The Trump Slump.

Photo by Rex Roof/Flickr.

Photo by Rex Roof/Flickr.

The Gold Curtain has resulted in uStates bleeding out in the financial sense. Seems people don’t want to include the oh-so-wonderful Amerikkka in their travel plans these days. Because of Trump. Can’t say I blame them at all, I wouldn’t want to travel here, either.

People around the world have taken a look at Donald Trump and decided his America is not a place they want to visit. The result has been labeled the “Trump Slump,” a drop in international tourism that’s predicted to cost the United States more than $7 billion. Experts across the travel industry have sounded the alarm that the Trump presidency, already destructive on so many fronts, may also do serious financial damage to the country’s $250 billion tourism sector.

Frommer’s, a prominent travel guide, notes that “the prestigious Travel Weekly magazine (as close to an ‘official’ travel publication as they come) has set the decline in foreign tourism at 6.8 percent” for this year.

[…]

The numbers offer evidence that Trump has turned off potential visitors from around the world. The resounding message of Trump’s “America First” stance, his obsession with the Mexico border wall, his anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies, his Muslim ban, and his rudeness to longstanding allies is that America is inhospitable to foreigners. Predictably, international travelers are opting to stay away—and that includes the European ones that Trump and his supporters are totally cool with.

“Even white, Anglo-Saxon people, who are most of our customers, they are afraid of crossing the border,” Al Qanun, who runs a Toronto travel agency, told the Times. “They don’t want to end up in some prison.”

[…]

The loss of all those visitors could mean future problems for a sector on which more than 15 million people rely for employment. Oxford Economics suggests the toll may ultimately ripple beyond the travel industry, even reducing the U.S. gross domestic product by a few percentage points, per Market Watch.

“I’ll tell you quite honestly, when I saw these reports my reaction was, Oh, my god,” Douglas Quinby, of travel-market firm PhocusWright, told the Boston Globe. “To see a decline in search and booking volume in the 6- to 8-percent range is a profound shift.”

I wonder, how many of those 15 million employed people will soon be unemployed? How many smaller travel businesses will end up having to close their doors? Ah, but no worry, we have Unpresident Jobs Jobs Jobs!

Travel industry insiders aren’t just freaking out, they’re trying to stop the trend in its tracks. Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, penned an open letter to Trump, as if he could be reasoned with.

“Mr. President, please tell the world that while we’re closed to terror, we’re open for business,” the brief letter nearly pleads. “Imbalanced communication is especially susceptible to being ‘lost in translation’—so let’s work together to inform our friends and neighbors, who could benefit from reassurance, not just who is no longer welcome here, but who remains invited.”

That’s nice, but I’m pretty sure it won’t penetrate the wall of concrete separating Donnie from reality.

The coastal cities where Trump fared the worst in the election are likely to be hardest hit by travel downswings triggered by his administration.

[…]

The rise of Trump and his xenophobic messaging has motivated a number of countries to warn their citizens against non-essential trips to the U.S. The Nigerian government, citing “a few cases of Nigerians with valid multiple-entry U.S. visas being denied entry and sent back,” suggested its residents skip the jaunt to America if they have a choice. In January, the Toronto Star published an editorial suggesting Canadian citizens boycott the U.S. in response to the Trump Muslim ban.

Other negative reactions to America’s longstanding social issues and rising right-wing policies began to take hold even before Trump office. Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bahamas, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand all issued 2016 U.S. travel warnings to citizens due to the U.S.’ issues with mass shootings, general gun violence, police murders of black citizens, anti-LGBT bathroom laws, and ongoing social upheaval.

With Trump and his white nationalist brigade in charge, the tourism lag could dip to levels not seen since after the World Trade Center attacks.

[…]

The rise of Trump and his xenophobic messaging has motivated a number of countries to warn their citizens against non-essential trips to the U.S. The Nigerian government, citing “a few cases of Nigerians with valid multiple-entry U.S. visas being denied entry and sent back,” suggested its residents skip the jaunt to America if they have a choice. In January, the Toronto Star published an editorial suggesting Canadian citizens boycott the U.S. in response to the Trump Muslim ban.

Other negative reactions to America’s longstanding social issues and rising right-wing policies began to take hold even before Trump office. Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bahamas, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand all issued 2016 U.S. travel warnings to citizens due to the U.S.’ issues with mass shootings, general gun violence, police murders of black citizens, anti-LGBT bathroom laws, and ongoing social upheaval.

With Trump and his white nationalist brigade in charge, the tourism lag could dip to levels not seen since after the World Trade Center attacks.

[…]

Trump and his followers will definitely find a way to blame President Obama if the tourism decline persists, but in reality, under the previous administration foreign visits went way up. Bloomberg cites data from U.S. Travel indicating that from 2006 to 2015, “America saw international visitors rise, with arrivals increasing from 51 million in 2006 to nearly 78 million in 2015.”

Oh, I smell another conspiracy brewing, and I’m sure it won’t be long before Mr. Tweet makes an appearance to place blame. Via Raw Story.

“I haven’t been in a science class in a long time, but…”

Republican Pennsylvania State Senator Scott Wagner.

Republican Pennsylvania State Senator Scott Wagner.

We open today’s can of stupid with Pennsylvania, and Sen. Scott Wagner. Wagner is all for  opening up state forests to drilling for natural gas. Why, we don’t need forests, what are they good for? Just full of trees and animals and stuff, they aren’t important at all. Yesterday, we had the tin cap idiocy of Lord Monckton, and today the climate change theories of Wagner:

NPR reports that Pennsylvania State Senator Scott Wagner on Tuesday gave a talk in favor of conducting natural gas drilling in state forests — and he justified his position by using a scientifically incorrect analysis of climate change.

Specifically, Wagner said he wasn’t worried about carbon emissions leading to a warming planet because the change in the planet’s temperature was more likely caused by the Earth getting closer to the sun every year.

“I haven’t been in a science class in a long time, but the earth moves closer to the sun every year–you know the rotation of the earth,” Wagner said. “We’re moving closer to the sun.”

I don’t believe you. I don’t think you have ever been in a science class. That said, why are you relying on your own ignorance? There is a ton of information, clear, concise, evidence-backed, and easily understood, even by people like yourself, available. Information which would point out the idiocy of destroying state forests.

Wagner also suggested that climate change could be caused by the heat emitted from human bodies.

“We have more people,” he said. “You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off? Things are changing, but I think we are, as a society, doing the best we can.”

Oh ffs. Climate change is driven by humans, but not in that way. If this is how you did in school, I am absolutely amazed you graduated. Via Raw Story.

Russia Investigation: Let the Tantrums Begin!

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes arrives for a weekly meeting of the Republican Conference with House Speaker Paul Ryan and the GOP leadership on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes arrives for a weekly meeting of the Republican Conference with House Speaker Paul Ryan and the GOP leadership on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.

On Tuesday, House Intelligence Committee chair and former Trump transition team official Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) made the extraordinary claim that Democrats are actually the ones obstructing his committee’s investigation into connections between President Trump and Russian officials.

Nunes — who abruptly cancelled all scheduled committee hearings last week, including one that was to feature testimony from Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general who alerted the White House to Michael Flynn’s deceptions about his communications with Russian officials and was fired for refusing to enforce President Trump’s Muslim ban — told NBC News that “it appears the Democrats aren’t really serious about this investigation.”

“They need to give us their witness list because we have no idea who they even want to interview,” Nunes said. “So, at the end of the day here we’re going to get to the truth, we’re going to find out who’s actually doing a real investigation… we’re going to do an investigation with or without them, and if they want to participate that’s fine, but the facts of the matter are pretty clear.”

But a source with knowledge of the situation tells ThinkProgress that Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee actually submitted a tentative witness list to Republicans on Tuesday and haven’t yet heard back. That information was corroborated by Business Insider’s Natasha Bertrand, who reported that a “[c]ommittee aide tells me Dems provided witness list to Nunes yesterday and offered to schedule hearings next week, have not heard back.”

[…]

Nunes might say “the facts of the matter are pretty clear,” but they’re not. Here’s what we do know. Last Wednesday, Nunes held a press conference where he appeared to clumsily validate Trump’s claim that Obama wiretapped his Trump Tower phones by saying he has “recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about US citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

Instead of sharing that information with the intelligence community or his committee members, Nunes raced to the White House to brief Trump, whose campaign is under investigation for possible collusion with foreign agents. In the week since, Nunes has steadfastly refused to share what he claims to know about legal incidental collection at Trump Tower with his House Intelligence Committee colleagues.

The list of willful obstruction on the part of Nunes and Gowdy continues over at Think Progress, and it’s quite the long recount of obstruction. It would be downright laughable, the weak attempt to place blame on democrats, except for the fact that this is extremely serious. If this was anyone else, everyone would be going apeshit, screaming for impeachment and imprisonment. The silence of those on the right is more than telling, it’s an indictment all its own, of just how much they truly don’t care about such treasonous actions, as long as the crimes are being committed by someone on their side of the fence.

Think Progress has the full story.

Tin Cap Time.

1477417057308

The Heartland Institute recently had their “Fuck the Planet!” conference, attended by the Mercers, and all those others who have some sort of vested interest in killing off everyone and everything. I guess they’ll bug out to Mars with Musk when life becomes unsustainable.

The atmosphere was buoyant at a conference held by the conservative Heartland Institute last week at a downtown Washington hotel, where speakers denounced climate science as rigged and jubilantly touted deep cuts President Trump is seeking to make to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Front and center during the two-day gathering were New York hedge fund executive Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer, Republican mega-donors who with their former political adviser Stephen K. Bannon helped finance an alternative media ecosystem that amplified Trump’s populist themes during last year’s campaign.

The Mercers’ attendance at the two-day Heartland conference offered a telling sign of the low-profile family’s priorities: With Trump in office, the influential financiers appear intent on putting muscle behind the fight to roll back environmental regulations, a central focus of the new administration.

The Washington Post has a full run down on the conference.

I’ll just focus here on the batshit element of such conferences, this time, embodied by ever loony Lord Christopher Monckton:

Raw Story has a rundown of his 5 main points, so click on over if you prefer to read.

The Farce That Is “The Wall”.

Ryan Zinke (Twitter).

Ryan Zinke (Twitter).

Just when you think rethuglicans really could not possibly go lower or more regressive, *bam*. Ryan the fink Zinke has a problem with the stupid wall – placing it on U.S. land would cede the Rio Grande, oh no wtfbbq!!!11!1 The solution? Doesn’t seem to be one right now, outside of making sure endangered animals are endangered right into extinction. It seems the only way to keep the Rio Grande would be to either steal land from Mexico, or build it on Mexico’s land and claim it for uStates. Or something. Jesus Fuck. There’s that Colonial mindset at work.

E&E News reports that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke talked about the logistics of building a border wall while speaking at an event held by the Public Lands Council this week, and he said the Trump administration didn’t want to build the wall on American soil because it would mean ceding the entire Rio Grande river to Mexico.

“The border is complicated, as far as building a physical wall,” Zinke said. “The Rio Grande, what side of the river are you going to put the wall? We’re not going to put it on our side and cede the river to Mexico. And we’re probably not going to put it in the middle of the river.”

Zinke didn’t elaborate on how the wall would get built if it wasn’t located on America’s side of the Rio Grande or in the middle of the river, which implies that it would be built on the Mexican side of the border.

Elsewhere in his talk, E&E News reports Zinke said the Trump administration will seek a waiver to the Endangered Species Act so it can build the wall in jaguar habitats that are for now protected from “destruction or adverse modification.”

Via Raw Story. And, Ryan fucking idiot Zinke has now said there’s no such thing as clean energy. Nope.

New Yorkers: Get Out, Melania!

Image: Melania Trump in June, 2016 (a katz / Shutterstock.com).

Image: Melania Trump in June, 2016 (a katz / Shutterstock.com).

It seems New Yorkers have had enough of Ms. Trump and the kid refusing to move into the white house. They aren’t terribly interested in shouldering the staggering cost of her presence anymore, and who could blame them?

Nearly 50,000 people had signed a Change.org petition by Tuesday morning demanding First Lady Melania Trump move in with President Donald Trump in their new White House presidential pad in an effort to reduce the costly taxpayer expense of protecting the first family as they live in separate states.

New York City has been footing a daily bill from $127,000 to $146,000 so the first lady can continue living in her $100 million Trump Towers penthouse, according to New York Police Commissioner James O’Neil. The cost surges to more than $300,000 to secure the 58-story building each day the president visits his family.

New Yorkers and activists have begun speaking out against the added cost of living, ordering Melania Trump to move in with her husband or start paying for her family’s security in the Big Apple herself.

“The U.S. taxpayer is paying an exorbitant amount of money to protect the first lady in Trump Tower,” a statement accompanying the online petition Tuesday said. “As to help relieve the national debt, this expense yields no positive results for the nation and should be cut from being funded.”

Via Raw Story.

Trump-Russia Timeline, from 1979 to Present.

Timeline

Steven Harper has an exhaustive timeline on Trump and ties to Russia. It’s very extensive, so no quoting here. Click on over to read, and do much scrolling!

If there’s any confusion about all the collusion, this should help clear it up.

Also see: White House’s explanation for Kushner’s secret meeting with a Russian banker unravels. * The White House desperately wants Sally Yates to keep quiet.

Red State Legislatures: Screw You, Workers!

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) in the state legislature. CREDIT: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) in the state legislature. CREDIT: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall.

On the first of the year, any residents of Johnson County, Iowa making the minimum wage got a boost: their pay rose to $10.10 an hour as a locally passed ordinance from 2015 went into effect. Linn County residents got a raise to at least $8.25 an hour.

More Iowans were soon going to join them. Come 2019, Wapello County planned to raise its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, while Linn was set to go to $10.25 and Polk County to $10.75. Lee County was considering its own increase.

Now all of that is changing. On Monday, the Iowa state Senate passed a law that will not just freeze the its minimum wage at the federal floor of $7.25 an hour, but roll back the increases that were passed by Johnson, Linn, Polk, and Wapello Counties. No local governments will be able to pass their own minimum wage increases if it’s signed into law. The bill now heads to Gov. Terry Branstad’s (R) desk, who is expected to sign it.

If he does, those raises in Johnson and Linn will disappear. “The bill’s passage marks the first time anywhere in the U.S. that state lawmakers have actually taken away raises from workers who already received them,” according to a statement from Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project.

This is an outright evil thing to do. When people get a raise, everything changes proportionally to that raise. Budgets are allowed to expand a little, and families are able to provide more for their children, outside of the bare basics. To give people a raise, then rip it away from them, well, it’s hard to imagine being more Grinchesque.

It’s the latest advance in an all-out battle many states are waging against local efforts to increase their residents’ wages and benefits. As more cities pass minimum wage increases and paid sick leave requirements, amid Congressional inaction on both issues, preemption bills stymieing their efforts have proliferated. According to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), every year has seen more states consider such legislation, with 36 states in 2016, up from 29 the year before and 23 the year before that.

Many of those bills have turned into law. Twenty-three states now preempt local efforts to increase the minimum wage, according to CMD, while 16 ban cities and counties from mandating paid sick leave.

This year is on track to continue the trend. Beyond Iowa, Georgia, Illinois, and Minnesota are considering minimum wage preemption bills. Six states — Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina — are looking at paid sick leave bans.

Even Minnesota. Minnesota, known as a liberal state in so many ways, but providing workers with a living wage and paid leave? Unthinkable!

Even these figures understate the full picture, as many states consider bills that would block multiple issues at the local level, such as minimum wage increases, mandated paid sick leave, LGBT protections, and even things like bans on plastic bags.

If just two more states join Iowa this year, that will mean a majority preempt cities and counties from increasing their own minimum wages. Georgia appears to have the votes; in Minnesota, it’s possible Gov. Mark Dayton (D) will hold the line.

Here’s hoping. If Minnesota falls, it’s going to be very bad news.

As in the reversal of pay raises in Iowa, some paid sick leave preemption bills could rescind benefits that have already gone into effect. In New Jersey, 12 cities have mandated paid sick leave. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, Portland and Eugene in Oregon, Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota, and Montgomery County in Maryland have all done the same.

The rise in preemption laws across the country tracks closely with the increasing capture of state legislatures by Republican majorities, starting with the 2010 midterms that handed full control of 11 legislatures to Republicans. Fourteen of the paid sick leave bans and most of the minimum wage bills came after that election. “It’s certainly the case that there’s an increase in these red legislatures,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of CMD.

How is rescinding paid leave benefits going to work? It’s not enough to try and strip healthcare from people, but if you had paid sick leave, do you have to pay that money back to company if it’s rescinded? That would mean people are working for no pay at all.

In Minnesota, for example, Republicans won a majority in both chambers of the legislature in November’s election, and now those lawmakers are pushing to roll back local efforts on wages and sick leave. Graves sees this as representatives of rural areas trying to impose their will on the cities, where the cost of living is much higher. “Those cities have adopted popular measures to address this,” she said. “And it’s really unfortunate that some of these rural electeds are trying to displace the popular will of the cities that they don’t even live in.”

[…]

These bills are also top priorities for some large business groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Legislative Exchange Council. Many preemption laws are based off of ALEC’s model bills.

I have no doubt they are popular for businesses, but how can said businesses stay in business if they screw their workers to the point that they leave?

Full story at Think Progress.

The Cover Up.

Republican congressman Devin Nunes (Latvian Foreign Ministry/Flickr).

Republican congressman Devin Nunes (Latvian Foreign Ministry/Flickr).

Key House Democrats are calling on Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to recuse himself from an investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, widening a stunning partisan split over the probe.

[…]

Ryan still supports Nunes, spokeswoman AshLee Strong said Monday, and will not ask him to recuse himself.
“Speaker Ryan has full confidence that Chairman Nunes is conducting a thorough, fair, and credible investigation,” Strong said.
That is not a good thing, not in any way. Paul Ryan is a man with monstrous fantasies and desires, and little use for truth.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, in an interview Monday evening with CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront,” echoed Schiff’s call.
“Actions taken by the chairman have compromised the investigation,” Castro said. “Chairman Nunes at this point should recuse himself from this investigation.”
He said Nunes, who was a member of Trump’s transition team, was too invested in Trump’s political agenda, and acting in a partisan way.
“I understand that for members of Congress, there is of course an inclination to help a President who’s of your party,” Castro said. “You simply can’t do that. … You have to be able to separate yourself from that.”
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain — two frequent critics of the Trump administration and Russia — joined in criticism of Nunes Tuesday morning, though they stopped short of calling for the chairman to recuse himself.
Graham told NBC’s “Today” show that Nunes “has to repair the damage,” though he added that “the House is off track and probably can’t get back on track.”
“If he’s not willing to tell the Democrats and the Republicans on the committee who he met with and what he was told, he has lost his ability to lead,” Graham said, “and the Democrats on the committee are becoming prosecutors.”
And McCain said Nunes needs to provide more answers.
Oh. The mealymouthedness of democrats is despair making. FFS, discover some principles, some ethics, take a bloody stand already. This mess brought to you by CNN. Over at Think Progress, they have two articles about how there’s been a sudden turnabout on the subject of leakers, formally reviled in every way, oh yes, terrible, why, it’s treason! Not anymore. Now the Regime has embraced leaking. Turns out, the difference is in what direction the stream is going.
Article one, article two.

Russia, U.S., What’s the Difference?

Russian security forces detain a protester in Moscow on Sunday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko.

Russian security forces detain a protester in Moscow on Sunday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko.

I have written many times about the current rounds of draconian legislation here in uStates, in an attempt to quell dissent and protest. As if the legislation isn’t bad enough, of course, there’s the constant narrative of lies coming out of the U.S. Regime, about protesters being paid and other such bullshit. It looks like Russia is going with the very same playbook, which is hardly surprising. What is surprising? The poisonous irony in the rather belated statement by the Tiny Tyrant’s regime about the treatment of Russian protesters:

Late Sunday evening, American time, President Donald Trump’s administration addressed the crackdown in a written statement bathed in irony. “The United States strongly condemns the detention of peaceful protesters throughout Russia on Sunday,” the statement from acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner — which was not issued until 12 hours after the first reports of mass arrests in Moscow — read.

“The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve a government that supports an open marketplace of ideas, transparent and accountable governance, equal treatment under the law, and the ability to exercise their rights without fear of retribution,” Toner added.

Gee, isn’t that nice? Odd how none of that applies to American citizens, or American government, for that matter. The sheer weight of hypocritical irony in that should have been enough to flatten the white house and drive it a mile deep into the earth.

Toner’s words also contrast with Trump’s own pattern of rhetoric and behavior toward dissenters in his own country.

The weekend protests across Russia are not a particularly close analog to the anti-Trump demonstrations that American activists have staged since his election victory. Alexei Navalny, the prime mover behind the anti-Putin protests, is himself a nationalist hardliner whose political platform includes ethnocentric promises akin to Trump’s own stances on immigration, economics, and law enforcement.

But it is nonetheless odd to see criticism of Putin’s crackdown from the government of a man who has called for a criminal investigation into the Movement for Black Lives and encouraged his supporters to beat up protesters.

At rallies throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump relished opportunities to bash protesters — typically pausing his stump speech to peer into the crowd and ask his supporters to remove hecklers by force.

[…]

Today, Trump’s administration is also pursuing serious felony charges against hundreds of people who were rounded up in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day after a smaller group of black-clad Antifa protesters smashed a few shop windows and, in a handful of cases, scrapped with police.

Many of those facing felony charges were simply nearby when police “kettled” everyone who happened to be within a few blocks of the stores targeted by the radical fringe. Several journalists were arrested and charged with felonies that were eventually dropped by prosecutors.

Many of Trump’s allies share his disdain for dissidents. Milwaukee County Sheriff Dave Clark has said that protests “must be quelled” because “there is no legitimate reason to protest the will of the people.”

State-level Republican lawmakers in several states have introduced legislation curtailing the right to protest, usually by raising the criminal penalties marchers may face and broadening the scope of rioting statutes.

[…]

Trump’s team insists that such street-level dissent is not sincere but rather a synthetic display manufactured by wealthy liberal donors. The Kremlin is now saying the same about the Navalny-led protesters, many of whom were reportedly in their teens.

Sunday’s anti-Putin rallies were only as large as they were, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, because marchers were “promised financial rewards in the event of their detention by law enforcement agencies.”

Aww, isn’t that sweet, it’s the same story. Think Progress has the full story.

Women, Success Is…

Ivanka2-1

Kali Holloway at Alternet has an outstanding article up about Ivanka Trump, and how many very gullible liberals insist on thinking she is some sort of liberal moderating force on the Tiny Tyrant. That could not be further from the truth, she’s every bit as ruthless, power hungry, egotistical, and conservative as her father. Ms. Kushner Trump also appeals to a certain type of feminist, one who is not remotely interested in intersectionality, and not all that interested in feminism, when it comes right down to issues. Ms. Kushner Trump’s most recent book is called “Women Who Work”, and let’s take a look at the above photo. Of all the women who might read this post, does that come close to representing you, in any way? Let’s hear it for those working women, if they are white, and part of the 1%!

Just a bit from the article here, the whole thing is well worth reading (emphasis mine):

The irony of all this is the feminism that Ivanka has upheld is steadfastly retrograde and classist, perpetuating an image of womanly success as a kind that requires they both do and have it all. You can see it in her fashion line’s Women Who Work campaign, which also happens to be the name of her forthcoming book. She measures women—and here she pretty much only means white women; the rest of us barely enter the picture except as occasional tokens—by the same yardstick used by the patriarchy and, not coincidentally, her father. Success is being rich, thin, attractive, the boss (at the office and in bed) and never once letting the difficulty of juggling it all make you bitchy. According to the rules of her brand of consumerist feminism, the first rule of fighting sexism—aside from living up to its every impossible expectations—is to never complain about sexism. In the Trump Card she suggests, for example, “separating the real [sexual] harassment from the benign behavior that seems to come with the territory.” Learn to take unwanted advances as compliments, ladies!

“Frankly, I think the biggest message that Ivanka is espousing is that, sure, women can get a seat at the table … if they’ve already got a hefty leg up and they pander to the men above them,” Teagan Walsh-Davis, co-artistic director of The Jades theater group, told the Chicago Tribune. “I can certainly appreciate the idea of using your privilege for good…But her goals seem to be a lot more shortsighted. When she talks about advocating for working women, she’s talking about women who are already successful. She’s seeing ‘working women’ as a monolith of her own class. In her mind, it’s mostly women who have already made it. In the family leave plan she’s tried to propose, most of the tax benefits go to families earning over $100k a year.”

Trump voters get a lot of richly deserved derision for gullibly swallowing Trump lies despite all contradictory indications. The same might be said of Ivanka among (white) liberals, who’ve endlessly given her chance after chance, in the hope that the feminist glimmers they’ve seen will fully shine. It’s not that 45 isn’t listening to his daughter, who is pleading with her father to do the right thing. The reality is, Ivanka and her dad are on the same selfish, kleptocratic page. Despite all her up-with-women talk, Ivanka doesn’t pay interns and reportedly required a full court press to offer maternity leave to employees. In her new role in the White House—which makes her a high-ranking member of her father’s administration, but with no actual title so as to skirt anti-nepotism laws—she’ll continue to offer no advocacy for the vulnerable and marginalized.

She never even pretended to care about issues facing black women or other women of color, and it’s a safe bet that streak will remain unbroken. Expect her “deafening silence” on the destruction of Planned Parenthood to continue; her pushback on the GOP’s anti-women’s health care to be nonexistent. She’ll keep putting out empty, faux-enlightened statements for as long as it serves the administration and her brand, which she still controls and has refused to put in a blind trust, conflicts of interest be damned. The goal is to keep a line open between the White House and the Trump Organization, and to keep downplaying the threat of this administration by outright lying about it in soothing tones. Ivanka is Rose, feigining innocence before betrayal in the horror movie “Get Out,” she is the 53 percent of white women—the ones she was hired to speak directly to—who voted for Trump even though they knew deal but like the benefits of white supremacist patriarchy. Like those women, Ivanka has signed on to do the bidding of that system in exchange for personal gain.

It’s more of the same that we’ve seen from Trump’s team, and a reason to stay weary. Ivanka is a key part of the strategy. Start recognizing her as such.

Highly recommended reading!

The Nepotism Network.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his senior advisor Jared Kushner arrive for a meeting with manufacturing CEOs at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. President Donald Trump and his senior advisor Jared Kushner arrive for a meeting with manufacturing CEOs at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

None of what follows has yet been confirmed officially. If this does end up being rubber stamped, it’s bad news. Again. This one falls firmly in the What Government? category.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday is set to announce his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will take on a White House role to oversee a broad effort to overhaul the federal government, The Washington Post reported, citing statements from both men.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and currently serves as a senior adviser, will lead the newly formed White House Office of American Innovation with an eye on leveraging business ideas and potentially privatizing some government functions, the Post said.

“The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens,” Kushner told the Post in an interview.

Is there such a thing as a great American company? One that does not screw over workers, pays a decent wage, provides full benefits, gladly offers extended parental leave, has accommodation for working parents, and so on? Oh, and one that actually makes a useful product that would last more than 6 months, with no outsourcing? If so, that might make a semi-decent model, however, a government is not supposed to be a corporation, especially not a twisted, incestuous mess of one, like all of the Trump scams. The only thing you fucking assholes care about is lining your own pockets. Hard to see how that’s going to benefit anyone except yourselves.

Some of the areas he will focus on are veterans’ care, opioid addiction, technology and data infrastructure, workforce training and infrastructure, according to the report.

In a statement to the Post, Trump said: “I promised the American people I would produce results, and apply my ‘ahead of schedule, under budget’ mentality to the government.”

Right. Ahead of schedule by cutting corners, leaning on the people doing the actual work, then refusing to pay anyone. Yeah, that’s one hell of a way to run a regime. Have we become North Korea Jr. yet?

Via Raw Story.

Called It!

ClipArtBest.

ClipArtBest.

A couple of days ago, I noted in comments that the Tiny Tyrant would be heaping blame on Ryan, and everyone else for the failed Fuck You Care Plan. Oh, the initial statements were along the lines of “no, no, I like Paul Ryan, did a good job” and “no, I don’t blame the freedom caucus, they’re my friends”, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before Mr. Tweet took over and started rage blaming.

Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!

Watch @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews tonight at 9:00 P.M.

Pirro opened her show by calling for the resignation of Ryan for not getting the replacement health care plan voted upon and passed.

“How could you possibly misjudge this,” Pirro said addressing Ryan. “I certainly have not spoken to the president about any of this, but I can only imagine that he and his aides took on healthcare because they believed you had his back, and you didn’t! They didn’t even test the waters.”

Pirro added that Ryan has “gotta go.”

The full story on that one here.

That’s not all from Mr. Tweet though, who was called out in no uncertain terms by Rep. Ted Lieu, who said the Tiny Tyrant was a truly evil man, and the Representative is right.

ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!

People aren’t worried, you fucking idiot, they are relieved they still have healthcare. This is not a situation where you hope and hope and hope millions upon millions of people get fucked over, and then you can just “get together” with your corrupt, filthy rich cronies, and “piece together” a sop to toss on top of already screwed over people. FFS. At this point, I think THE PEOPLE are those over a certain income line, but it doesn’t include all us peons down here. Rep. Lieu responded:

“President” @realDonaldTrump: You truly are an evil man. Your job is to help Americans. Not intentionally try to destroy their lives.

Mr. “President”: Art II of Constitution requires you to faithfully execute laws passed by Congress. Subverting #Obamacare violates your Oath.

That full story here.