Tag: Trump Administration

Trump officials rush to auction off rights to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it

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Officials aim to sell drilling rights to the pristine wilderness’s coastal plain before the president-elect takes office

The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The “call for nominations” to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register allows companies to identify tracts on which to bid during an upcoming lease sale on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million-acre coastal plain, a sale that the Interior Department aims to hold before Biden takes the oath of office in January. The move would be a capstone of President Trump’s efforts to open up public lands to logging, mining and grazing, which Biden strongly opposes.

A GOP-controlled Congress in 2017 authorized drilling in the refuge, a vast wilderness that is home to tens of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl, along with polar bears and Arctic foxes. Continue reading.

Bye, Betsy’: Educators Celebrate the End of the DeVos Era

Stakeholders in the education community celebrated Joe Biden’s victory because it means the end of the troubled tenure of Betsy DeVos.

AFTER THE 2020 presidential election was called for Joe Biden on Saturday, the country’s educators released a collective sigh of relief knowing that, at long last, the days were numbered for the woman they consider Public (School) Enemy No. 1: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

The national teachers unions, their city and state affiliates, school superintendents, principals, educators and parents took to social media to throw DeVos an early retirement party, posting photos and videos of themselves popping bottles of champagne with tears in their eyes, retweeting GIFs and memes of doors being slammed shut, of actors performing trite “buh-byes” and of photoshopped pictures of DeVos as Cruella de Vil and other Disney movie villains. 

The Chicago Teachers Union lit up Twitter with two words: “Bye Betsy.” Continue reading.

USPS quietly awards $5 million contract to DeJoy’s former company: ‘Epic level of corruption’

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The U.S. Postal Service last month quietly awarded a $5 million contract to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former company XPO Logistics, raising fresh allegations of unethical activity by the Trump megadonor as he continues to come under fire for causing nationwide mail delays that could impact next month’s election.

CBS News reported Friday that the Postal Service “will pay XPO $3.3 million annually to manage its route between the two cities, which are roughly 700 miles apart.”

“The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency,” according to CBS. Continue reading.

A Trump Victory May Push His Defense Secretary Out an Open Door

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Mark Esper’s strained relationship with President Trump, since he balked at using active-duty troops to quell civil unrest, may result in Mr. Trump choosing a new defense secretary if he keeps the White House.

WASHINGTON — Throughout the long corridors of the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper is widely seen as a dead man walking.

There is a broad consensus that if President Trump defies the pollsand wins re-election, the president has so belittled his defense secretary, referring to him as “Yesper” and deriding him both publicly and privately, that a new defense secretary soon would be sitting in the prestigious outer ring of the Pentagon’s third floor.

Asked if he has considered firing Mr. Esper, who took over the post in July 2019, Mr. Trump told reporters at a White House news conference in August: “I consider firing everybody. At some point, that’s what happens.” Continue reading.

Republicans, Religious Leaders and Reporters Testing Positive of COVID-19 in October White House Outbreak

List updated October 14, 2020 at 4:45 PM

  1. President Donald Trump
  2. First Lady Melania Trump
  3. Barron Trump
  4. former Senior Presidential Advisor Kellyanne Conway
  5. Claudia Conway, Kellyanne Conway’s daughter
  6. Senior Presidential Advisor Hope Hicks
  7. Senior Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller
  8. Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien
  9. Trump Personal Assistant Nicholas Luna
  10. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
  11. White House Assistant Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
  12. White House Assistant Press Secretary Chad Gilmartin
  13. White House Assistant Press Secretary Harrison W. Fields
  14. White House Assistant Press Secretary Jalen Drummond
  15. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia’s wife, Trish Scalia
  16. RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel
  17. Sen. Mike Lee, R-North Carolina
  18. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin
  19. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina
  20. Coast Guard Vice Commandant Vice Admiral Charles Ray
  21. former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
  22. Presidential Military Aide Jayna McCarron
  23. an unnamed military aide
  24. an unnamed presidential valet
  25. The Rev. John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame University
  26. Paster Greg Laurie
  27. New York Times correspondent Michael D. Shear
  28. Michael Shear’s wife
  29. Photojournalist Al Drago
  30. a unidentified correspondent

Had to Quarantine

  1. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Millie
  2. Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General John Hyten
  3. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday
  4. Army Chief of Staff General James McConville
  5. Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Brown
  6. General Gary Thomas
  7. Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
  8. Chief of Space Operations General John Raymond
  9. National Guard Bureau Chief General Daniel Hokanson
  10. Commander of U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency John Nakasone
  11. Attorney General Bill Barr
  12. Jason Lewis, GOP U.S. Senate candidate for a second time
  13. Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka
  14. House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt

Pence’s alternative pandemic world

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Vice President Mike Pence described a world in which he and President Trump led Americans’ heroic effort to defeat the coronavirus during last night’s vice presidential debate. The problem is, he described a world that doesn’t exist.

Why it matters: The coronavirus is very much not in control in the U.S., and America’s failed response begins with the individual actions of the president and the vice president themselves.

  • Instead of defending the administration’s decisions and behaviors, Pence acted as if they never happened.

What Pence said: Trump’s decision to shut down travel from China “bought us invaluable time to stand up the greatest national mobilization since World War II, and I believe it saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.”

  • Reality check: The administration botched the initial response to the pandemic, producing a faulty diagnostic test and failing to stop the virus from taking hold across the U.S.
  • Despite the travel ban, the virus clearly found its way into the country. Continue reading.

Mike Pence is a reminder that destructive leaders are symptoms of an anti-democratic status quo

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If President Trump dies from the coronavirus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans largely due to his deliberate negligence, the man replacing him will be no less dangerous. While Mike Pence has eluded tough media scrutiny — in part because he exhibits such a low-key style in contrast to Trump — the pair has been a good fit for an administration that exemplifies the partnership of religious fundamentalism and corporate power.

The vice president, a former Indiana talk-show host who went on to become a six-term congressman and then governor, has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” But he remains at cross-purposes with the biblical admonition (Matthew 6:24) that “you cannot serve both God and money.” Whether Pence has truly served God is a subjective matter, but his massive service to money—big money—is incontrovertible.

Pence ranks high as a Christian soldier marching in lockstep with Trump on all major policy issues, a process that routinely puts business interests ahead of human lives. Whatever his personal piety might be, the results of Pence’s fidelity to right-wing agendas have further consolidated a de facto coalition of those seeking ever-lower taxes on wealth and corporations; denial of LGBTQ rights; a ban on abortion and severe restrictions on other reproductive rights; voter suppression and barriers to voting by people of color; obstruction of healthcare for low-income people; and on and on. Continue reading.

National Intelligence chief gave little notice for briefing on Russian assessment

The hastily assembled gathering on Tuesday night, led by John Ratcliffe, caught Senate staffers off-guard and heightened unease about the possible deployment of disinformation.

The nation’s top intelligence official raced to arrange a briefing for senators on Tuesday night, according to three congressional sources, after declassifyingwhat he acknowledged was an unverified Russian intelligence assessment.

The hastily assembled briefing, led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, caught staffers off-guard and exacerbated concerns about what Democrats said was the deployment of Russian disinformation to support President Donald Trump’s effort to discredit the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s contacts with the Russian government.

The episode also revived allegations from Democrats that Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman and a longtime ally of the president, is abusing his position to aid Trump politically by selectively declassifying documents intended to denigrate Trump’s political opponents. Much of that information has been revealed through Republican senators who are conducting investigations targeting those opponents. Continue reading.

Senate GOP eases Wolf’s path to becoming Homeland Security secretary

Wolf, acting chief for nearly a year, defended his agency against whistleblower claims in a mostly frictionless hearing

Overcoming a pair of whistleblower reports by employees alleging misconduct and neglect, as well as skepticism over the legality of his current appointment, Chad Wolf faced little resistance at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday to become Homeland Security secretary.

Wolf, who has been serving as the department head in an acting capacity for almost a year, was given a wide berth by Republicans on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to explain recent controversies his department has battled.

Despite concerns panel Democrats raised about Wolf’s record, the swift, largely frictionless round of questioning suggests the nominee may face a quick confirmation by the full Senate in coming weeks. A committee meeting has been scheduled for Sept. 30 to vote on the nomination. Continue reading.

Trump greenlights drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but will oil companies show up?

The Trump administration has announced that it is opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development – the latest twist in a decades-long battle over the fate of this remote area. Its timing is truly terrible.

Low oil prices, a pandemic-driven recession and looming elections add up to highly unfavorable conditions for launching expensive drilling operations. In the longer term, the climate crisis and an ongoing shift to a lower-carbon economy raise big questions about future oil demand.

I’ve researched the U.S. energy industry for more than 20 years. As I see it, conservative Republicans have backed oil and gas production in ANWR since the 1980s for two overriding reasons. First, to increase domestic oil production and reduce dependence on “foreign oil,” a euphemism for imports from OPEC countries. This argument now is largely dead, thanks to the fracking revolution, which has greatly expanded U.S. oil and gas production. Continue reading.