Monthly Archives: February 2017

House GOP Quietly Moves to Kill Commission Charged With Securing Elections

House Committee also voted to abolish public financing for presidential elections

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-7-2017

Tuesday’s votes by GOP committee members, as The Nation’s Ari Berman put it, are “more proof of how the GOP’s real agenda is to make it harder to vote.” (Photo: Keith Ivey/cc/flickr)

Amid national outrage over possible foreign interference in the 2016 election and President Donald Trump’s own lies about so-called voter fraud, House Republicans on Tuesday quietly advanced two bills that “could profoundly impact the way we administer and finance national elections,” watchdogs are warning.

The GOP-dominated Committee on House Administration voted along party lines to approve the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Termination Act (HR 634), which would abolish the only “federal agency charged with upgrading our voting systems” and “helping to protect our elections from hacking,” as Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, put it. Continue reading →

Trump “Not Fully Briefed” on Order Elevating Bannon to Security Council

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New York Times reports the lapse was a ‘greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban’

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-6-2017

Steve Bannon. Photo: Paladin Justice/flickr/cc

President Donald Trump reportedly did not realize he was promoting chief strategist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council (NSC) Principals Committee when he signed the executive order dropping intelligence and defense officials from the top government panel and elevating the former Breitbart News chair in their place.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump had not been fully briefed on his own executive order, which became “a greater source of frustration to the president” than the protests and legal actions over his travel ban blocking immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries. Continue reading →

How to Help Immigrant and Muslim Neighbors

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People are turning their frustrations with the Trump administration into finding ways to make a meaningful difference in the lives of vulnerable citizens.

By Lornet Turnbull. Published 2-3-2017 by YES! Magazine

Photo: Twitter

On Orcas Island in the Washington San Juans, a group of local residents is working with immigrants to create contingency plans for what will happen to children if their parents are unexpectedly picked up, detained, or deported.

And in a small-town West Virginia classroom, Cynthia Evarts is using articles and books about refugees—a young girl from Vietnam, boy soldiers in Sierra Leone—hoping, she said, to give her students a perspective different from the ones they may get at home. Continue reading →

Elizabeth Warren To Democrats: Only an ‘Opposition Party’ Can Defeat Trump

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Crisis didn’t just begin with Trump, says Massachusetts senator, “because for years and years and years, Washington has worked just great for the rich and the powerful, but far too often, it hasn’t worked for anyone else”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-4-2017

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s speech at the 2017 Progressive Congress Strategy Summit in Baltimore on February 4, 2017. (Screenshot: YouTube)

Speaking to members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) delivered a searing critique by telling her fellow Democrats that the party should not let themselves “off the hook” when it comes to explaining horrific reality of President Donald J. Trump.

In order to defeat Trump and take on the Republicans, she said, Democrats can no longer play it safe or cozy up to powerful interests at the expense of everyday concerns and the needs of working people.

“Our moment of crisis didn’t begin with the election of Donald Trump,” Warren told CPC members gathered at their annual retreat in Baltimore, Maryland. “We were already in crisis. We were already in crisis because for years and years and years, Washington has worked just great for the rich and the powerful, but far too often, it hasn’t worked for anyone else.” Continue reading →

‘Spectacular Betrayal’ as Trump Hands Economy ‘Back Over to Wall Street’

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‘The Wall Street bankers against whom Trump ran are making policy now,’ says Public Citizen

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-3-2017

Executive orders seen as “a cave-in to the power of Wall Street and the financial lobby.” (Photo: Dave Center/flickr/cc)

President Donald Trump is handing the U.S. economy “back over to Wall Street” on Friday, with a regulatory rollback that critics say could put consumers and the financial system at risk.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump signed executive orders Friday “establish[ing] a framework for scaling back the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law” and rolling back an Obama-era regulation requiring advisers on retirement accounts to work in the best interests of their clients. That rule was set to go into effect in April. Continue reading →

Trump Seeks to Take Wrecking Ball to Division Between Church and State

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Draft executive order ‘reads like the administration was challenged to see how many violations of the Bill of Rights can be contained in one policy change’

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-2-2017

A 2016 poll found two-thirds of Americans say churches and other houses of worship should not come out in favor of one candidate over another during political elections—but President Donald Trump wants to “destroy” the amendment that keeps it that way. (Photo: Peter Miller/flickr/cc)

President Donald Trump appears intent on demolishing the wall between church and state, telling an audience on Thursday that he will “totally destroy” an amendment that bars religious tax-exempt organizations from engaging in political activity—while his administration reportedly circulates a far-reaching draft executive order on “religious freedom” that effectively legalizes discrimination.

Trump told attendees at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday that he “will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.” Continue reading →

Ukraine’s eastern front: a Trump card in a bigger game?

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Everybody wants better relations between Russia and the west. But leaders in Moscow and DC could throw Ukraine under the bus to get them.

By Ian Bateson. Published 1-31-2017 by openDemocracy

Photo: @datensuche/Twitter

Last week, as I traveled around Ukraine’s eastern front, I found myself talking to soldiers stationed there. The new US president was a regular topic of conversation. “What’s with your new president? He seems unstable,” said one Ukrainian soldier before opening a gate to a hill-top military base. Another, examining our American passports at a checkpoint, asked us what we thought of him, and then threw in his own opinion that Trump is a “rare piece of shit”.

Others have responded more diplomatically. “If Trump is for democratic values and if his work is aimed at helping the development of democratic countries, then he will support Ukraine,” said Viacheslav Filin, commander of Ukraine’s 46th battalion, known as the Donbas Battalion. But for all of Trump’s talk about putting “the people” in charge, he isn’t very interested in promoting democracy at home or abroad as he dams the flow of information and enacts policy by executive order. Continue reading →

Fears Grow that Rule of Trump Will Suppress Rule of Law Under Sessions

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After Trump fires acting attorney general over refusal to enforce Muslim ban, Sessions described as “intellectual godfather…of Trump’s hard-line actions”

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-31-2017

Jeff Sessions. Photo: Screenshot (CNN)

Updated 2pm EDT:

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee invoked a procedural move called the two-hour rule—which, according to The Hill, prevents “holding committee meetings beyond the first two hours of the Senate’s day”—to push the attorney general vote until Wednesday.

The move stalls the controversial confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions and came at the same time that Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted hearings for Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin and Rep. Tom Price’s nomination to be secretary of health and human services, forcing Republicans to reschedule both votes. Continue reading →

Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

Monthly Archives: February 2017