vindicates” President Trump’s still-baseless claims that former President Barack Obama put him and his team under surveillance …

When a Fox News contributor reported that Fox had “learned” that the British government spied on Mr. Trump at Mr. Obama’s behest, though the network later said it had learned no such thing (because there’s no evidence it happened) …

When the White House press secretary repeated that flimsy (or, as the British put it, “utterly ridiculous”) claim from his powerful lectern …

It’s the end result — if not necessarily the intended result — of a dream that American conservatives began pursuing more than 60 years ago: to break the informational hegemony of the mainstream news media.

For the purposes of this column, I’m starting the count in 1955 when William F. Buckley Jr., founded National Review, declaring it an outsider’s antidote to the controlling influence of “the United Nations and the League of Women Voters and The New York Times.”

Mr. Buckley designed National Review to win the larger argument through “logic and superior command of the subject,” as his biographer Sam Tanenhaus (a former writer for The New York Times) told me last week — through facts. And it inspired successive generations of conservative journalists to get in the game, too.

All immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population. Even illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.

The atmosphere was buoyant at a conference held by the conservative Heartland Institute last week at a downtown Washington hotel, where speakers denounced climate science as rigged and jubilantly touted deep cuts President Trump is seeking to make to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Front and center during the two-day gathering were New York hedge fund executive Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer, Republican mega-donors who with their former political adviser Stephen K. Bannon helped finance an alternative media ecosystem that amplified Trump’s populist themes during last year’s campaign.

The Mercers’ attendance at the two-day Heartland conference offered a telling sign of the low-profile family’s priorities: With Trump in office, the influential financiers appear intent on putting muscle behind the fight to roll back environmental regulations, a central focus of the new administration.

On Thursday, the father and daughter joined Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast at his table for the keynote luncheon speech, held in a ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. They listened intently as Patrick J. Michaels, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science, argued that the Obama administration erred in finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health.

Late Sunday afternoon, Fox News’s Twitter issued a “news alert” informing the public that President Donald Trump was “spending the weekend working at the White House.” It was a weird tweet for a couple of reasons: First, the idea that the President of the United States, typically a very busy person, had to keep doing his job over the weekend doesn’t exactly seem newsworthy. Second, Trump spent a significant portion of the weekend at his Virginia golf course.

Last month, Morning Joe hit Kellyanne Conway with a pretty biting blow: The program’s two hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, explained that she and her “fake news” were no longer welcome to appear on their popular MSNBC show. “She’s just saying things,” Scarborough said at the time, “just to get in front of the TV set and prove her relevance.” Weeks later, Brzezinski is now expounding a bit more on Conway and her diminishing television presence, and still maintains her view that Conway should be blacklisted on all other news programs. “I feel even more so that everyone should ban her,” Brzezinski explained to Variety. “I’m surprised that these little acrobatic games are played with her on live national television. I think it denigrates what we do. It’s clear she doesn’t bring anything to the table. It’s clear she doesn’t know exactly what she’s talking about. It’s clear she’s making it up as she goes along.”

And while on the surface that may sound compelling -- GOP lawmakers intend to move from one effort that cut taxes for the wealthy (health care reform) to a different effort to cut taxes for the wealthy (tax reform) -- Republicans also seemed united in their opposition to the Affordable Care Act. As recent developments made clear, like-minded ambitions do not a legislative victory make.

So why would tax reform be "the hardest lift in a generation"? In part because of the scope and scale of the task: Republicans aren't just talking about tax cuts; they want to pass tax reform -- the first time since 1986 that federal policymakers have effectively tried to re-write the nation's tax code.

To be sure, the U.S. health care system, which affects one-fifth of the American economy, is incredibly difficult to overhaul. But the U.S. tax code affects nearly all of the economy, making it that much more challenging.

President Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, knows that investing in the Internal Revenue Service yields significant returns — he said as much during his confirmation hearings. And he’s right: Every dollar spent on the agency returns $4 in revenue for the federal government, and as much as $10 when invested in enforcement activities.

Mr. Mnuchin’s boss doesn’t seem to care, but he should. And not just because the I.R.S. more than pays for itself. Cutting funds for the I.R.S., which has already endured years of budget cuts, would make it impossible for the president to pay for things he says he cares about, including infrastructure, Social Security and the military.

Mr. Trump made his disregard for the I.R.S. obvious this month in his budget proposal, which calls for reducing the agency’s funding by 2 percent, or $239 million. Unfortunately, the seemingly endless cuts have compromised the agency’s ability to collect taxes, combat identity theft, prosecute tax criminals and deliver taxpayer services.

(...)

Mr. Mnuchin appreciates that the core mission of the agency is in grave jeopardy, and that the president’s tax and spending proposals are impossible without a revitalized I.R.S.

The White House appears oblivious to these realities. Its budget proposal offsets $54 billion in new military spending with cuts to the I.R.S. and other discretionary sources.

But the numbers don’t add up. Cutting the I.R.S. budget by $239 million puts Mr. Trump further away from filling his $54 billion bucket. Again, since $1 in I.R.S. appropriations yields at least $4 in additional revenue (and, again, as much as $10), cutting $239 million from the I.R.S. would reduce revenue by nearly $1 billion, and perhaps by as much as $2.39 billion.

Yeah. On top of it, he's trying to bill european countries for NATO while he hasn't understood how NATO has worked (explained in the link).

That was very game of you to answer the dumb question I posed. I hope you see the relationship between that question and the one you asked me. Both of them conveniently assume that either the illegal immigrants or the firearms are taken completely out of the picture, so there is, in effect, only one logical answer. "Do you believe that if there were no humans the crimes they commit would not happen?" It's dumb.

You seem to think that illegals are committing barbaric crimes at an alarmingly high level and that sanctuary cities are in part responsible for these incidents. I haven't seen evidence that backs that up.

It's easy to compile frightening statistics if the only sites you use are already committed to conservative anti-immigration policies. So I prefer to use more neutral government sources or other alternatives like this recent Cato Institute report which came to this conclusion:

Quote:

All immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population. Even illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.

I honestly feel that the harm done to individuals, families, and communities by systematic and aggressive deportation of illegals is occurring at a higher rate than the commission of heinous crimes by illegals.

Yes, McG, I know that some person will inevitably meet a tragic and violent end at the hands of a criminal who has no right to be in this country.

But I don't believe that such tragedy or violence is somehow worse than that surrounding similar crimes committed by people who have guns illegally, psychotic people who should be under supervision, mentally ill individuals who don't take their prescriptions, or angry drunks. These are all cases where laws already 0n the books would theoretically have made the crimes impossible.

If only he hadn't been able to purchase that gun.
If only I'd noticed his mood when he left the house.
If only he had taken his pills.
If only I hadn't had that last half bottle of booze.
If only ICE had arrested and deported this guy.

All tragic instances that might have been avoided are similarly tinged with regret. Sadly, this is a fact of life.

What do you do when a political voice, commonly invited onto news shows at every cable or news network, has an obvious record of consistent deceit?

Quote:

Last month, Morning Joe hit Kellyanne Conway with a pretty biting blow: The program’s two hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, explained that she and her “fake news” were no longer welcome to appear on their popular MSNBC show. “She’s just saying things,” Scarborough said at the time, “just to get in front of the TV set and prove her relevance.” Weeks later, Brzezinski is now expounding a bit more on Conway and her diminishing television presence, and still maintains her view that Conway should be blacklisted on all other news programs. “I feel even more so that everyone should ban her,” Brzezinski explained to Variety. “I’m surprised that these little acrobatic games are played with her on live national television. I think it denigrates what we do. It’s clear she doesn’t bring anything to the table. It’s clear she doesn’t know exactly what she’s talking about. It’s clear she’s making it up as she goes along.”

NYMag
Precisely. Tell your bookers that such people are not acceptable voices to present to the public because your responsibility is to inform while such individuals have exactly the opposite goal. Don't empower lies. Work to curtail them.

giujohn wrote:

I can take it...Tell me...Is it lupus?

No, it's not lupus. It's not lepus, either.

I know what a lepus is ... thanks to Hollywood.



Forgive me!