Category Archives: Politics

“Arpaio’s jails weren’t just tough and humiliating, they were sometimes deadly.”

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): Joe Arpaio:. “Donald Trump issued his first presidential pardon to the last person who should get one. John Oliver discusses the troubling record of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.”

“Here’s the thing there: He was absolutely not just doing his job. He was also doing something illegal. […] And yet I do not doubt that Trump thinks that everything Joe Arpaio did was or should be part of a law enforcement officer’s job. And that is the real problem here. That is why this pardon is a slap in the face to Latinos that Arpaio and his department unconstitutionally targeted, and that is why it’s a slap in the face to the very rule of law itself, because Arpaio broke the rules he was sworn to uphold, rules that are put in place to protect citizens from a government going out of control. And Trump giving him a pass after everything that you have seen tonight and saying he was just doing his job is a loud confirmation that, at least as far as this White House is concerned, for the next few years law enforcement won’t necessarily be expected to do their jobs the way the constitution or the courts say they should. Instead, like Sherriff Joe Arpaio , they should absolutely feel free to do their job [however they like].”

“It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, “If a black man can be president, then any white man—no matter how fallen—can be president.“ “

The Atlantic: The First White President. “The foundation of Donald Trump’s presidency is the negation of Barack Obama’s legacy.” By Ta-Nehisi Coates.

“When a woman “exploded“ and told [George] Packer, “I want to eat what I want to eat, and for them to tell me I can’t eat French fries or Coca-Cola—no way,“ he sees this as a rebellion against “the moral superiority of elites.“ In fact, this elite conspiracy dates back to 1894, when the government first began advising Americans on their diets. As recently as 2002, President George W. Bush launched the HealthierUS initiative, urging Americans to exercise and eat healthy food. But Packer never allows himself to wonder whether the explosion he witnessed had anything to do with the fact that similar advice now came from the country’s first black first lady. Packer concludes that Obama was leaving the country “more divided and angrier than most Americans can remember,“ a statement that is likely true only because most Americans identify as white. Certainly the men and women forced to live in the wake of the beating of John Lewis, the lynching of Emmett Till, the firebombing of Percy Julian’s home, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers would disagree.”

Link via MetaFilter.

“The Double C-Word”

The New York Times: President Trump’s War on Science.

“The news was hard to digest until one realized it was part of a much larger and increasingly disturbing pattern in the Trump administration. On Aug. 18, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine received an order from the Interior Department that it stop work on what seemed a useful and overdue study of the health risks of mountaintop-removal coal mining.

The $1 million study had been requested by two West Virginia health agencies following multiple studies suggesting increased rates of birth defects, cancer and other health problems among people living near big surface coal-mining operations in Appalachia. The order to shut it down came just hours before the scientists were scheduled to meet with affected residents of Kentucky.

The Interior Department said the project was put on hold as a result of an agencywide budgetary review of grants and projects costing more than $100,000.”

But there’s more:

“Last week, Mr. Trump nominated David Zatezalo, a former coal company chief executive who has repeatedly clashed with federal mine safety regulators, as assistant secretary of labor for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. He nominated Jim Bridenstine, a Republican congressman from Oklahoma with no science or space background, as NASA administrator. Sam Clovis, Mr. Trump’s nomination to be the Agriculture Department’s chief scientist, is not a scientist: He’s a former talk-radio host and incendiary blogger who has labeled climate research “junk science.“ “

“You’re amazed at the innate good in people. People will rally to a cause to help out their fellow human beings.”

LinkedIn: The inside story of what it took to keep a Texas grocery chain running in the chaos of Hurricane Harvey. “In Texas, a grocery chain is now inspiring memes. One goes like this: “State and federal resources are struggling to get into impacted areas. H.E.B. — outta the way, we’re coming.” Another adds: “I’ll see your FEMA and Red Cross and raise you my Texas grocery store chain.””

“One of my stores, we had 300 employees; 140 of them were displaced by the flooding. So how do you put your store back together quickly? We asked for volunteers in the rest of the company. We brought over 2,000 partners from Austin, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley. They hopped into cars and they just drove to Houston. They said, we’re here to help. It’s shitty work. For 18 hours a day, they’re going to help us restock and then they’ll go sleep on the couch at somebody’s house.”

Dear Mr. President

CNN: Exclusive: Read the Inauguration Day letter Obama left for Trump. “Obama, when writing the letter, didn’t disclose the content even to his closest aides. Since then, however, Trump has shown the letter to visitors in the Oval Office or his private White House residence. CNN obtained a copy from someone Trump showed it to.”

“Dear Mr. President –

Congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and all of us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure.

This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don’t know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful. Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years.
[…]
Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions — like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties — that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.”