Progressive Discussion Tuesday 3-28-17

You've got to love Andy Borowitz!

There sure is a lot of Russian smoke in the air, too much I think for there not to be some fire somewhere. Sooner or later it is going to blaze out of control and Tweety and his aides are not going to be able to stomp it out. He should have learned a lesson from Nixon and been more straight forward from the beginning. His cover-up is what will eventually do him in. If I were in his camp I'd be very worried, because he is going to push every single one of them under the bus before he will go down.

It seems pretty clear that the open hearing with the House Intel Committee was cancelled today because Sally Yates was going to say some pretty damaging things. Nunes is not on the side of the American people but a WH cronie instead. This has got to stop. Today Trump is set to sign a whole new set of EO which essentially will undo much of what the Obama administration did to protect the climate. I am just sick over all of this. How can ANYONE still be behind this? I think the latest poll has him at 36% and I think it was 37% the last poll. How did only 1% lose confidence with all that has gone on in the last week or so?

Interesting read . . .

www.salon.com/2017/03/22/how-republicans-quietly-sabotaged-obamacare-long-before-trump-came-into-office_partner/

According to The Washington Post, "According to letters The Post reviewed, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers a great deal of her possible testimony to be barred from discussion in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by the presidential communication privilege."

Jeff Sessions has already proven himself to be a Tweety team player. Since Yates has proven that she will not be I suspect they cancelled because they were afraid of what she might say anyway despite the warnings.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-sought-to-block-sally-yates-from-testifying-to-congress-on-russia/2017/03/28/82b73e18-13b4-11e7-9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html?utm_term=.abdfc2097cc5

www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/28/former-acting-ag-yates-warned-not-testify/99727008/

Robert Reich
5 hrs ·
Since Trump named Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, as his special adviser on regulatory matters, Icahn has been busy working behind the scenes to try to revamp an obscure Environmental Protection Agency rule that governs the way corn-based ethanol is mixed into gasoline nationwide.
Why is Icahn so obsessed by this rule? Because he owns 82 percent of CVR Energy, an oil refiner based in Sugar Land, Tex., that would have saved $205.9 million last year had the regulatory fix he's pushing been in place.
In anticipation of Icahn’s making that fix, CVR Energy's stock price is up 50 percent from the pre-election level, generating Icahn $455 million as of Friday.
And while Trump has imposed a freeze on new regulations, he's allowed one Internal Revenue Service rule to go into effect that expands a special kind of oil and gas business tax loophole called a master limited partnership. Icahn cited this loophole as a primary reason he first made his big investment in CVR Energy in 2012.
Like Ivanka Trump, Icahn says he’s not subject to ethics or conflict-of-interest rules because he is an informal, unpaid adviser to Trump, not an official government employee.
Rubbish. These people are looting the federal government – and you and me – for personal gain. Trump is on the way toward creating a kleptocracy just like Putin's.
Anyone who Trump appoints as an advisor must be subject to ethics and conflict-of-interest rules. Period.
What do you think?