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Trump Administration

Trump’s Military Parade Will Not Include Heavy Vehicles

March 12, 2018 Associated Press. , ,
Donald Trump looks set to get the military parade he wants in Washington, on Veterans Day in November. But a Pentagon planning memo issued on Thursday and released on Friday said the parade being planned for 11 November will “include wheeled vehicles only, no tanks consideration must be given to minimize damage to local infrastructure”. In other words, heavy tanks could tear up the streets of DC and will thus not be allowed to rumble past the president on his reviewing stand. The event will “include a heavy air component at the end of the parade”, the memo said, meaning lots of airplane flyovers. Older aircraft will be included as available. The memo did not include a cost estimate. The White House budget director recently told Congress the cost to taxpayers could be between $10m and $30m.

Who’s Afraid Of Talking With Kim Jong Un?

March 12, 2018 Jonathan Marshall, Consortiumnews.com , ,
Americans should welcome President Trump’s apparent willingness to speak with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, but instead naysayers are warning of dire consequences, Jonathan Marshall explains. Three months ago, I quoted approvingly Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to supporters in Atlanta that he would “absolutely” speak to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even if there were only a “10 percent or a 20 percent chance that I can talk him out of those damn nukes.” “What the hell is wrong with speaking?” the candidate said. “We should be eating a hamburger on a conference table.” This week, the ever-mercurial President Trump agreed to take Kim up on a surprise offer to meet face-to-face in two months to search for peace. The meeting will be the first ever held between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, two countries that remain technically at war.

Children’s Climate Lawsuit Heads To Trial

March 10, 2018 Nicholas Kusnetz, Insideclimatenews.org , ,
A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration's attempt to halt a landmark climate change lawsuit on Wednesday, ruling that the case can proceed to trial in a lower court. The lawsuit, brought in 2015 by 21 youths, argues that the federal government has violated their constitutional rights by failing to act on climate change. "We're excited to be back in the district court," said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Our Children's Trust, a nonprofit that is representing the youths. "We'll promptly ask for a new trial date for 2018 and get there as quickly as we possibly can, given the urgency of the climate crisis." The plaintiffs are asking the courts to force the government to enact policies that would cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions and end subsidies to fossil fuel companies.

Raining On Trump’s Parade

March 9, 2018 By Ann Garrison, Blackagendareport.com , ,
As far as the coalition goes, and this is still fairly young, we found that a number of organizations that Popular Resistance works with were organizing responses to the military parade. ANSWER put out a call for people to show up. Veterans for Peace and some of their allied organizations were organizing a veterans and indigenous peace march during that weekend, with a message to reclaim Armistice Day, which is what Veterans Day was initially. Interestingly, this is the hundred year anniversary of the first Armistice Day, the end of World War I. World Beyond War was also getting people to sign on to oppose the parade, so we thought, “Why don’t we bring all these people together and make this a big display of opposition to militarization both at home and abroad?”

Warning: Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Will Make It Harder To Fight Pipelines

February 22, 2018 By Jessica Corbett, Commondreams.org , ,
As green groups continue to denounce the Trump administration's recently unveiled infrastructure plan as a "scam" that's designed to keep the nation trapped in its "dirty and destructive past," analysts are also warning the proposal will "make it harder for the next big anti-pipeline movement" to launch successful legal challenges to new fossil fuel projects. The plan aims to not only fast-track the construction of more pipelines across the U.S., but also to limit "the legal options available to lawyers at environmental groups opposed to new fossil fuel infrastructure" in part by changing "the standard under which a pipeline project could be temporarily halted by a judge," as Dino Gradoni explains in a Washington Post piece published Friday.

More Coal Capacity Closed In 2018 Than First 3 Years Of Obama Admin

February 21, 2018 By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Greentechmedia.com , , ,
Last week, the Sierra Club announced the latest U.S. coal plant to close: FirstEnergy’s Pleasants Power Station in West Virginia. It’s No. 268 in a long line of U.S. coal plants that have shut down since 2010, and among several to suspend operations this month. The environmental organization lauded the closure as a victory in its Beyond Coal campaign and an affirmation that coal continues to lose when pitted against other fuel sources. The latest Sustainable Energy in America Factbook from Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy noted that the steady march of coal plant closures did slow somewhat in 2017, with just six plants closing compared to the previous year’s eight. But BNEF expects the closure trend to resume next year, with nearly as much plant capacity set to shut down 2018 as during the 2015 peak, when the coal industry dropped 15 gigawatts.

One Million Trees Pledged To ‘Trump Forest’ To Offset President’s Anti-Climate Agenda

February 21, 2018 By Lorraine Chow, Ecowatch.com , ,
Trump Forest—a global reforestation project aiming to offset President Trump's anti-climate policies—has reached 1 million trees after thousands of pledges from around the world. Trump Forest was launched just under a year ago after POTUS announced he was pulling the U.S. from the Paris agreement. "Thanks to you guys, you've pledged more than a million trees all over the world to try and offset that ignorance," Adrien Taylor, one of the three founders of the project, said in a video message announcing the milestone. "In doing so, you've not only offset some of the carbon emissions that have come out of the Trump administration, you've also helped reforest communities, and you've helped create a small silver lining in the very dark cloud of ignorance which is in the White House."

Mapping Trump’s Empire: Assets And Liabilities

February 20, 2018 James Petras, Unz.com ,
The US empire has substantially increased its scope and presence in several regions, especially in Latin America. The additions and enlargements include Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Central America, Peru and the Caribbean. The most important asset redrawing the empire in Latin America is Argentina. The US has gained military, economic and political advantages. In the case of Argentina, political and economic advances preceded military expansion. The US provided ideological and political support to secure the election of its client Mauricio Macri. The new Argentine President immediately transferred over $5 billion dollars to the notorious Wall Street Vulture speculator, Paul Singer, and proceeded to open the floodgates for a lucrative multi-billion dollar flow of financial capital.

No ‘Bloody Nose’ Strategy For North Korea, Says U.S. Official, Senators

February 19, 2018 Joe Gould, Defensenews.com , ,
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has no strategy for a pre-emptive “bloody nose” strike against North Korea, according to two lawmakers and a Trump administration official. In response to reports that the administration is considering limited, pre-emptive attacks to rid Pyongyang of its nuclear program, critics have said the president lacks the authority for such an attack and that it would spark the war it’s meant to avoid. Republican Sen. Jim Risch and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, said Thursday they and other senators had been told by senior White House officials on Wednesday that there was no such strategy. Neither senator identified the officials. The White House had “made it very clear there is no bloody nose strategy for a strike against North Korea,” Shaheen told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...

Trump’s Tax Cuts, Budget And Deficits: Recession 2019?

February 17, 2018 By Jack Rasmus, Telesurtv.net , , , ,
Trump tax cuts and Trump’s budget will exacerbate U.S. budget deficits and debt and cause the central bank to raise interest rates even faster and higher. Lies and misrepresentation of facts have become the hallmark of U.S. politics in recent years more than ever before. Not just lies of commission by U.S. President Donald Trump and his crew, but lies of omission by the mainstream media as well. In Trump’s recent package of tax cuts for corporations, investors and millionaires, the lie is that the total cuts amount to US$1.5 trillion — when the actual amount is more than US$5 trillion and likely even higher. And in his most recent announcement of budget deficits the amounts admitted are barely half of the actual deficits — and consequent rise in U.S. national debt — that will occur. Even his US$1.5 trillion so-called infrastructure spending plan, that Trump promised during his 2016 election campaign, and then throughout 2017, amounts to only US$200 billion.

Close The Forever Prison At Guantanamo

February 16, 2018 Staff, Witnessagainsttorture.com , ,
It was with heavy hearts that we, as members of Witness Against Torture, listened to Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening. We heard him attempt to stoke fear in his listeners with wave after wave of references to terrorists and criminals. He began by linking terror to “illegal immigrants,” border walls, “chain migration,” and visa lotteries, before moving on to ISIS, Al Qaida, rogue regimes, unlawful enemy combatants and more. By the time he mentioned the prison at Guantanamo, he had already clearly connected the foreigner and the immigrant with the idea of danger in his listeners’ minds. He had already skillfully set the stage when he announced his executive order to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay. In Guantanamo, he reassured his listeners, we would “have all necessary power to detain terrorists — wherever we chase them down.”

Scholars For Social Justice Launches With 100+ Members

February 16, 2018 Staff, Portside.org , , , ,
Scholars for Social Justice (SSJ) is a new formation of progressive scholars committed to promoting and fighting for a political agenda that insists on justice for all, especially those most vulnerable. We are clearly living in dangerous times with the election of Donald Trump and the empowerment of a set of rabidly right wing and racist forces. Trump, Pence and the Republicans have made it clear that not only will they usher in a radically conservative policy agenda threatening any incremental advances won under the Obama presidency, but more fundamentally reactionary right-wing supporters will directly target the rights, status and lives of people of color, Muslims, women, immigrants, LGBT communities, the poor, indigenous and differently-abled and all who have been forced to live on the margins in this country.

D.C. Police And Feds Partner With Hard Right To Convict Trump Protesters

February 15, 2018 By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet.org , , ,
Washington, D.C., police and federal prosecutors have been collaborating with notorious right-wing groups known for fascist statements and using doctored videos to ambush their targets in an attempt to convict and jail protesters from President Trump’s inauguration. The question is not whether the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., are working with Oath Keepers, a group of cops and veterans with rabid anti-government views, and Project Veritas, a far-right group known for fabricating accounts to ambush the media and the political left. The question is, how deep is the relationship between the police, federal prosecutors and these extremists? And in MPD’s case, are Washington police breaking the law, as its city council has passed laws barring them from spying on protesters or protest groups?

Strong Arguments For Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons

February 15, 2018 By Gunnar Westberg, Peaceandhealthblog.com , ,
Russian military writers have discussed the possibility of using “small” nuclear weapons if the country is attacked by an adversary with considerable conventional superiority. These “small”—Hiroshima-sized?—nukes would serve as a warning: we are prepared to defend ourselves with nuclear weapons. Such a discussion is to be expected considering the inferiority of Russia in conventional weapons. President Putin has hinted at such possibilities. However, no change in deployment, activation, upgrading, or maintenance of the “tactical” nuclear weapons in storage has been done, as far as we know, and no evidence is given in the NPR. A major problem is that there are frequent allegations in the NPR about the strategy of Russia, the main enemy, with no references—...

Worker Cooperatives Offer Real Alternatives To Trump’s Retrograde Economic Vision

February 13, 2018 By Sarah Aziza, Wagingnonviolence.org , , ,
Announcing his presidency in 2016, Donald Trump promised the nation that he’d become “the greatest job president God ever created.” His plan to accomplish this rested on a retrograde economic vision that would “make America great again,” by restoring waning coal and manufacturing jobs, as well as putting an end to the alleged assault on American work by foreign immigrants and global competition. A year later, his attempts to realize this vision have largely consisted of backwards motion. In October, he rolled back the Clean Power Plan, arguing that carbon emissions regulations, rather than the widespread shift away from fossil fuels, were responsible for the decline of U.S. coal. While the striking of these environmental protections leaves the door open for corporations to exacerbate climate change, it has done little to uplift the so-called “Rust Belt,” where he garnered so much support.
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