WATCH: Chuck Todd calls out Trump for calling press ‘fake news’ every time there’s a new Russia story

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/watch-chuck-todd-calls-out-trump-for-calling-press-fake-news-every-time-theres-a-new-russia-story/

From the site:

Meet the Press host Chuck Todd blasted President Donald Trump on Sunday for resorting to attacking the press every time a new revelation about his administration’s involvement with Russia is revealed.

According to the NBC host, Trump’s tweeted attacks on the press –specifically aimed at the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and his own network — always follow those outlets reporting on the murky relationship between Trump’s inner circle and Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

These Iowans voted for Trump. Many of them are already disappointed.

https://is.gd/os0Gi6

From the site:

Of the six swing states that were key to Trump’s unexpected win in November, his margin of victory was the highest in Iowa, where he beat Clinton by 9 percentage points. Yet at the dawn of his presidency, only 42 percent of Iowans approve of the job that he’s doing and 49 percent disapprove, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll this month.

Why Paul Ryan is just Donald Trump in better wrapping

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/27/paul-ryan-donald-trump-enabler

From the site:

Nearly all the oxygen and outrage in DC is being sucked up by Donald Trump and his outrageous executive orders. But let’s not forget about the man without whom Trump could not accomplish his larger agenda: the spineless speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, Trump’s mainstream defender and apologist at every turn.

Ryan, who has cultivated a sham image as the “reasonable” Republican for years, has backed virtually all of Trump’s most controversial and cruel policies. Ryan manages to never buck Trump on anything of significance, while getting publicity for meaningless, quasi-critical statements. He is the biggest fraud in American politics.

Another Republican Lawmaker Just Faced Hundreds of Angry Constituents

I'm loving these town halls! The Repub lawmakers are really getting an earful! Most are avoiding their constituents by scheduling tele-town-halls, by scheduling in small venues, and with limited notice. What's up with that?

https://www.thenation.com/article/another-republican-lawmaker-just-faced-hundreds-of-angry-constituents/

From the site:

The crowd at Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy’s town-hall meeting, held in a suburb of New Orleans on Wednesday, was is no mood for a lecture. Some people had waited in line for three hours to make sure they got one of the 200-some seats in the library auditorium. By the time Cassidy was due to arrive, the room was packed, with hundreds of others left outside. The mood was tense and angry; the senator was late, and when he finally entered it was to boos, hisses, and chants of “Shame!” He tried to begin with a slideshow laying out the Obamacare replacement legislation he introduced with Maine Senator Susan Collins in January, but he was shouted down. “We can go to your website and read this,” someone shouted. “You’re filibustering!” yelled another. For Cassidy, the meeting only got more difficult. Cassidy was one of several members of Congress to face furious constituents at town halls this week. Senator Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Senator Chuck Grassley in Iowa, and Representative Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee were among those who heard raw, emotional testimony from people worried about losing their health care, among other issues. While Cassidy’s meeting in Metairie on Wednesday was exceptionally raucous, he received tough questions at several other town halls throughout the week, even in more conservative areas. Obamacare, and the GOP’s efforts to repeal it, came up repeatedly—no surprise, as Louisiana is one of 10 states with the largest drops in the number of uninsured residents because of the law. The state only recently accepted federal dollars to expand its Medicaid program, after the election of a Democratic governor. More than 350,000 people signed up in the first six months. Cassidy’s plan for replacing Obamacare is incredibly complex, but in short it punts the decision of whether to keep the law to the states.

Mark This Day On Your Calendar: You Just Agreed With George W. Bush

https://www.good.is/articles/george-bush-message-to-trump?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood

From the site:

In an interview with TODAY’s Matt Lauer on Monday, former President George W. Bush weighed in on Donald Trump’s first month in office, covering his immigration ban, Trump’s assault on the media, and Russian involvement in the election. Spoiler alert: It was not a glowing review, to say the least.

The Predatory Presidency

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/27/predatory-presidency

From the site:

The season premiere of BBC America’s Planet Earth II includes remarkable footage from the desolate Galapagos Islands. In one striking scene, baby marine iguanas race across the sand, desperately trying to elude dozens of snakes eager for their next meal. Although such stark life-or-death struggles are difficult to watch, it helps to remember that they reflect nature’s dynamic balance.

Far more disturbing—and unnatural—are the Trump Administration’s similarly ruthless predator-like attacks on whatever groups it chooses as its prey. Adding to their repugnance, several of these assaults over the past month—through a series of executive orders—are inherently racist, seemingly propelled by the ugly 14-word credo of white nationalists everywhere: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Three White House orders stand out. First, there’s the determined pursuit of a Muslim travel ban, one that will prevent thousands of tempest-tossed and despairing refugees from entering the country. Second, there’s the heartless stalking of undocumented Hispanic immigrants, including the near indiscriminate roundup, detention, and deportation of law-abiding men, women, and children. And third, there’s the early blueprint for a “tough on crime” law enforcement crackdown, an onslaught that will inevitably and predominantly disrupt and besiege Black communities and activists.

The Uses of Outrage

Great column from Paul Krugman. Read and heed!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/opinion/the-uses-of-outrage.html?_r=0

From the site:

Are you angry about the white nationalist takeover of the U.S. government? If so, you are definitely not alone. The first few weeks of the Trump administration have been marked by huge protests, furious crowds at congressional town halls, customer boycotts of businesses seen as Trump allies. And Democrats, responding to their base, have taken a hard line against cooperation with the new regime.

Paul Ryan Has a Plan to Take Away Insurance from Tens of Millions of People

So details of the Repub health plan are beginning to emerge. As expected, sick people will get screwed!

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/17/paul-ryan-has-plan-take-away-insurance-tens-millions-people

From the site:

Hey, no one said Speaker Ryan wasn't a smart guy. (Actually, many people have, but whatever.) Anyhow the Republicans have published an outline of their proposal for an Obamacare replacement. It seems designed to ensure that tens of millions of people lose their health insurance coverage.

The basic story is that the plan is designed to fragment the market by both allowing a wider range of insurance policies and also by promoting health savings accounts in which people can place money tax free. (Oh yes, and the financial industry can make lots of money on fees.) This will mean that almost anyone in good health will get catastrophic policies that cover large expenses, but leave most normal expenses to the patient. Since most people are relatively healthy, this would be a good deal for most of the population.

The numbers on this are striking. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects that health care costs in 2017 will average $10,800 this year. The average for cost for the ten percent of most expensive patients is $54,000. The average cost for the least expensive 50 percent is just $700. (These figures include seniors who are covered by Medicare. The skewing would be a bit less if the over 65 age group were pulled out of the calculation.)

Since most people have very little by way of health care spending, it would make sense for them to use the tax credit proposed in the Republican plan to buy a catastrophic plan, that may have a deductible of $10,000 or $12,000 or more. This plan would cost little and allow them to put most of the credit in a health savings account.

This means that the only people who would be interested in buying conventional insurance policies would be people with high medical expenses. Insurers will price these policies to reflect the anticipated costs. This means that they would have to cost tens of thousands of dollars per person. Most of these people will not be able to afford these plans. The credit proposed by the Republicans (which is likely to be around $2,500 from the description in the plan), will not go far towards meeting the cost of policies for these people.

So, the Republican deserve credit for devising a plan to reduce the cost of insurance for healthy people. It just means that tens of millions of people who actually need insurance won't be able to get it.

Morning Joe blasts Trump’s attacks on media as the ‘enemy’: ‘That does incite people to violence

Even Morning Joe has had enough of Trump's hateful rhetoric that promotes violence! Who would have thought it possible?!

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/morning-joe-blasts-trumps-attacks-on-media-as-the-enemy-that-does-incite-people-to-violence/

From the site:

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough worries that President Donald Trump’s attack on the media as “an enemy of the American people” could incite violence against individual journalists.

The “Morning Joe” host agreed with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that Trump’s tweet Friday blasting the media sounded like something a dictator would say, and he said the president had crossed the line with his attack.

“It’s one thing to say the press is liberal, it’s one thing to say the 9th Circuit (Court) is liberal, but when you start saying that somebody is an enemy of the people, then that does incite people to violence — especially if it’s coming from the president of the United States,” Scarborough said.

He said many journalists retweet the death threats they received daily for perceived negative reporting on the Trump administration, so he believes Trump’s words could inspire an unbalanced supporter to take action.

“When you receive tweets every day, and somebody’s threatening your life and they talk about lynching you and your family after President Trump has his way with the media, this happens over and over again, and I don’t think there’s anybody who’s in the media that doesn’t hear that every day,” Scarborough said. “So yeah, this is very, very dangerous.”

The Lunatic is in My Head . . .

Scary stuff -- excerpts from this week's press conference.

http://www.mikemalloy.com/shows/the-lunatic-is-in-my-head-2/

From the site:

Talk about Meet the Press! Did you see that train wreck of a “press conference” performance from Trump today? Is there any doubt about his sanity and his fitness for office? His wild manic ravings made Jack Nicholson’s “you can’t handle the truth” rant look like Mr. Rogers.

It was like watching a twitching paranoid schizophrenic on a couch talking to his shrink – just an endless whine-fest about all the things he hates and are wrong and how upset he is about the “fake news” that caused his national security adviser to resign (then why did he if it was all fake?). Russia was a ruse and Hillary got the debate questions and gave away uranium and Obama left the economy in ruin and he won the popular vote by a larger margin than anybody in history and the false horrible negative reporting by the media has ruined his chance to “make a deal” with Putin and the media hates him and they lie and why can’t anybody ask him a nice question anyway?

Where do you begin? It’s not been a month and he’s coming apart at the seams. All he knows how to do is campaign. He’s going to Florida to campaign this weekend. He hasn’t the faintest idea how to be a President. He needs a campaign opponent….so he invented one – the press. He can’t operate without an enemy, so like any good psycho, he invents one. Some have imaginary friends or see imaginary rabbits, Trump has imaginary enemies.

Senate Republicans Rush To Confirm Scott Pruitt For EPA, Bypassing Court Order

Can't you just smell the corruption? Let's see what the emails say when they are released next week.

https://www.good.is/articles/pruitt-loses-email-lawsuit-confirmation-vote?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood

From the site:

If Scott Pruitt is hiding something—and it sure looks like he is—Senate Republicans refused to wait around to find out what it is. Our Republican friends will rue the day they rammed this nomination through the Senate just as the emails were being litigated.

The Oklahoma attorney general and the president’s nominee to run the EPA has dodged open information requests from the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) for over two years. Yesterday, the Oklahoma County Court found Pruitt’s office in violation of the state’s Open Records Act, and ordered the attorney general to release thousands of emails by next Tuesday, February 21.

Rather than wait to see what Pruitt’s office has been trying to conceal in those emails, Senate Republicans rushed a vote—and early Friday afternoon confirmed Pruitt to serve as EPA administrator by a 52-46 vote. Susan Collins of Maine was the lone Republican to vote against Pruitt.

Trump's Repeal of Bipartisan Anti-Corruption Measure Proves He's a Fake

Great piece by Matt Taibbi. This gets to the essence of how potentially effective legislation gets watered down (or lawyered down). As Taibbi says, "the public perception that nothing ever gets done in Washington is driven by this very dynamic."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/trumps-repeal-of-anti-corruption-measure-proves-hes-a-fake-w467240

From the site:

This is why laws like Dodd-Frank end up being unwieldy monstrosities of thousands and thousands of pages: On the road to trying to kill a law outright, lobbyists usually try to weigh it down first by adding exceptions and verbiage. Ironically, this ends up driving the industry's own compliance costs higher in the meantime, but it's worth it, as it stalls the process.

Another irony here is that the public perception that nothing ever gets done in Washington is driven by this very dynamic. The public becomes impatient for action when every tiny provision of every bill gets bogged down as fat-cat lawyers fight for years on end over the definition of words like "compilation" and "project."

This is the ultimate in overpaid busywork for the overeducated. The ongoing bureaucratization of the legislative process is really just a high-priced welfare program for corporate lawyers.

And while lawyers make fortunes pushing commas around and adding mountains of words to already overwritten laws, ex-middle-class workers in places outside of the Beltway keep findin

Michael Flynn Out: From Trump's "Full Confidence" to Midnight Resignation

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39470-michael-flynn-out-from-trump-s-full-confidence-to-midnight-resignation

From the site (Truthout link above quotes the Huffington Post story below):

As the Huffington Post reports:

In late December, President Barack Obama announced the sanctions, which included the expulsion of 35 Russian intelligence operatives, in response to Russian interference in the November election designed to help Trump win.

Flynn at first denied that he had discussed the sanctions when he spoke with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He said the conversations concerned setting up a phone call between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin and offering condolences after the murder of a Russian diplomat in Turkey.

But following a Washington Post report -- based partially on transcripts of the conversations -- Flynn's office revised his earlier statements, and said that he couldn't recall whether the topic of sanctions had come up. On Monday night, the plot thickened, with The Washington Post reporting that top officials at the Department of Justice warned the Trump administration weeks ago that Flynn might have been compromised by Russian influences and The New York Times reporting that the Army had investigated whether Flynn received payments from the Russian government in 2015.

‘Oh my God’: Morning Joe stunned by Stephen Miller’s ‘anti-constitutional’ claims about courts

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/oh-my-god-morning-joe-stunned-by-stephen-millers-anti-constitutional-claims-about-courts/

From the site:

SNBC’s Joe Scarborough harshly criticized the White House for sending senior advisor Stephen Miller to question the bedrock constitutional principle of judicial independence.

The “Morning Joe” host has been an outspoken critic of Miller, whom he has described as too inexperienced and immature for his position, and Scarborough and his fellow panelists were left speechless by the official’s shouted claim that the president was “correct 100 percent of the time.”

“Oh my God,” said co-host Mika Brzezinski, who later suggested Miller should be fired in a tweet posted during the broadcast.

Donald the Weak

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/donald-the-weak-214771

From the site:

Donald Trump ran for president boasting of his supposedly legendary negotiating and management skills while promising that he alone could fix the problems ailing the country. But three weeks into his presidency, a combination of inexperience, lack of attention to detail and an engaged opposition inside and outside the government have left him as the weakest new president in modern American history.

When the Fire Comes

Paul Krugman of the NYT rightly warns us about the dangers of not standing up to this administration. In the end, it's the people who will save us.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/opinion/when-the-fire-comes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1

From the site:

What we see here is the most powerful man in the world blatantly telegraphing his intention to use national misfortune to grab even more power. And the question becomes, who will stop him?

Don’t talk about institutions, and the checks and balances they create. Institutions are only as good as the people who serve them. Authoritarianism, American-style, can be averted only if people have the courage to stand against it. So who are these people?

It certainly won’t be Mr. Trump’s inner circle. It won’t be Jeff Sessions, his new attorney general, with his long history of contempt for voting rights. It might be the courts — but Mr. Trump is doing all he can to delegitimize judicial oversight in advance.

What about Congress? Well, its members like to give patriotic speeches. And maybe, just maybe, there are enough Republican senators who really do care about America’s fundamental values to cross party lines in their defense. But given what we’ve seen so far, that’s just hopeful speculation.

In the end, I fear, it’s going to rest on the people — on whether enough Americans are willing to take a public stand. We can’t handle another post-9/11-style suspension of doubt about the man in charge; if that happens, America as we know it will soon be gone.

Government by White Nationalism Is Upon Us

This administration is headed to a very bad place -- in so many ways.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/02/government_by_white_nationalism_is_upon_us.html

From the site:

The ideological leader of the Trump movement is Sessions, hailed by Bannon for “developing populist nation-state policies” from his somewhat isolated perch in the Senate. Bannon, who avoids the spotlight, gives away the game in his praise of Sessions. “In America and Europe, working people are reasserting their right to control their own destinies,” he wrote in a recent statement to the Washington Post, blasting the “cosmopolitan elites in the media that live in a handful of our larger cities.” Given the demographics of Trump’s support—given the demographics of Europe—this definition of “working people” can mean only one thing: white people. And “cosmopolitan elites” has a long history as a euphemism for Jews and other minorities.

This philosopher predicted Trump's rise in 1998 -- and he has another warning for the left

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/9/14543938/richard-rorty-liberalism-vietnam-donald-trump-obama

The passage below was written in 1998 by Richard Rorty. Good article by Sean Illing at Vox.com.

From the site:

A prescient passage from a forgotten book has been making the rounds since Donald Trump’s election. It’s plucked from a 1998 book titled Achieving our Country. The author is Richard Rorty, a liberal philosopher who died in 2007. The book consists of a series of lectures Rorty gave in 1997 about the history of leftist thought in 20th-century America.

To read the viral passage is to recognize immediately why it has caught fire:

Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers – themselves desperately afraid of being downsized – are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking for a strongman to vote for – someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.

Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable

This from the Huffington Post. Bannon subscribes to the theory of historical cycles discussed in the article. This guy is very dangerous. As noted, political scientists consider these theories quackery.

https://is.gd/oaOHG0

From the site:

“This is the fourth great crisis in American history,” Bannon told an audience at the Liberty Restoration Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, in 2011. “We had the Revolution. We had the Civil War. We had the Great Depression and World War II. This is the great Fourth Turning in American history, and we’re going to be one thing on the other side.”

Major crises “happen in about 80- or 100-year cycles,” Bannon told a conference put on by the Republican women’s group Project GoPink that same year. “And somewhere over the next 10 or 20 years, we’re going to come through this crisis, and we’re either going to be the country that was bequeathed to us or it’s going to be something that’s completely or totally different.”

The “Judeo-Christian West is collapsing,” he went on. “It’s imploding. And it’s imploding on our watch. And the blowback of that is going to be tremendous.”

War is coming, Bannon has warned. In fact, it’s already here.

“You have an expansionist Islam and you have an expansionist China,” he said during a 2016 radio appearance. “They are motivated. They’re arrogant. They’re on the march. And they think the Judeo-Christian West is on the retreat.”

“Against radical Islam, we’re in a 100-year war,” he told Political Vindication Radio in 2011.

“We’re going to war in the South China Seas in the next five to 10 years, aren’t we?” Bannon asked during a 2016 interview with Reagan biographer Lee Edwards.

“We are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism,” he said in a speech to a Vatican conference in 2014. “And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.”

In a 2015 radio appearance, Bannon described how he ran Breitbart, the far-right news site he chaired at the time. “It’s war,” he said. “It’s war. Every day, we put up: America’s at war, America’s at war. We’re at war.”

To confront this threat, Bannon argued, the Judeo-Christian West must fight back, lest it lose as it did when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. He called Islam a “religion of submission” in 2016 — a refutation of President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 description of Islam as a religion of peace. In 2007, Bannon wrote a draft movie treatment for a documentary depicting a “fifth column” of Muslim community groups, the media, Jewish organizations and government agencies working to overthrow the government and impose Islamic law.

Springtime for Scammers

Now Donald's true colors emerge. Working folks, this is what you voted for? This was a bad choice on your part!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/opinion/springtime-for-scammers.html

From the site:

Last week Mr. Trump released a memorandum calling on the Department of Labor to reconsider its new “fiduciary rule,” which requires financial advisers to act in their clients’ best interests — as opposed to, say, steering them into investments on which the advisers get big commissions. He also issued an executive order designed to weaken the Dodd-Frank financial reform, enacted in 2010 in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Both moves are very much in line with the priorities of congressional Republicans and, of course, the financial industry. For both groups really, really hate financial regulation, especially when it helps protect families against sharp practice.

Why, after all, was the fiduciary rule created? The main issue here is retirement savings — the 401(k)’s and other plans that are Americans’ main source of retirement income over and above Social Security. To invest these funds, people have turned to financial professionals — but most probably weren’t aware that these professionals were under no legal obligation to give advice that maximized clients’ returns rather than their own incomes.

Americans are taking an active role in their democracy, and their representatives can’t handle it

https://thinkprogress.org/americans-are-taking-an-active-role-in-their-democracy-and-their-representatives-cant-handle-it-b7d310c03a16#.dll2ym291

From the site:

Every Tuesday since January 20th, a group of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-CA) constituents have gone to his local office in Huntington Beach, California, to try to get the answer to one key question: When can they talk to their representative?

When they showed up on January 31st, however, they were met with a locked door. One person was able to talk to staff through the intercom, but then the staff stopped answering. Eventually, the police came out from inside the locked office — where they appeared to have been waiting for the constituents to show up.

Donald Trump Is the “TV Reality” President

Good piece from John Cassidy at the New Yorker. Donald suffers from an incredibly short attention span and, as a result, gets all his information from Cable News. Can't read briefings -- SAD!

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trump-is-the-tv-reality-president

From the site:

In a juicy piece in Monday’s Times, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush reported that Trump’s cable-news viewing extends well beyond his breakfast hours. He “recently upgraded the flat-screen TV in his private dining room so he can watch the news while eating lunch,” the Times duo reported. Evidently, Trump also does a lot of viewing at night, when he’s alone in the White House’s living quarters. “With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller,” the Times report said. “When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.”

Trump Protesters Borrow from Tea Party to Put Pressure on Lawmakers

This is great to see! Put the pressure on your representatives!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/us/trump-protesters-tea-party.html

From the site:

MORRISTOWN, N.J. — For weeks, a swelling group has been showing up every Friday here at the local office of Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen to demand that he hold a town-hall meeting to answer its concerns about his fellow Republicans’ plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

After weeks without an answer, the congressman’s staff replied that he would be too busy, that such gatherings took considerable planning and that just finding a meeting place could be tough.

So the group, NJ 11th for Change, secured venues in all four counties that Mr. Frelinghuysen represents for times during the congressional recess this month — and constituents plan to show up even if he does not.

O’Reilly told Trump that Putin is a killer. Trump’s reply: ‘You think our country is so innocent?’

I am truly amazed that Repubs go along with this buffoon Trump! And same goes for Fox News! Defending the fact that Putin is a killer does not seem to be a real strong right wing principal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/04/oreilly-told-trump-that-putin-is-a-killer-trumps-reply-you-think-our-countrys-so-innocent/

From the site:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump has long been effusive in his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.

In an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, which will air ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday, Trump doubled down on his “respect” for Putin — even in the face of accusations that Putin and his associates have murdered journalists and dissidents in Russia.

“I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them,” Trump told O'Reilly.

O'Reilly pressed on, declaring to the president that “Putin is a killer.”

Unfazed, Trump didn't back away, but rather compared Putin's reputation for extrajudicial killings with the United States'.

“There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers,” Trump said. “Well, you think our country is so innocent?”

More than 100,000 visas have been revoked as a result of Trump’s Muslim ban, government admits

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/03/over-100000-visas-have-been-revoked-as-a-result-of-trumps-muslim-ban-government-admits/?source=newsletter

From the site:

President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” has caused over 100,000 visas to be revoked, despite the government claiming that the ban only affected hundreds.

After a pair of brothers from Yemen sued the government for being forced to fly to Ethiopia after arriving at Dulles International Airport on Saturday, an attorney for the United States government revealed that over 100,000 visas had been revoked since the Muslim ban took effect. The attorney could not say how many foreign nationals in total had been forced to go home from Dulles International Airport as a result of the Muslim ban.

Trump Leads the Religious Right to the Promised Land

The religious right has found its man! Our new president is as devout and pious as they come!

http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-leads-religious-right-promised-land/

From the site:

During the 2016 campaign, pundits were often incredulous at the sight of religious-right leaders at the side of the thrice-married, biblically ignorant, philandering, ethically challenged businessman-turned-politician — one whose blatant and coarsely stated misogyny, whose braggadocio about sexually harassing women, whose treatment of women as property and objects of derision, could not deter them from joining his quest. After the election, commentators puzzled over the 81 percent of white evangelical voters who cast their ballots for Trump, despite ample evidence of his questionable, decidedly unchristian business practices and cheating of workers and contractors. Not even the scandal of his Trump University grift kept them away from him.

The attraction is now apparent: power.

Trump to order regulatory rollback Friday for finance industry starting with Dodd-Frank

Well, Mr. and Mrs. Red State America, how are you feeling now about the new administration? The Dodd-Frank rule was flawed but at least offered some protection against unrestrained financial excesses. This will be great for the Average Joe! Yeah, right!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/03/trump-to-order-rollback-friday-of-regulations-aimed-at-finance-industry-top-aide-says/?utm_term=.7d9e8097adb7&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

From the site:

President Trump plans to order a rollback Friday of regulations governing the financial services industry and Wall Street under the Dodd-Frank law and beyond, a White House source confirmed.

Gary Cohn, White House Economic Council director, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published last night that the administration would also move against a regulation designed to force retirement advisers to work in the best interest of their clients. That “fiduciary rule” is set to take effect in April. Promulgated by the Department of Labor, it’s meant to eliminate conflicts-of-interest among professionals dealing with people enrolled in qualified retirement plans and IRAs.

Leaked Draft of Trump’s Religious Freedom Order Reveals Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination

https://www.thenation.com/article/leaked-draft-of-trumps-religious-freedom-order-reveals-sweeping-plans-to-legalize-discrimination/

From the site:

A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination.

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but when asked Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was in the works, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “I’m not getting ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue. There is a lot of executive orders, a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.”

Michael Moore Threatens To Take Out Dems Who Don’t Block Trump Pick

Gorsuch is a bad choice. He of the "Forever Fascist" sect at his $30K per year prep school.

https://www.good.is/articles/michael-moore-trump-supreme-court-filibuster

From the site:

“Senate Dems, let’s be very clear: You will filibuster & block this SC nom or we will find a true progressive and primary u in next election.”

That earlier effort by Democrats to sideline the nomination of Samuel Alito back in 2008 was unsuccessful. But it also didn’t have the suddenly more-influential-than-ever Moore pushing it.

At least seven Democratic senators are already wavering on whether to support the filibuster. Republicans only need eight to get the required 60 votes to push Gorsuch through, assuming their entire caucus votes to confirm him.

But if Democrats can hold the line, the 49-year-old judge would effectively be stuck in limbo, forcing President Trump to either scuttle his nomination entirely or pursue the so-called “nuclear option” of using a legislative tactic to circumvent the filibuster. Such a move would likely be successful but would also had a huge historical asterisk to Gorsuch and Trump’s legacy and could further inflame activists like Moore to push their efforts even further when the next inevitable nomination comes forward.

Behind closed doors, Republican lawmakers fret about how to repeal Obamacare

This is several days old -- but what an amazing story. It's just what we thought. Now that it's crunch time the truth comes out -- there is no real plan to 'replace' Obamacare.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/behind-closed-doors-republican-lawmakers-fret-about-how-to-repeal-obamacare/2017/01/27/deabdafa-e491-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.e1be7acc6365

From the site:

Republican lawmakers aired sharp concerns about their party’s quick push to repeal the Affordable Care Act at a closed-door meeting Thursday, according to a recording of the session obtained by The Washington Post.

Trump’s “amazing” ignorance: The president’s Black History Month celebration was embarrassing

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/01/trumps-amazing-ignorance-the-presidents-black-history-month-celebration-was-embarrassing/?source=newsletter

From the site:

It’s pretty obvious that Donald Trump does not know why Frederick Douglass is an important figure in American history. That’s to be expected from someone who, as The New York Times put it recently, “does not read books,” and Trump has often described himself as someone who doesn’t really care for details when consuming information. Trump likely has heard the name Frederick Douglass before, and he probably knows Douglass was a human who existed and that he is significant in some way, but odds are he can’t explain why.

The Anti-Refugee Movement Is America at Its Most Ignorant

https://is.gd/aCW235

From the site (Rolling Stone):

The American refugee program is the ultimate test case of that statement. Refugees only get here after a lengthy screening process. Each candidate is individually screened by multiple security agencies. They're fingerprinted and checked for criminal ties and terrorist associations.

So regarding Malkin's first point, this would be the last route any terrorist organization would choose to infiltrate the United States. It would be like trying to be a stowaway on a battleship. The concern that you're going to get a jihadist coming in this way is irrational at best.