"Fear, fear, lies, fear, nationalism, fear, lies, nationalism, lies, fear, cherrypicking, lies."
(Seriously, the guy's been speaking for more than an hour. I've just saved you a lot of time!) I'll post some links to analyses tomorrow. Most of what I heard was repetitions of previous dubious claims and misinformation, embedded with shallow promises and over-inflated self-congratulatory remarks.
Today was otherwise a fairly depressing day. Here's what I've seen:
- Trump has claimed that Obama is behind all of the protests that have recently occurred. The guy seriously thinks he is above reproach.
- Facing mounting criticism over the botched Yemen raid and the revelations that no actionable intelligence has resulted from it, Trump blames the raid on the military. This is a stark departure from previous Presidents, who have shouldered the burden of their decisions that went down badly. Trump sincerely believes that if it's a problem, it's because of somebody else.
- Betsy DeVos, notoriously uneducated person in charge of public education, has praised historically black colleges and universities for providing "options" to students, completely overlooking this history of segregation in this country. She has been rightly pilloried. (Original statement)
- Trump signed a couple of executive orders today. The first requires the EPA to review an Obama regulation on waterways, which Republicans have decried as governmental overreach. (Original text) Of course, the aim of the original regulation was to ensure that half the country has potable drinking water...
- The second executive order was regarding HBCUs. I haven't seen a lot of analysis of this one, but it doesn't read like it really has any teeth. Furthermore, hidden in the text is a revocation of an Obama-era order on the same subject (usually a bad sign). (Original text)
- Trump also signed two bills today, both regarding women in science. Note that neither bill called for more funding to improve women's access to science, but requires NASA and the NSF to report on how they are taking action. Insofar as I can tell, these bills passed with bipartisan support, but neither of them really has teeth.
- I mentioned previously that Trump's health care plan was catering to the wealthy. Here's another analysis, with exactly the same conclusion.
- Yesterday, I pointed out that the new Commerce Secretary had some shady Russian links. Here is an overview of them (video), and here is text analysis.
- The FCC Chairman has declared Net Neutrality a mistake. This is the opening salvo in an effort to undermine the foundations of the internet. Get your pitchforks ready folks, because we're going to have to fight for this one.
- Jewish Community Centers continue to receive a ridiculous number of bomb threats in addition to the desecration of their cemeteries, and Trump has the audacity to say that it's probably Jewish people responsible. Given the sharp uptick in antisemitism that can largely be blamed upon Trump, continuing to shift responsibility and indeed blame the victims is abhorrent.
No comments:
Post a Comment