Steel Magnolia
Atlanta, GA 8 hours ago
I am a labor and employment lawyer, now retired after almost 40 years of practice. For the last 25 years of my career, I was chief labor/employment counsel for a Fortune 50 company.
The author of this piece claims “affirmative action” requires “preference” in the workplace for blacks, hispanics and other minorities and uses that claim as ballast for his argument. But it has absolutely no basis in law.
“Affirmative action”–a creature of executive orders starting with Lyndon Johnson and re-upped by every administration since–applies only to employers who have contracts with the federal government and requires only that such contractors seek out qualified female and minority applicants if those groups are “underrepresented” in the contractor’s workplace as compared to their workforce availability in the local area.
There is nothing in these executive orders that requires federal contractors to give preference in hiring to lesser qualified women or minorities, and in fact that would be unlawful. The prohibition in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act against employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, color and national origin is a two-way street. In other words, it is just as unlawful to give hiring preference to lesser qualified minorities as it would be to do the reverse.
“Affirmative action” may be an appealing spot for Trump supporters to lay blame, but it’s just a red herring. And such blame sounds a lot like just another dogwhistle.
Don the Con Claims Stock Market is a Bubble
Heheh. It’s a joke. He said that back in October of 2015, when it was politically opportune for him to make the claim that we were in an economic bubble that would surely burst in a year. Now he’s claiming that the stock market at 22,000 is a validation of his rule. In fact, the stock market has been rising relentlessly because low interest rates make it difficult for rich people to find profitable places to park their cash. The Hill had an interview with Don the Con back then, when he claimed that the Dodd-Frank legislation was a “disaster” and stifled economic growth. Warning: link is to a nonsecure web site.
Snaggle Paws
Home of the Brave 11 hours ago
Since we obviously are missing a few good men, I’ll have to borrow the movie quote: “And the hits just keep right on coming!”
Another opportunity for the fine folks of @realBiggerGovt to advocate on behalf of New Modern Segregation and to convince the “I got left behind” white parents that their children are being downtrodden by Admissions Boards. Giving their base some bogeychildren to rant at. Sick.
Make sure you investigate how Charles Kushner bought Jared’s admission to Harvard with a $2.5M endowment since his High School officials were reported to say that he didn’t have the GPA nor SAT scores. I guess abuses to admit the white privileged kids don’t need investigated because they got admitted on the merit of their money and not on the merit of rising above their circumstances.
A commenter to an article about Al Gore in the Guardian set me to thinking about something I’d noticed but hadn’t fully realized: when an article about a subject like Al Gore or climate change appears, the first comments are always from trolls who do things like making personal attacks against the subject or recycling fake anti-climate change myths.
Yes, there is a huge troll army out there, both American and Eastern European, that watches tirelessly for articles to comment on, and puts up pre-written screeds that are borderline offensive or just plain lies. Surely someone is getting paid– but not well– to try to saturate every comment thread, especially in liberal online media, with lies and misdirection.
The Russian’s primary motivation in the US presidential election of 2016 was not to elect Don the Con. It was to disrupt, delegitimize, and denigrate American democracy to weaken our country. Why? Because the Russian government is a smaller, weaker, and less well-financed organization than the US government by a country mile– and it is smart enough to use “cyberwarfare” to try to make up for this disadvantage. These are not the tactics of a legitimate government that is trying to better its citizens’ standing and well-being. They are the tactics of a totalitarian-minded organization that feels threatened by transparency and the voice of the people.
Remember that the US has spent more money on its military than the next six or seven largest countries by GDP combined. We are the unquestioned militarily dominant country of the world. Countries that have illegitimate governments, especially those who are actively engaged in trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their citizenry– I’m looking at you, China, and you, Russia, and so many others– feel threatened by the US and react defensively to attempts to spread the concept of the legitimate primacy of an informed electorate.
Sure, the US has– especially in the past– done similar bad things to other countries and other cultures. But we are different because every four years we elect a leader who may decide to go in another direction entirely. Back in 1960, with the narrow election (some say put over by the dead voters of Chicago) of JFK, the country took a slight turn to the left and scared the bejesus out of all the racists in the South. Not that we backed down from our mortal enemy, the Soviet Union– far from it, we threatened to bomb Cuba back into the Stone Age– but we did negotiate with the Soviets and remove our threatening short-range nuclear missiles from Turkey, which were functionally equivalent to the nuclear missiles Krushchev was trying to install in Cuba. That was worse for the militarists because their choice would have been to use the Bay of Pigs to invade and over-run a country that had just survived a revolution run by a grass-roots Marxist named Castro.
For that sin, the US laid a lifetime embargo on Cuba that was only loosened after fifty years and Castro’s death– and is going to be tightened again under Don the Con. The failed attempts to pass a health-care denial bill in the Senate are just a side-show. Don’s administration is quietly going about reversing all the policies that, under Eisenhower and Kennedy, were widely considered even by the Republican Party to be progressive, conservative, and in the best interests of all Americans, rich and poor. A democratic country is only as good as its current leadership, which can change every two years in our House of Representatives. Everyone should go out and vote for a Democratic Congress in November 2018 so that our kakistocrat and kleptocrat in chief, Don the Con, can be impeached and removed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
It is clear that the Republican Party, despite the animadversions of Jeff Flake, will never support impeachment– to its lasting shame and, we’re hoping, its destruction.
To avoid posting another whole column, I will here note the publication of Jeff Flake’s deathbed statement (just kidding) that he has always hated Trump because he is a con-man and has played Pied Piper to the rest of the Republican establishment. Jeff Flake is a Republican senator from Arizona who is under threat of being primaried because of his Never-Trump stance last fall. He has nothing to lose by exposing the reasons he refused to vote for Don the Con. He still doesn’t explain or justify his votes in favor of health-care repeal– he is still a flint-hearted conservative– but at least he is still a principled, honorable man. Just like the paranoid Goldwater, he is against “handouts” but at least he doesn’t play dirty, which is why Don threatened to primary him. He will not be on the Republican ballot for Senate next time, and a write-in vote for him appears impossible based on his low popularity, so he is politically a dead man walking. Those are the consequences of opposing Don the Con: he will insult and degrade you on Twitter, and if threats don’t work, he will unleash the full fury of the Tea Party movement (fully funded by Koch). Look for more early comments from “people” who claim that Jeff Flake is a child-molester or worse.
fast/furious
the new world 15 minutes ago
What is a good courageous patriot like John Kelly doing working for Donald Trump, who’s busy dismantling our democracy & burying us in discord, hatred & lies?
There’s no claiming Kelly is doing this because he respects the “Office of the President” & has a patriotic duty to help stabilize this administration. Anyone paying attention understood Trump had to go when he fired James Comey & told Russian agents in the Oval Office he did it to rid himself of the investigation.
Anyone working for Trump now is either stupid, crazy or ignoring reality. Kelly’s aiding & abetting a traitor. Trump may be president but he either actively colluded w/ Russia to steal our election or Trump’s now – for bizarre reasons – covering up what his associates AND the Russian government did.
John Kelly should not be working in the White House. Trump’s given power to Jared and Ivanka – violating democratic norms against nepotism & is listening to nuts lSteve Bannon & Stephen Miller who want to dismantle our government.
No amount of scheduling & controlling ‘access’ by Kelly will make Trump a sane, decent, responsible human being. Kelly’s no Fairy Godmother or Sigmund Freud w/ the power to change Trump’s personality or values.
Kelly should quit & get out w/ his fine reputation intact. Every day Kelly spends in the Trump White House madhouse, he risks his reputation as a great public servant. Trump won’t hesitate 5 minutes to use & dispose of John Kelly.
This will be horrible to watch.
It is so ironic that Don the Con Jr. met with a Russian government agent last June in search of emails by Hillary that would provide damaging evidence against her… and documented the meeting with an email that showed that he knew it was a Russian agent who wanted to provide “something of value” (hacked documents)– the definition of illegal conduct under US laws regulating campaigns. The emails that were revealed by Wikileaks (apparently in coordination with Don’s presidential campaign) were embarrassing to the Democratic National Committee but didn’t reveal any illegal behavior. The emails that Don Jr. participated in were prima facie evidence of illegal activity. Oh, the irony!
Quote of the Day: Ethics Czar Speaks Out
“It’s wildly inappropriate for him to be running a hotel that he’s leasing from the federal government. As a president, you shouldn’t be doing business with the United States government. He’s his own landlord at this point.”
—Walter Shaub, who resigned this month as director of the Office of Government Ethics in protest, referring to Don the Con and his hotel in the Old Post Office building in Washington; quoted in the Guardian July 31, 2017
John Toren
Minneapolis 14 minutes ago
Thinkers will have reached a new stage of rudimentary enlightenment when they come to realize that physics can tell us very little about life processes. Does skin serve a purpose? Of course. Do claws serve a purpose? Of course. Did the laws devised by Hammurabi serve a purpose. Of course. The “laws” of thermodynamics are not only dull but largely irrelevant in a universe that has been growing more complex for as long back in time as we can determine.
Andy
Salt Lake City, Utah 22 hours ago
I’m not sure I would describe the current U.S. experience as anti-Russian fanaticism. Leaving Trump aside for a moment, Putin did globally humiliate the past two U.S. Presidents. He has done so in very intentional and malicious ways. He continually works to undermine the U.S. position globally. Most recently, Putin actively interfered with the U.S. national election. The list goes on. And of course, there’s also Trump and team.
I don’t see how retaliatory action from the United States is not only expected but warranted. The fact that a sitting U.S. President would so willingly argue against these measures is the only strange thing here. It’s not fanaticism if your actions are justified. Putin did something wrong and Congress had to retaliate on behalf of the President. That’s strange.
Now Putin is moving to escalate against what should have been a normal international response. This after Trump has successfully isolated the U.S. from Europe and Asia. There’s blood in the water mate. Putin is a shark and Trump is the minnow. He may be President but that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t dental floss for Vladimir Putin.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 
Comments of the Day: Don the Con, Owned by Vlad the Impaler
Christine McM
is a trusted commenter Massachusetts 16 hours ago
Epic clash? Only if Trump stays as stupid as he has been. The worst thing that happened to Trump was that the Access Hollywood tape didn’t do him in.
Up to that point, he’d pretty much skated above all his usual garbage, from the attacks on Gold Star parents and to the low blow to McCain.
But hubris–which Lord knows Trump has in spades– has a tendency to metastasize. As Maureen points out, even now Donald thinks he can intimidate Mr. Clean.
He actually feels he can set “red lines” across which Mueller won’t dare cross out of fear of …. Hum. Fear of what, Mr. Trump?
Now I can’t speak for Russia, but here in the United States there is a quaint custom we have called the rule of law. And as far as I know, a person or team leader being investigated has to be pretty brazen to think he’s above it. Especially a president of the United States under investigation for collusion with a foreign power to win an election.
Yes, there are tributaries and rivulets of criminality that Trump may think out of bounds, but aren’t. Former FBI chiefs know the Russians are notorious for setting financial traps to coopt US citizens years before they need them for nefarious plots.
And if anyone acts coopted, it’s Donald J. Trump–an ideal “useful idiot” Putin has right where he wants him, to use as a poster boy for how easy it is to sew chaos inside an effete American democracy.
Colin McKerlie
Sydney 14 hours ago
I don’t believe Congressional Republicans will ever allow impeachment proceedings to begin, no matter what anyone can prove about Trump. Mueller and Comey might be Republicans, but they aren’t politicians.
What I want out of this investigation is publication of a detailed and accurate analysis of all Trump’s business dealings from Day One.
Any decent, thinking person must believe that the fundamental problem is that Trump was able to be nominated as a candidate for president while actively and openly concealing the truth about his business history. That was insane and it must never be allowed to happen again.
I don’t care so much about whether Republican politicians want to know the truth about Trump. I want to know the truth. I want to know who this guy really is, what he has done, who he has done business with and who he owes money. I want my own opinion to be informed, and then I’ll know what to think about Trump and what to think about the people who would nominate a man for president without knowing the truth about him.
This cannot be allowed to happen again. This investigation must lead to bipartisan laws that require full disclosure of every official document of any kind relating to a candidate before he is even allowed to register as a candidate.
The very idea that you are entitled to keep secrets about your business, professional or in any other way accountable behaviour while running for high public office is just insane. We need laws that make it impossible.
Mike Roddy
is a trusted commenter Alameda, Ca 15 hours ago
Trump, of course, is crazy, but the business with the Russians is about one thing: Money. The whole Trump ship was about to go down a decade ago, as lenders canceled his credit and he had to sell his yacht. That meant that Trump would do whatever it took to avoid penury. He was not going to get a job as a waiter, or live on his salary from The Apprentice. Instead, he turned to criminals for help:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/03/28/trump-business-past…
As you have pointed out, Maureen, Trump is the same person he’s been since his parents so tormented him many years ago, and is not capable of change.
The real villain here is the Republican Party. Very few of them opposed his candidacy on principle- unless, like Romney, he wasn’t running for office.
No, they expressed quiet “concern” with his candidacy, and then went back to their cowardly, obsequious selves when Trump won a few primaries. After he won, and his Presidency looked like something out of a funny farm, they made aw shucks gestures, and fell in line. As with siding with the oil companies (Russia is a major exporter) and Kochs.
The Democrats aren’t much better, but at least about a quarter of their Senators don’t sell out every single time. That’s our starting point- but if civilization is going to survive- no exaggeration- the people must insist on publicly financed elections.