Trump Is on Trial for Abuse of Power - the Davos Elites Should Be in the Dock Too

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Trump Is on Trial for Abuse of Power - the Davos Elites Should Be in the Dock Too

Robert Reich, Guardian UK
Reich writes: "As the Senate debates Donald Trump's future, chief executives, financiers and politicians will descend on Davos in the Swiss Alps for their annual self-congratulatory defense of global capitalism."

The events are not unrelated. Trump is charged with abusing his power. Capitalism’s global elite is under assault for abusing its power as well: fueling inequality, fostering corruption and doing squat about climate change.

Chief executives of the largest global corporations are raking in more money and at a larger multiple of their workers’ pay than at any time in history. The world’s leading financiers are pocketing even more. The 26 richest people on Earth now own as much as the 3.8 billion who form the poorer half of the planet’s population.

Concentrated wealth on this scale invites corruption. Across the world, big money is buying off politicians to procure favors that further enlarge the wealth of those at the top, while siphoning off resources from everyone else.

Corruption makes it impossible to fight stagnant wages, climate change or any other problem facing the vast majority of the world’s population that would require some sacrifice by the rich.

Popular anger is boiling over against elites seen as irredeemably greedy, corrupt and indifferent to the plight of most people struggling to get by. The anger has fueled uprisings in Chile, Spain, Ecuador, Lebanon, Egypt and Bolivia; environmental protests in the UK, Germany, Austria, France and New Zealand; and xenophobic politics in the US, the UK, Brazil and Hungary.

Trump’s support comes largely from America’s working class whose wages haven’t risen in decades, whose jobs are less secure than ever and whose political voice has been drowned out by big money.

Although Trump has given corporations and Wall Street everything they’ve wanted and nothing has trickled down to his supporters, he has convinced those supporters he’s on their side by channeling their rage on to foreigners, immigrants, minorities and “deep state” bureaucrats.

It seems strangely appropriate, therefore, that the theme of this year’s Davos conclave is “stakeholder capitalism” – the idea that corporations have a responsibility to their workers, communities and the environment as well as to their shareholders.

Expect endless speeches touting the “long-term” benefits of stakeholder capitalism to corporate bottom lines: happy workers are more productive. A growing middle class can buy more goods and services. Climate change is beginning to cost a bundle in terms of environmental calamities and insurance, so it must be stopped.

All true, but the assembled CEOs know they’ll get richer far quicker if they boost equity values in the short term by buying back their shares of stock, suppressing wages, fighting unions, resisting environmental regulations and buying off politicians for tax cuts and subsidies.

This has been their strategy for three decades, and it’s about to get worse. Three researchers – Daniel Greenwald at MIT’s Sloan School, Martin Lettau at Berkeley and Sydney Ludvigson at NYU – found that between 1952 and 1988, economic growth accounted for 92% of the rise in equity values. But since 1989 most of the increase has come from “reallocated rents to shareholders and away from labor compensation”. In other words, from workers.

What this means is that in order for the stock market to do as well in coming years, either economic growth has to accelerate markedly (highly unlikely), or chief executives will have to siphon off even more of the gains from growth from workers and other stakeholders to their shareholders.

This is likely to require even more downward pressure on wages, more payoffs to politicians for tax cuts and subsidies and further rollbacks of environmental regulations. All of which will worsen the prevailing discontent.

There will be no mention at Davos of any of this, nor of the increasing political and economic power of these elites and the diminishing power of average workers and citizens around the world.

Nothing will be achieved in the Swiss Alps because the growing global discontent has yet to affect the bottom lines of the corporations and financial institutions whose leaders are assembling to congratulate themselves on their wealth, influence and benevolence.

Trump, meanwhile, is likely to be acquitted by Senate Republicans who are so cowardly and unprincipled that they will ignore his flagrantly unconstitutional acts.

Trump plans to speak at Davos, by the way: an impeached president addressing world economic leaders while being tried in the Senate. He’ll probably boast about the stock market, bully and lie, as usual.

One thing he won’t say is that the whatever-it-takes abuses of economic and political power such as he and much of his audience are engaged in threaten to destroy capitalism, democracy and the planet.

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American civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta, both wearing garlands, are received by admirers after landing at the airport in New Delhi on Feb. 10, 1959. (photo: Rangaswamy Satakopan/AP)

'To India I Come as a Pilgrim': Martin Luther King Jr.'s Remarkable Trip to Honor His Hero
Gillian Brockell, The Washington Post
Brockell writes: "After six full days of travel, Martin Luther King Jr. had finally arrived. He was met with wreaths of flowers and driven to a luxury hotel near the India Gate."
READ MORE

The Women's March. (photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

If the National Archives Blurs Anti-Trump Speech From Its Exhibits, Is It Really an Archive?
Zack Linly, The Root
Linly writes: "Why show us the Women's March but obscure one of the main issues that fed the energy of that day?"
READ MORE

First Lady Michelle Obama visits a Maryland school given a 2009 USDA prize for promoting health. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Trump Admin Wants to Weaken Obama's Healthy School Lunch Rules. Again.
Catherine Kim, Vox
Kim writes: "Friday marked the Trump administration's second attempt at loosening regulations governing school meals that were implemented under former President Barack Obama. The administration's latest target: fresh vegetables and fruit."
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Demonstrators hold banners and placards as they attend the 2020 Women's March in Washington, DC. (photo: Mary F Calvert/Reuters)

'A Rapist in Your Path' Anthem Sets Defiant Tone at Women's March
Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath, Al Jazeera
Gottbrath writes: "The performance gave a defiant, powerful tone to the fourth annual Women's March, which saw thousands from across the country and world brave light snow and freezing rain to march in Washington, DC. Thousands of others rallied in cities and countries worldwide."

EXCERPT:

"I want everyone to know that women deserve rights too," said Mariam Meite, who travelled from North Carolina for the march.

"We're not making this stuff up," the 21-year-old told Al Jazeera. "We're actually being assaulted every day. We're not getting paid equally. We're dying all the time. We deserve to be heard."

Sarah Sophie Flicker@sarahsophief

Our sisters from Chile,@lastesisoficial, led us in the powerful and cathartic mantra, “El Violador En Tu Camino” outside the a White House. Naming the predator. Blaming the system. Salt the earth. Video by @vsancho #LasTesis #WomensMarch2020

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Protesters held signs that included a variety of demands, from climate action to reproductive rights.

"My particular concern is the planet, climate and how [President Donald] Trump and his cronies and his associates are doing everything wrong," said Laura, who only gave her first name.

"They aren't concerned, it seems, with the survival of the planet and the people," the 67-year-old from Pennsylvania told Al Jazeera. "Hopefully we have not gone so far that our planet is doomed."

Bailey Nickoloff, a 26-year-old law student in Washington, DC, said she also attended the march to call for climate action, as well as to demand respect for Indigenous rights and to take a stand against Trump.

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Mark Zuckerberg. (photo: Getty Images)

Facebook's Grand TV Plan Is Crumbling - but With a Twist
Yohana Desta, Vanity Fair
Desta writes: "Facebook is scaling back its troops in the Great Streaming War."
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The Antarctic ozone hole on Sept. 24, 2006. (image: NASA)

Ozone Layer Recovery Is Being Undermined by Pollution From US Companies
Sharon Lerner, The Intercept
Lerner writes: "Chemicals used for everything from fracking to cooling appear to be the culprits, according to comments the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency in December."

he global response to the “ozone hole,” as it came to be known in the 1970s, has long been held up as a model for environmental problem-solving — and the hope that we might yet be able to fix the climate crisis. After scientists realized that chemicals used for cooling and in aerosol sprays were causing the Earth’s protective ozone layer to thin, threatening to cause vast increases in cancers and other diseases, countries around the world came together to fix it. Even the companies that made and sold the chemical culprits — chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs — participated in the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that began phasing them out in 1989. Since then, the ozone layer has partially recovered.

The international commitment to eliminating ozone-depleting chemicals has held so firm that in 2018, when some Chinese factories were discovered to be using a substance banned by the treaty known as CFC-11, they were met with condemnation from the U.S. and other countries. Erik Solheim, head of the United Nations Environment Program, which oversees the Montreal Protocol, called the release of the ozone-depleting substance “nothing short of an environment crime which demands decisive action.” China quickly addressed the problem.

Yet evidence has recently emerged that U.S. companies are also releasing ozone-depleting chemicals. While the ozone layer is rebounding overall, scientists have observed decreasing levels of the gas in certain areas. Chemicals used for everything from fracking to cooling appear to be the culprits, according to comments the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency in December. The chemical pollution, some of which is coming from the U.S., EPA records show, has already delayed progress on the ozone layer. The resulting setback appears to be worse in highly populated southern latitudes, where it could cause the most damage. Continued emissions of the chemicals could delay the healing of the ozone layer by up to 30 years, according to a 2017 article published in Nature Communications.

Despite the threat, the EPA has not considered impacts on ozone in initial phases of its assessment of 14 chemicals with ozone-depleting potential now being conducted under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Asked about the decision, an EPA spokesperson wrote in an email that “because ozone depletion risks are adequately assessed and effectively managed under the Clean Air Act, EPA does not expect to include ozone-depletion potential in risk evaluations” of three of the chemicals. The agency response did not address the other 11 chemicals under scrutiny.

Loopholes and Untracked Emissions

Both the Clean Air Act and the Montreal Protocol do regulate some of these short-lived chemicals that erode the ozone layer. But they make an exception when the chemicals are byproducts or used as feedstock for making other products, a loophole that may explain why some of them are still accumulating in the atmosphere more than 30 years after the treaty took effect.

Carbon tetrachloride, for instance, a potent ozone-depleting chemical that was used to make CFCs, is tightly regulated under the treaty. Nevertheless, the amount of the chemical in the atmosphere has been rising. While the exact sources of the pollution have been treated as a mystery, some of the discrepancy appears to be due to the increasing use of carbon tetrachloride as a feedstock for other chemicals, which the EPA has acknowledged is its main use. Between 2012 and 2018, U.S. companies released 1.3 million pounds of the chemical into the air. Among the biggest emitters are a Dover Chemical plant in Ohio and two plants in Geismar, Louisiana — one owned by Rubicon and the other by Occidental — according to an analysis of EPA data by the consulting firm Material Research.

Asked about Rubicon’s emission of carbon tetrachloride, Mark Dearman, the company’s general manager, said that “We’re currently operating under our air permits under the EPA and the Department of Environmental Quality of the state of Louisiana and we’re constantly working year on year to reduce our emissions and be good environmental stewards.” Occidental and Dover Chemical did not respond to requests for comment.

Levels of another ozone-depleting chemical, methylene chloride, are also on the rise, climbing 8 percent per year between 2000 and 2012, according to the most recent analysis. Methylene chloride was not regulated under the treaty because it lasts for only a short time in the atmosphere and so was once thought to have a minimal impact on ozone. But its release is responsible for much of the delay in the recovery of the ozone layer, according to the Nature Communications article.

U.S. companies, including the SI Group, 3V Sigma, and CR Bard, all of which are based in South Carolina, released 19.8 million pounds of methylene chloride into the air between 2012 and 2018, according to company reports to the EPA. In an emailed statement, SI Group spokesperson Melissa Quesnel wrote, “When methylene chloride is in use, we have engineering controls in place to recover and recycle as much as possible to limit our emissions, complying with all emission regulations.” 3V Sigma and CR Bard did not respond to The Intercept’s inquiries for this article.

But the key to understanding the chemical’s increasing levels may be what’s not tracked by the agency, since the industrial emissions of methylene chloride reported by the EPA are dwarfed by the amounts scientists estimate is in the atmosphere.

The gap may be partially explained by the chemical’s use in oil and gas production, one of the sectors whose emissions of these substances aren’t disclosed in publicly available EPA data. In addition to being used to make pesticides and plastic, methylene chloride is used in the “oil and gas drilling, extraction, and support activities sector,” according to a 2017 EPA report, and has been found in the air near fracking wells. As the number of fracking wells has increased, so have methylene chloride levels in the atmosphere.

Ironically, both chemicals are also used as feedstocks to make the next generation of coolants, which were introduced to replace CFCs and other coolants because they won’t destroy the ozone layer.

Nevertheless, the U.S. companies that release the chemicals undermining one of the world’s biggest environmental achievements have so far faced little pressure to stop. “China was bashed internationally for the production of CFC-11,” said Avipsa Mahapatra, who leads the Environmental Investigation Agency’s climate campaign. The U.S. and other countries pushed hard on China to stop releasing substances like CFC-11, which erode ozone, Mahapatra continued. “But even in America substances that damage the ozone layer are being released.”

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Garrison Keillor | Standing Around, Watching People Suffer

13 October 18 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News SLOW DOWN FOLKS, WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH DONATIONS: People are racing through here a mile a minute, but don't seem to be able to stop long enough to contribute. Visualize an RSN with a functional budget. We need your help here folks. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation! Garrison Keillor | Standing Around, Watching People Suffer  Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website Keillor writes: "The annual marathon ran by our house in St. Paul Sunday morning, a phalanx of flashing lights of police motorcycles, followed by Elisha Barno of Kenya and other African runners, and later the women's winner, Sinke Biyadgilgn, and a stream of thousands of others, runners, joggers, walkers, limpers." READ MORE Women gather for a rally and march at Grant Park in Chicago to inspire voter turnout ahead of midterm polls in the United States, October 13, 2018. (photo: Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images) Thousands of Women's March Activists Try to Turn Up Heat on GOP Before Election Day Aamer Madhani and Christal Hayes, USA TODAY Excerpt: "With less than four weeks to go before the midterm elections, thousands of activists descended upon Chicago and Massachusetts Saturday to urge voters - particularly women - to head to the polls and express their anger about the GOP-led Senate's confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh." READ MORE The Proud Boys in New York City. (photo: Shay Horse/Twitter) SEE ALSO: PROUD BOYS: WHITE DOMESTIC TERRORISTS Mob of White Nationalist 'Proud Boys' Brutally Beat Several Men in NYC: 'Are You Brave Now Faggot?!' Zack Ford, ThinkProgress  Ford writes: "The Proud Boys took Manhattan Friday night, attending a lecture by their founder, Gavin McInnes, at the Metropolitan Republican Club of New York City." READ MORE A prisoner. (photo: Getty Images) Incarcerated Pennsylvanians Now Have to Pay $150 to Read. We Should All Be Outraged. Jodi Lincoln, The Washington Post Lincoln writes: "Every year, thousands of people in Pennsylvania prisons write directly to nonprofit organizations such as the one I co-chair with a request for reading material, which we then send to them at no cost. This free access to books has dramatically improved the lives of incarcerated individuals, offering immense emotional and mental relief as well as a key source of rehabilitation." READ MORE Prince. (photo: Bertrand Guay/Getty Images) Prince's Estate Wants Donald Trump to Stop Playing 'Purple Rain' at His Hate Rallies Monique Judge, The Root Judge writes: "Donald Trump likely does not care for or about black people. It is evident in his policies, the way he set up his administration, and the way he is currently exploiting the lunacy of Kanye West." READ MORE Protesters in Bolivia wave a giant wiphala, a symbol of indigenous heritage. (photo: Patrick Breen) Original Peoples of Bolivia Celebrate Decolonization Day teleSUR Excerpt: "The original peoples of Bolivia celebrated Decolonization Day in the Case Grande del Pueblo Friday." READ MORE Pollution from a factory. (photo: Reuters) EPA Cuts Science Panel That Reviewed Deadly Air Pollutants Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch Rosane writes: "It seems that every day scientists discover more about the dangers of air pollution. It is well known that it causes heart and lung disease, but studies this year have linked it to dementia and found soot particles in placenta. Most recently, a study published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine found a connection between particulate matter and mouth cancer risk." READ MORE Contribute to RSN Become a Fan of RSN on Facebook and Twitter Update My Monthly Donation

RSN: Why Mass Disruption, Civil Unrest Works

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FOCUS: Why Mass Disruption, Civil Unrest Works 
 
David S. Cohen, Rolling Stone 
Cohen writes: "After the Women's March, I wrote that Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues responded to the largest single-day protest in American history with a big middle finger by quickly acting, in direct contradiction to the March's goals, to restrict reproductive rights, both at home and abroad." 
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Trump Doubles Down on Lies and Conspiracy Theories: A Closer Look

CLG: Trump rips up controversial TPP 'trade' deal and says getting out is 'a great thing for the American worker'

 News Updates from CLG
26 January 2017

http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

 

Previous editions: Breaking: Donald Trump takes the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States

 

Trump rips up controversial TPP 'trade' deal and says getting out is 'a great thing for the American worker' | 23 Jan 2017 | President Donald Trump yanked the United States out of President Barack Obama's 12-nation trade corporate takeover pact today, making good on a campaign promise to negotiate a better agreement. Trump signed an executive order Monday morning withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. 'We've been talking about this for a long time,' Trump said in remarks from the Oval Office on Monday as he signed the memorandum. 'Great thing for the American worker.'

 

Trump to begin renegotiating NAFTA pact soon with Mexico, Canada | 22 Jan 2017 | U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he plans talks soon with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to begin renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. "We will be starting negotiations having to do with NAFTA," Trump said at a swearing-in ceremony for his top White House advisers. "We are going to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration and on security at the border." Trump pledged during his presidential campaign that if elected he would renegotiate the NAFTA trade pact to provide more favorable terms to the United States.

 

President Trump Meets with Union Leaders | 23 Jan 2017 | (Video)

 

Trump Signs 3 Executive Orders, Including Withdrawal From Pacific Trade Deal | 23 Jan 2017 | President Trump acted on Monday to keep a signature campaign promise: withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump's action, an executive order, is mostly symbolic. As he signed the order in the Oval Office, Trump said, "We've been talking about this for a long time," adding it's "a great thing for the American worker." Trump also signed two other executive orders...

 

Dow Jones breaks 20,000 for first time ever and global stocks hit 19-month high as markets reignite 'Trump rally' | 25 Jan 2017 | The Dow Jones smashed the landmark 20,000 barrier for the first time ever this afternoon as optimism about Trump's pro-growth policies boosted financial markets. Resuming a rally that began in the wake of Donald Trump's shock US presidential election win, the index rose by as much as 0.73pc to 20,057.89. The rally was reignited by Trump's signing of numerous executive orders since his inauguration on Friday.

 

Trump to sign executive order banning Syrian refugees from US | 25 Jan 2017 | President Trump plans to announce at least a temporary ban on refugees and immigrants from a handful of Muslim-majority countries plagued by Islamic terrorism. Trump argued on the campaign trail that the US had no way of knowing whether refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria could be disguised terrorists. Trump also wants to suspend issuing visas for people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen for at least 30 days, according to the draft. [What about the Saudi sociopaths?]

 

President Trump moves on immigration promises | 25 Jan 2017 | President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed to take aggressive steps to expel unauthorized immigrants, saying he would expand immigration jails, sanction nations that refuse to take back their citizens, and seek to strip federal funding from sanctuary cities such as Boston and Somerville that do not help deport immigrants. He also vowed to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. Trump's action fulfilled what his spokesman called "one of his most significant campaign promises" and followed increasing agitation among his base after he failed to address immigration enforcement on his first day, as he promised.

 

Trump orders wall to be built on Mexico border | 25 Jan 2017 | President Donald Trump has issued an executive order for a wall to be built along the southern US border with Mexico. He also signed an action to strip funds from US cities that are sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. Mr Trump said in a TV interview that Mexico would "absolutely, 100 percent" reimburse the US for his wall. Building a 2,000-mile barrier along the Mexican border was one of his key pledges in the election campaign.

 

Protesters Decry Trump Immigration Orders at Washington Square Park Rally | 25 Jan 2017 | Crowds gathered at Washington Square Park Wednesday evening to protest President Donald Trump's recent executive orders. The president moved this week to restrict people from select countries with large Muslim populations from entering the United States, to build a wall along the border of Mexico and to cut federal funds to "sanctuary cities" like New York that don't cooperate with deportations and other federal actions against undocumented immigrants...The protest was organized quickly by the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY).

 

Trump signs order to move controversial oil pipelines forward | 24 Jan 2017 | U.S. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Tuesday to move forward with construction of the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, rolling back key Obama administration environmental actions in favor of expanding energy infrastructure. While oil producers in Canada and North Dakota are expected to benefit from a quicker route for crude oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refiners, a revival of the projects would mark a bitter defeat for Native American tribes and climate activists, who vowed to fight the decisions through legal action.

 

Donald Trump's senior advisers sworn in at White House | 22 Jan 2017 | President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence presided over a formal ceremony Sunday to swear in about two dozen senior White House aides, including Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, national security adviser Michael T. Flynn and senior advisers Stephen K. Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner. As White House staff, the aides do not need to be confirmed by the Senate.

 

Former congressman Mike Pompeo sworn in as CIA director | 23 Jan 2017 | Mike Pompeo was sworn in Monday night as director of the CIA at a crucial time for U.S. national security as intelligence -- traditionally a nonpartisan issue -- has been thrust [by the globalist-owned media] into the political arena. "You are stepping up to lead the finest intelligence-gathering operation the world has ever seen," Vice President Mike Pence said during the nighttime swearing-in ceremony...The Senate earlier Monday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to run the CIA despite some Democratic objections that the Kansas congressman has been less than transparent about his positions on torture, surveillance and Russia's [alleged] meddling in the U.S. election. The vote was 66-32.

 

Rex Tillerson is approved by Senate panel for secretary of State | 23 Jan 2017 | Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil chief executive selected by President Trump to be secretary of State, won approval Monday from a Senate committee, all but guaranteeing his ascension to the job. The vote at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was 11 in favor and 10 against, cast strictly along party lines. The nomination now moves to the full Senate. Several senators, Republican and Democratic, had expressed opposition to Tillerson's nomination ahead of Monday's vote.

 

Senate confirms Trump's first Cabinet member | 20 Jan 2017 | The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's first Cabinet member Friday, formally approving his defense secretary. As the Senate voted on retired Gen. James Mattis for defense secretary, he easily cleared the 50-vote majority threshold. New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was the first and so far only senator to vote against him.

 

Trump signs bill allowing Mattis to lead Pentagon | 20 Jan 2017 | President Trump, in his first significant official act as president, signed legislation Friday allowing retired Gen. James Mattis to run the Pentagon as defense secretary. A Senate vote to confirm Mattis, 66, is scheduled for later in the day. But Trump first needed to sign the bill passed by Congress granting him a waiver to serve, given the law on the books that bars former service members who've been out of uniform for less than seven years from holding the top Pentagon job.

 

Moments after taking the oath, President Trump transforms White House website | 20 Jan 2017 | Just moments after President Donald Trump took the oath of office Friday, the official White House website was transformed into a set of policy pledges that offered the broad contours of the Trump administration's top priorities -- a list that included fierce support for law enforcement bordering on vigilantism, an immediate elimination of the White House's policy page on climate page and a notable absence of any directives involving President Obama's Affordable Care Act. "Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter," reads the law and order section, which calls for "more law enforcement" and "more effective policing." "Our job is to make life more comfortable for parents who want their kids to be able to walk the streets safely. Or the senior citizen waiting for a bus. Or the young child walking home from school."

 

Trump inauguration draws nearly 31 million U.S. television viewers | 21 Jan 2017 | Nearly 31 million viewers watched live U.S. television coverage of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, far fewer than tuned in to Barack Obama's first swearing-in, but otherwise the biggest such audience since Ronald Reagan entered office, ratings firm Nielsen reported on Saturday. The tally for Trump - 30.6 million viewers on 12 broadcast and cable networks that aired live coverage from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST - surpassed the TV audiences measured for his two most recent Republican predecessors - both inaugurations of George W. Bush and the one of his father, George H.W. Bush.

 

Senior Secret Service agent suggests she wouldn't 'take a bullet' for Trump | 24 Jan 2017 | A senior U.S. Secret Service agent posted social-media condemnations of President Trump during the past seven months, including one in which she said she wouldn't want to "take a bullet" for him. She explained herself saying she viewed his presidential candidacy as a "disaster" for the country, and especially for women and minorities. Kerry O'Grady, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Denver district, oversees coordination with Washington-based advance teams for all presidential candidate and presidential trips to the area, including all upcoming or future trips by the president, vice president or Trump administration officials.

 

Kentucky woman is under investigation by Secret Service for tweeting she hopes someone will 'be kind enough' to assassinate Trump | 23 Jan 2017 | The Secret Service is investigating a Kentucky woman after she tweeted that she hoped someone would be 'kind enough' to assassinate President Donald Trump. Heather Lowrey, of Louisville, tweeted January 17: 'If someone was cruel enough to assassinate MLK, maybe someone will be kind enough to assassinate Trump.' The Secret Service confirmed that it interviewed the 26-year-old, and are still investigating the incident, reported the New York Daily News. The tweet set off a firestorm online, according to Wave 3 News.

 

Secret Service will investigate Madonna after singer says she wants to BLOW UP the White House in expletive-filled rant at women's march | 21 Jan 2017 | The Secret Service has reportedly said they will open an investigation into pop singer Madonna after her intense speech at the Women's March on Washington on Saturday afternoon. Donning a black p***yhat, the music icon caused controversy by dropping the F-bomb four times, sparking a slew of apologies from broadcasters airing the protest live. She went on to speak of her rage at the election result, telling the crowd she had thought a lot about 'blowing up the White House' but knew that it 'wouldn't change anything'. According to the Gateway Pundit, a spokesman for the Secret Service said they were 'aware' of Madonna's comments and will open an investigation, but the ultimate decision whether or not to prosecute is the decision of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

 

White House warns reporters to leave Barron Trump alone after SNL suspends writer for tweeting that the 10-year-old boy would be 'this country's first homeschool shooter' | 24 Jan 2017 | The White House put journalists on notice Tuesday that Barron Trump, the president's 10-year-old son, must be left out of political reporting. The warning followed Saturday Night Live's decision to indefinitely suspend a staff writer who tweeted on Inauguration Day that the boy was destined to become 'this country's first homeschool shooter.' The White House Press Office blasted out a message to reporters Tuesday afternoon, saying that '[i]t is a longstanding tradition that the children of Presidents are afforded the opportunity to grow up outside of the political spotlight.'

 

SNL Writer Tweets That Barron Trump Will Be America's 'First Homeschool Shooter' | 20 Jan 2017 | A writer [sic] for Saturday Night Live broke the usual rule about not targeting the children of politicians with whom we disagree. For approximately three hours today, SNL"Weekend Update" writer Katie Rich had a tweet up saying that President Trump's 10 year old son, Barron, was going to grow up to become America's "first homeschool shooter." Rich eventually deleted her tweet, though not before Twitter users took notice.

 

Video: MSNBC's Matthews Says Trump's Speech "Hitlerian" | 20 Jan 2017 | During inauguration coverage MSNBC's Chris Matthews said that Trump's speech had "a Hitlerian background to it." "When he said today, 'America first,' it was not just the racial...I shouldn't say racial,...the Hitlerian background to it..."

 

BBC used the wrong subtitles for Donald Trump's inauguration speech | 20 Jan 2017 | Donald Trump's inauguration speech with the wrong subtitles. BBC broadcast the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States, but it seems they incorrectly used the subtitles of the BBC kids' show 'The Dumping Ground'.

 

Twitter removes post by NYU professor who blasted PC culture on college campuses | 24 Jan 2017 | A controversial New York University professor [CLG Founder, Michael Rectenwald] returned from paid leave only two days ago and he is already back in the hot seat after Twitter deleted one of his tweets advocating free speech and railing against so-called social justice warriors (SJW)... "It had to be someone within the Twitter administration,” Rectenwald told Fox News. “Instead of calling it social media, they should call it social justice media." [Note: My position has been that SJW ideology does not promote social justice at all but rather abrogates individual rights and adds layers of oppression to existing oppression. See "Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, Bias Reporting: The New Micro-techniques of Surveillance and Control."- MR]

 

CLG Exclusive: The Inauguration of Trump and the Early Opposition to Trumpism ByMichael Rectenwald | 23 January 2017 | I have been asked what I think about the protests and marches against the inauguration of Donald Trump, as well as what to say in response to liberals, leftists, women, feminists, trans* persons and others participating in them. This essay represents an answer to the question...The fact is – despite the honest motives and real political objectives of participants – the contemporary left-liberal movement, inclusive of the Women's March on Washington, is being promoted and supported, financially and otherwise, by particular sectors of the ruling class – in particular the financial sectors inclusive of Wall Street and the banks, the dominant political sector, and the intelligence sector.

 

Political Science's "Theory of Everything" on the 2016 US Election | 19 Jan 2017 | [Had enough of the hysterical hue and cry, the hand-wringing, the gnashing of teeth, and the hyperbolic screeching from the ideologically-committed, intellectually bankrupt and empty-headed media pundits, the protesters, and the other lugubrious mourners of Trump's ascension? Then read this.] The invisible rulers of the US establishment were revealed by Professor C. Wright Mill in his article titled, "The Structure of Power in American Society" (The British Journal of Sociology, March 1958), in which he explains how, "the high military, the corporation executives, the political directorate have tended to come together to form the power elite of America"...He describes how the power elite can be best described as a "triangle of power," linking the corporate, executive government, and military factions...The 2016 US election, like all other US elections, featured a gallery of pre-selected candidates that represented the three factions and their interests within the power elite. The 2016 US election, however, was vastly different from previous elections. As the election dragged on the power elite became bitterly divided, with the majority supporting Hilary Clinton, the candidate pre-selected by the political and corporate factions, while the military faction rallied around their choice of Donald Trump. [Thus, what we are experiencing is a division and struggle within the ruling sectors, not fascism versus some innocent liberalism. The "innocent liberalism" is thin scrim for a ruling sector, the corporatocracy. The media mouthpieces of these "innocent liberals" are trying to tarnish another faction by calling them "fascists." And liberals and leftists act as if the corporate sector is not behind it. Perhaps they don't realize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN and other corporate media outlets are speaking for corporations! In fact, they ARE corporations, speaking. --MR]

 

Globalists, Corporations Funding Women's Marches Against Trump | 21 Jan 2017 | Burton Snowboards CEO is funding employee trips to Women's March on Washington | 19 Jan 2017 | Burton Snowboards president and CEO is Donna Carpenter. Jake Burton Carpenter, who founded what has become the largest snowboard brand in the world in his barn in Vermont in 1977...Carpenter, who has served on espnW's advisory board, plans to travel to Washington, D.C., on Saturday, the morning after Donald Trump's inauguration, to join an expected 200,000 people at the Women's March on Washington. On Jan. 5, Carpenter sent an email to all of Burton's female employees, offering to fund and lodge anyone interested in joining her in D.C. [espnW is a branch of ESPN Inc. Eighty percent of ESPN is owned by Walt Disney, the cheap labor, tax-avoiding globalists.]

This CEO Is Paying for Employees to Go to the Women's March | 19 Jan 2017 | Donna Carpenter, the CEO and co-owner of Burton Snowboards, told Cosmopolitan that she plans to be at the Women's March this weekend. And she'll be there with an entourage. The 53-year-old businesswoman offered her Vermont-based employees two nights in a hotel room and airfare (up to $250) if they too wanted to walk in the march with her.

Trip to DC protest funded by college offices | 18 Jan 2017 | Students watching coverage of the Women's March on Washington this Saturday may see some familiar faces. With support from the college, 48 students and two faculty members will attend the protest, not to mention students attending independently. The college offered financial support for a bus rental with m-ney from from college offices and organizations, including the President's Office, the Elma Lewis Center, and Emerson Peace and Social Justice.

Billionaire George Soros has ties to more than 50 'partners' of the Women’s March on Washington | 20 Jan 2017 | To understand the march better, I stayed up through the nights this week, studying the funding, politics and talking points of the some 403 groups that are "partners" of the march. Is this a non-partisan "Women's March"?...I found out: plenty.

[Cui bono? The Women's March is subsidized and attended by corporatists and globalists, whom Trump has vowed to battle. Whether Trump keeps his word or not is moot at this point. The point is, virtue-signaling has become the tool du jour of the ruling class. --LRP]

Universities hire buses to take students to Women's March | 20 Jan 2017 | Several universities are paying for their students to attend the Women's March on Washington, a post-Inauguration protest intended to show solidarity with marginalized communities and speak out against Donald Trump. Emerson College in Massachusetts, Columbia/Barnard University, and DePauw University in Indiana have agreed to charter buses to Washington, D.C. so that students can participate in the March, which recently came under fire for disinviting a pro-life group that was cosponsoring the protest.

 

Video: White nationalist Richard Spencer punched at protest | 20 Jan 2017 | Richard Spencer, a self-described white nationalist and leader of the "alt-right" movement, walked into the protests in downtown D.C. on Friday and was punched in the face by one of the demonstrators after denying that he was a Nazi.

 

Man shot outside UW event for Milo Yiannopoulos | 20 Jan 2017 | A man was shot at a University of Washington protest in the campus's Red Square outside an event with controversial Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos on Friday night. The University of Washington College Republicans invited Yiannopoulos to speak on Friday, the day of Donald Trump's inauguration...Meanwhile, in downtown Seattle another protest left Westlake Park, with some demonstrators marching to the U-District to join the UW protest. Protesters threw rocks, fireworks, and other items at officers. They blocked the entrance to Kane Hall, but Yiannopoulos's speech still started around 8 p.m. Protesters from the Westlake Rally were only about two blocks away from UW before the shooting happened.

 

MAP: Inauguration protests sweep through campuses | 20 Jan 2017 | Universities across the country are preparing for a Trump presidency with a weekend of protests and walkouts, while others are shipping students all the way to D.C. to participate in the uproar. The following map demonstrates an unsurprising geographical distribution of anti-Trump protests, with the highest concentration of demonstrations on the East and West coasts, as Campus Reform has observed of anti-Trump protests in the past.

 

D.C. police: 217 people arrested during protests | 20 Jan | Protests in Washington during President Trump's inaugural festivities have led to at least 217 arrests, interim D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said at an evening news conference. Newsham said that the vast majority of protests across the city unfolded peacefully. But he said that around 10 a.m., a group of 400 to 500 people — whose activities appeared to be 'organized and intentional' — moved south on 13th Street NW toward the Mall. Some were armed with crowbars and hammers, and they destroyed vehicles and storefronts along the way. Those arrested were charged with rioting, Newsham said. "This was not a spontaneous event," he said. He said that police deployed pepper spray and "other armaments" to deter the protesters.

 

Inauguration protesters vandalize, set fires, try to disrupt Trump's oath, as police arrest more than 200 | 20 Jan 2017 | Protesters made themselves heard in the nation’s capital Friday, leaving a trail of damage along some city blocks, disrupting security checkpoints at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and clashing with police as Trump supporters tried to celebrate. As people poured into the city to watch Trump sworn in as the 45th president, they encountered protesters across the area throughout the day. Many of the demonstrations were nonviolent, with people holding signs that spoke to their causes and concerns...But other groups tried to disrupt the day's events by burning flags, throwing bricks and rioting en masse, leading to injuries and 217 arrests by Friday evening.

 

Donald Trump inauguration protests: Violence breaks out as protesters smash windows and clash with police | 20 Jan 2017 | Disorder has broken out in Washington DC amid tight security ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration. A group of masked protesters, some carrying flags bearing the anarchist symbol, were filmed smashing windows, running through the streets and clashing with police. One man dressed in black smashed the window of a McDonald's with a hammer, while others tipped over bins around an hour before the start of Mr Trump's ceremony.

 

A trifle upset: Protester screams in agony as Trump sworn in | 20 Jan 2017 | An anti-Trump protester screams in agony as the new US President is sworn in. The woman, sitting cross-legged on the ground close to Capitol Hill, was filmed yelling "no" at the top of her voice as Donald Trump took his oath.

 

Barack and Michelle Obama's farewell message asks: What now? | 20 Jan 2017 | In a video released on social media on Friday, he joined his wife, Michelle, and said they wanted ideas for the new presidential centre they will set up in Chicago. Mr Obama called it a "living, working centre for citizenship". However, Mrs Obama said their first priority would be to get some sleep. The project will be based in the couple's old neighbourhood, South Side, but they said it will have projects all over the city, the country and the world. They called for the public to send in their ideas, hopes, beliefs and inspirations via the website Obama.org.

 

W.H.O. Warns of Worrisome Bird Flu in China | 25 Jan 2017 | After a spate of deaths from bird flu among patients in China, the World Health Organization has warned all countries to watch for outbreaks in poultry flocks and to promptly report any human cases. Several strains of avian flu are spreading in Europe and Asia this winter, but the most worrisome at present is an H7N9 strain that has circulated in China every winter since 2013. China has reported over 225 human cases since September, an unusually high number. 

 

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