Progressive Discussion - Monday 2-13-17

Good morning! I read back on yesterday's posts and have to agree wholeheartedly that Republicans are so anti-social services but boy they sure line up for Medicare and SS and even Obamacare. 

I see the same oxymoronic hypocrisy when it comes to state corporate taxes. The Repubs are always on an outcry where I live that taxes on corporations are too high so "The Democrats are taxing jobs out of the state." Guess who has a conniption when the state makes a reduced tax agreement with a company or a plant so that it won't move out of state? You  guessed it. "No, you can't give them a tax abatement!!"

A Department of Education website explaining the rights of students under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has vanished. That’s the same law that confounded new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearings.

DeVos dodged questioning about the law last month, insisting it was up to individual states on whether to grant disabled students their educational rights, even though it’s a federal law that applies across the nation.

New U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also blasted the act for its “special treatment of certain children,” blaming it for the “acceleration in the decline of civility and discipline in classrooms across America.”.....Huff Post

As the parent of a Special needs child, who spent his entire education in the Special Education program in the Public school, I just cannot even convey how disgusted & angry this made me when I read it. The statement by Sessions " special treatment of certain children" just sends chills up my spine.

Robert Reich
33 mins ·
Disturbing news this morning about how much “truth” about the rest of the world is getting to Trump.
1. The Observer reports that the U.S. intelligence community is so convinced that Trump and his administration has been compromised by Russia that they are no longer giving the White House all of their most sensitive information, lest it end up in Putin's hands. A senior National Security Agency official explained that the National Security Agency was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep secrets.
2. The intelligence community is concerned that even the Situation Room – the conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings -- has been compromised by Russia. A senior Pentagon intelligence official stated that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM. There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point,” the official added in frustration.
3. The New York Times reports “chaotic and anxious days inside the National Security Council.” Council staff get up in the morning, read Trump’s tweets, and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an “insider threat” program that could result in monitoring their cellphones and emails for leaks.
4. National security adviser Michael T. Flynn has hunkered down since investigators began looking into what, exactly, he told the Russian ambassador to the United States about the lifting of sanctions imposed in the last days of the Obama administration, and whether he misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations. His survival in the job may hang in the balance.
Bottom line: U.S. foreign policy is now in the hands of a man with a severe personality disorder, who is not getting the information a president needs about the rest of the world. If that doesn’t worry you, nothing will.
What do you think?

The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins
Our Intelligence Community is pushing back against a White House it considers dishonest and penetrated by the Kremlin.
OBSERVER.COM

Tweety is quickly turning our foreign policy into a total disaster to go along with the disaster he's committing internally to our country. Republicans better reign him in soon, or there's going to be nothing left.

"As bad as we thought it would be under Tweety, I don't think anyone could have imagined how bad it actually is this short of a time into his term,"

Reasonable people knew then and still do know how unstable and out of control this whack job is. He never made any sense about anything. But, he didn't have to make sense. All he had to do was to be a republican and the reps/cons would vote for him.

Does anybody remember when he bragged about how he could stand on a corner in NYC and shoot somebody and people would still vote for him? I might be a Democrat but I have an elephant's memory. His base cheered when he said that. So, he's a madman and his supporters are too. Oh yeah, I knew from the very beginning how bad he would be and so did many other sane and reasonable people. I know he'll say he was only kidding and we have no sense of humor, but in a country where more people are killed by guns than any other country, would a sane candidate and his base, even think of saying something like that?

Those that wanted change got it. There used to be a reasonable and calm politician sitting in the Oval Office. Now there's an out of control ego maniac stomping through the People's house shredding democracy, mocking certain people just like he mocked that reporter, using certain people as scapegoats because when people are afraid blaming 'them' for all our troubles is so much easier than working together to find a solution, telling women how to dress, insulting foreign leaders from other countries, etc.

Yep. We have change. We are now a joke to the rest of the world. A politician has been replaced with a crazy and out of control clown that couldn't care less about The People. All he cares about is his ego, his bank account and his dangling part.  Take that, Hillary!

The hypocrisy just continues to grow and grow. I've decided there is no limit to it, and while there are a lot of people (including many who voted Republican) realizing what a disaster this administration is there are still those die hard far right wingers who just continue to wallow in the hypocrisy and will never admit the truth of what is happening. They refuse to accept reality. They also refuse to read or listen to any credible news sources, because they don't want to know the truth.

I have a theory that Trump is going to start firing his own appointees in fits of rage. Let's see if I'm even a little bit right in the weeks to come.