April 7, 2018


News and Views


IT’S MUCH EASIER TO GET A DRIVER’S LICENSE THAN A GUN LICENSE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vehicle-crashes-into-crowd-in-muenster-germany-reports-live-updates-today/
CBS/AP April 7, 2018, 11:10 AM
German police: Car crashes into crowd in Muenster, some dead

BERLIN -- Police in the western German city of Muenster say a car has crashed into a crowd there, killing several people and injuring others. The spokesperson for the local police in Muenster said a minivan crashed into a group of people in the city center. Around 30 people are injured and six are in a critical condition, and there are several fatalities.

The driver shot and killed himself immediately after crashing into the crowd, according to the spokesperson.

Police tweeted Saturday afternoon that residents should "avoid the area near the Kiepenkerl pub" where a large-scale police operation is underway. Kiepenkerl is a popular bar in the city's historic downtown area.

It wasn't immediately clear if the incident was terror related.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.


THIS FROM THE BBC IS THE SECOND ARTICLE ON THE SUBJECT OF MILITARIZING THE SOUTHERN BORDER. THE FIRST WAS ON APRIL 5. READ THAT AT THIS SITE: "AS COMMANDER OF OREGON'S GUARD, I'M DEEPLY TROUBLED BY TRUMP'S PLAN TO MILITARIZE OUR BORDER."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-governor-ill-say-no-if-trump-asks-me-to-deploy-national-guard-troops-to-mexico-border/ar-AAvuNbk?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
Oregon governor: I'll say no if Trump asks me to deploy National Guard troops to Mexico border
The Hill
Rebecca Savransky
April 5, 2018 4 hrs ago


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43678961
Trump immigration: Texas sends National Guard to Mexico border
7 April 2018

Photograph -- Mr Trump's plans have sparked tensions with Mexico

The US state of Texas is deploying National Guard members to the border with Mexico following a call from President Donald Trump.

A Guard spokesman said 250 personnel would be sent to patrol the area within the next 72 hours.

Arizona is also planning to deploy 150 troops there next week.

President Trump says he wants to send up to 4,000 National Guard members to secure the border with Mexico, until his proposed border wall is built.

The states of New Mexico and California have been asked to take similar action to Texas and Arizona.

Media captionTrump: 'We will be guarding our wall with military'

Also on Friday, the US president outlined plans to end a practice dubbed "catch and release" as part of his stricter anti-immigration policies.

Mr Trump wants illegal immigrants to be held in detention while they wait to hear if they will be deported, instead of being freed.

He has asked the US Department of Defense for a detailed list of military and other facilities that could perform that function.

Trump sets targets on immigration cases
US may tie social media to visas
Mr Trump has sent several tweets over the past seven days railing against illegal immigration, and accusing Democrats of allowing "open borders, drugs and crime".

He declared on Twitter that Republicans should "go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws [on illegal migrants] NOW".

Mr Trump also threatened Mexico, saying the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) was at risk unless it stopped the movement of migrants over the border.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!

10:25 AM - Apr 1, 2018
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End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump
Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto has condemned what he called "threatening or disrespectful attitudes" from Mr Trump.

Media captionTrump: 'Mexicans are professional mountain climbers'

Is sending troops a first?

The president has called sending troops to the Mexico border a "big step", but both his predecessors also dispatched the National Guard there.

President Barack Obama sent some 1,200 soldiers to guard the boundary, while President George W Bush deployed about 6,000 troops to help Border Patrol in what was called Operation Jump Start.

Both deployments lasted for around a year.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis has approved funding for up to 4,000 National Guard troops from the Pentagon budget until the end of September, the Associated Press reports.

When is Trump going to build his wall?

Constructing a "big, beautiful wall" along the Mexican border was a signature Trump campaign promise, but so far the plan to erect a new physical barrier has been thwarted by lawmakers and appears to have stalled.

A major government spending bill which he signed last month included $1.6bn (£1.1bn) for the border wall - far short of the $25bn the White House sought.

And there were strings attached to the funding Congress did approve. Most of it can only be used to repair stretches of the border where there already is a wall, not to build new segments.

Trump denies changing view on Mexico wall
Six things that could topple Trump's wall


Last month the Pentagon confirmed Mr Trump had held "initial" talks with his defence secretary about using some of the Pentagon's budget to build a wall.

Skip Twitter post 2 by @realDonaldTrump

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!

6:33 AM - Mar 25, 2018
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End of Twitter post 2 by @realDonaldTrump

But two Democratic senators wrote to the defence secretary on Monday saying his department had "no legal authority" to use its funds for such a purpose.

"Such a controversial move could only be funded by cutting other vital priorities for our service members," wrote Senators Dick Durbin and Jack Reed.

In December, US Border Patrol announced arrests at the southern border had fallen to their lowest level since 1971, apparently indicating that fewer people were attempting the crossing.

Video -- Media caption Wall prototypes being displayed at US-Mexico border


ABOUT THOSE “CARAVANS,” WHAT IS THAT REFERRING TO, AND IS IT REAL OR AN URBAN LEGEND? WELL, IT IS REAL, BUT THE FOLLOWING VOX ARTICLE PLAYS IT AS BEING LESS THAN CATASTROPHIC, WHICH IS OF COURSE, NOT THE WAY TRUMP SEES IT. ANYWAY, HERE ARE THE FACTS. ANY RAPES? NONE MENTIONED HERE.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/6/17206042/caravan-mexico-trump-rape
Migrant caravans, Trump’s latest immigration obsession, explained
Trump is concerned that Central American migrants are being raped in Mexico … which is one of the things they travel in caravans to prevent.
By Dara Linddara@vox.com Apr 6, 2018, 12:00pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- A group of Central American children traveling through Mexico as part of a “caravan” to reach the United States. Donald Trump has started to obsess over these “caravans,” associating them with invasion and rape. Victoria Razo/AFP via Getty

Donald Trump has found a new immigration obsession, and it doesn’t look like he’s letting go of it anytime soon.

For nearly a week, Trump has been fixated on reports of a “caravan” of hundreds of Central Americans who crossed into Mexico last week en route to the United States. Initially, the Mexican government didn’t try to stop them, spurring panicked reports from Fox News and several days of angry tweetstorms.

Ultimately, the Mexican government did step in to “dissipate” the caravan, offering some of its members permission to stay in Mexico and seek humanitarian visas (though an unknown number of immigrants are continuing on).

But Trump hasn’t let go of the idea. On Thursday, at a roundtable in West Virginia (which was theoretically supposed to be about tax reform), Trump veered off into a digression about “the caravan of thousands of people coming up from Honduras” — then later appeared to circle back to the caravan by remarking, “Yesterday, it came out where, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that.”

It’s not clear where Trump got this idea: Caravan organizers say they’ve heard no reports of rape. Adolfo Flores, a reporter for BuzzFeed who has been traveling with the caravan, tweeted this on Thursday:


Adolfo Flores
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@aflores
Just asked one of the caravan organizers if there were any reports of rape on the caravan.

"No," said Rodrigo Abeja. "None whatsoever."

6:58 PM - Apr 5, 2018
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In fact, the point of the organized caravan is to protect immigrants from rape and other dangers that face immigrants traveling to the US on their own or in small, smuggler-led groups.


But this is how Trump works. He sees a news story, obsesses over it, and embellishes it in his mind to make it even more terrifying. It’s unlikely we’ve heard the last from Trump about the “caravan.” Here’s what you need to know.

Central American migrants traveling in a caravan wait in Chiapas, Mexico, to ask the Mexican government for asylum. Other migrants plan to continue to the US.
Central American migrants traveling in a caravan wait in Chiapas, Mexico, to ask the Mexican government for asylum. Other migrants plan to continue to the US. Victoria Razo/AFP via Getty
Hundreds of Central American asylum seekers set out in a “caravan” — traveling together to protect themselves from threats like rape
For several years now, Central Americans have made up the biggest share of people crossing the US’s southern border, often to seek asylum from gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

They have to get through Mexico first. The weeks-long journey is often dangerous — migrants are subjected to rape, extortion, and sometimes violence by smugglers (or by Mexicans who lie in wait for migrants to come their way). And their odds of making it all the way aren’t good.

Since 2014, the Mexican government has been cracking down on people traveling through to the United States, partly as a way to retain the goodwill of the US government. The crackdown has resulted in the detention and deportation of about 950,000 Central Americans, as well as the detention of many indigenous Mexican citizens living in southern Mexican states like Chiapas, and, according to a 2015 United Nations report, widespread torture. (A Guardian article about the UN report says that “methods used include beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, waterboarding, forced nudity” — and, notably, rape.)

What distinguishes the caravan that’s attracted so much attention is that it’s traveling out in the open. The nonprofit Pueblo Sin Fronteras has organized caravans annually to draw attention to the plight of Central American migrants and to the logic of safety in numbers.

This year’s group was the largest by far — at its peak, it was estimated to number 1,200 people. Because it was such a large group, Mexican agents didn’t make an effort to stop them as they crossed into Mexico, as BuzzFeed’s Flores reported:

When [a Mexican immigration effort] learned that the Central American migrants heading her way numbered more than 1,000, she took off for the restaurant across the street.

“I’m going to have a relaxing Coke,” she told BuzzFeed News.

The Mexican government “dissipated” the caravan — but some of its members plan to continue to seek asylum in the US legally
A Mexican immigration officer interviews a Central American migrant seeking humanitarian protection in Mexico. The Mexican government “dissipates” caravans by allowing some migrants to stay and seek asylum, while deporting others.
A Mexican immigration officer interviews a Central American migrant seeking humanitarian protection in Mexico. The Mexican government “dissipates” caravans by allowing some migrants to stay and seek asylum while deporting others. Victoria Razo/AFP via Getty
Trump’s fixation with the caravan may have played a role in his decision Wednesday to deploy National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border. Certainly, the decision wasn’t motivated by the situation at the border right now, where apprehension levels are still way lower than they have been for most of recent history.

Perhaps ironically, though, by the time Trump signed the proclamation to mobilize the National Guard, the Mexican government was already cracking down on the caravan. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted Wednesday night:


Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen
✔
@SecNielsen
I’ve been advised by Mexican officials that the caravan is dissipating. GOM has repatriated several hundred participants to Central America and is offering refugee status to others who qualify. I thank the GOM for their partnership on this and other security issues.

7:47 PM - Apr 3, 2018
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On the ground, though, it seems like it wasn’t quite that simple. Some caravan members who weren’t deported back to Central America don’t plan to stay in Mexico, either.

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter

Adolfo Flores
✔
@aflores
People who have received humanitarian visas or permissions to remain in Mexico have been leaving since yesterday. A smaller version of the caravan, numbers unknown, with asylum seekers will continue on.

10:50 AM - Apr 5, 2018
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For many, this was always the plan: to present themselves to Border Patrol agents and seek asylum, as hundreds of thousands of Central Americans have done in recent years. They’ll now have a much harder time getting to the US-Mexico border. As other migrant rights advocates have pointed out, the Mexican government tends to redouble its anti-migration efforts after “caravans” come through.

But if they make it, seeking asylum is perfectly legal under US and international law.

Just presenting yourself for asylum doesn’t mean you’ll get it, but someone who enters the US without papers isn’t violating the law if they present themselves at a port of entry — an airport, seaport, or road checkpoint — to seek asylum or another humanitarian status.

(If they enter between ports of entry and present themselves to Border Patrol, they’ve entered illegally, but they’re still seeking legal status, and the US is legally obligated to give them a chance to prove they qualify for it.)

Many border hawks think Central American migrants are taking advantage of the US asylum system — that they’re being coached in what to tell government officials at the border to show they have a “credible fear” of persecution, and that once released from federal custody, they will abscond into the US rather than showing up in court to pursue their asylum cases.

(In Trump’s mind, this has been warped into the belief that all immigrants crossing into the US are subject to “catch and release”: “if one foot hits our country, we have to take those people gently, register them, and then release them,” he said at the ostensibly-about-tax-reform roundtable Thursday).

The Trump administration has started subjecting asylum seekers to harsher treatment, like separating children from their parents in detention, but what it can do is constrained by federal law. So administration officials have called on Congress to pass legislation that gives the federal government more authority to detain asylum seekers, deny their claims, and send them back.

In other words, they want to become more like Mexico, whose laws Trump has praised as “very tough,” while the US’s are “very weak.”

But what media outlets and NGOs have seen in Mexico in recent years isn’t legal “toughness.” It’s extralegal impunity. It’s the sort of threat that Pueblo Sin Fronteras is calling attention to by organizing caravans to begin with — and that the caravan’s remnants will be much more vulnerable to as they travel on their own.


CLASSIC TRUMP-SPEAK: ““YOU KNOW, I JUST LEFT COAL AND ENERGY COUNTRY,” TRUMP TOLD REPORTERS ON THURSDAY. “THEY LOVE SCOTT PRUITT. THEY FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT SCOTT PRUITT. AND THEY LOVE SCOTT PRUITT.”

NOW, HERE IS A LITTLE MORE INFORMATION ON THAT APARTMENT RENTAL FOR $50.00 A NIGHT. PRUITT SAID IT IS MARKET PRICE, BUT VOX SAYS THAT’S A FUDGE FIGURE. IT’S TOO BAD THAT FEW OF THEM DO TELL THE TRUTH. READ THIS WHOLE ARTICLE. THERE ARE THINGS IN HERE THAT I HADN’T SEEN BEFORE. FOR INSTANCE: “HIS OWN EMPLOYEES NEED AN ESCORT TO SEE HIM AND AREN’T ALLOWED TO TAKE NOTES AT MEETINGS.” THIS ARTICLE IS REMINDING ME OF THAT GREAT OLD STANLEY KUBRICK MOVIE FROM 1964, “DR. STRANGELOVE, OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB.”* JUST AS WITH CINDERELLA AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, WE HAVE CROSSED AN UNSEEN BORDER OF TIME IN THIS COUNTRY BACK TO A NIGHTMARE.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/3/17189462/scott-pruitt-condo-epa-ethics-scandal
Scott Pruitt’s bizarre condo scandal and mounting ethics questions, explained
Trump still thinks Pruitt has done “a great job.”
By Umair Irfan Updated Apr 7, 2018, 3:07pm EDT

Photograph -- Few Cabinet members give Trump wins like Scott Pruitt. Ron Sach-Pool/Getty Images

There are few officials in the Trump administration who’ve delivered wins to the president like Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

While steadily carrying out the conservative agenda to undo environmental regulations, he’s managed to stay on the president’s good side, lavishing praise and providing him with great photo ops. As a result, Pruitt has been one of Trump’s favorite Cabinet members.

But Pruitt now is facing a stunning number of ethics scandals — most recently a report that his full-time, 20-person security detail has cost taxpayers millions of dollars — that just keep spiraling and getting worse. And speculation about a possible resignation continues to hover around him.

At least three House Republicans have called for Pruitt to be fired or to resign. At least five requests for investigations of Pruitt have been made to the EPA’s inspector general in just the past week. And 11 environmental groups have a Boot Pruitt campaign underway with ad buys on Fox & Friends.

But several other Republican leaders — including Sen. Ted Cruz — are rallying behind him.


Ted Cruz
✔
@tedcruz
This is compelling. Why do Obama and his media cronies want so badly to drive @EPAScottPruitt out of office? @realDonaldTrump is too cagey to be duped and bullied by the Obama groupies. https://tinyurl.com/y978w3x8

10:53 AM - Apr 5, 2018

Media Campaign Against EPA’s Scott Pruitt Orchestrated By Obama & Clinton Cronies

It’s been obvious for some time that there is a concerted effort underway to take out Donald Trump’s EPA Director, Scott Pruitt.

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Trump himself tweeted Friday Pruitt “is doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege.”

To understand just how much hot water Pruitt may be in, first we need to understand the seriousness of his alleged ethical breaches so far.

A too-good-to-be-true deal on a condo rental

On March 29, ABC News broke the story that Pruitt received a terrific deal on a rental townhouse less than a block from the Capitol building, at 223 C Street, Northeast, for the first six months he lived in DC in 2017. The problem is the property belongs in part to the wife of a high-profile lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, who also contributed to Pruitt’s political campaigns and has as his client Cheniere Energy, the only liquefied natural gas exporter in the continental United States. His wife, Vicki Hart, is a health care lobbyist.

A copy of Scott Pruitt’s lease shows an energy lobbyist’s name crossed out. EPA

Oh, and Pruitt was billed just $50 a night, and only for the nights he was there, paying $6,100 for six months. His daughter McKenna Pruitt, who was a White House intern at the time, lived there too. It’s unclear whether she paid any rent. The place was also used to host GOP fundraisers.

A big problem here is not only whether this was ethical, but whether the EPA ethically got approval from its ethics office. After the news of the housing arrangement broke, the EPA hastily put together a memo from its ethics office saying the situation was halal.

Justina Fugh, an ethics official who initially signed off on the memo, told Zahra Hijri at BuzzFeed that she wasn’t told about all of the relevant details and was too credulous when Pruitt’s aides pressed her approval.

“I received a phone call at 8:45 pm on Thursday. I was at the movie theater,” she told BuzzFeed. “I had to step out and I assumed they were providing me all relevant circumstances.”

During his stay, Pruitt took off one afternoon to nap. His full-time security detail (more on that later) was concerned something was amiss and broke down the glass-paneled door of his rental property to check on him. The EPA then reimbursed the property for $2,460 for damages.

According to the original EPA memo, “If the space was utilized for one 30-day month, then the rental cost would be $1,500, which is a reasonable market price.” It’s not. The median rate in the area for just a one-bedroom rental is $1,995, according to Rentometer. Zillow estimates that the property next door has a mortgage payment of $3,526 per month. And Pruitt’s bill of $6,100 over six months actually works out to $33 per day and $1,017 per month.

And Politico reported that Pruitt was slow to pay his rent, forcing his landlord to bug him for payment.

The revised memo still doesn’t answer key questions, like whether Pruitt had access to facilities beyond his room and whether his daughter paid rent. Norman Eisen, who worked in the White House ethics office under President Obama, voiced skepticism on Twitter:


Norm Eisen
✔
@NormEisen
This after the fact justification of Pruitt’s sweet housing deal w/lobbyist’s wife is just out and out fraud. Do you notice that the original ethics official they relied on (Justine) no longer has her name on here? Wonder why. We r not dropping this, right @waltshaub @RWPUSA? https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/979857525939064833 …
8:44 PM - Apr 1, 2018 · Washington, DC
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On Tuesday, Pruitt told the Washington Examiner he was “dumbfounded that that’s controversial.” But the White House is now conducting an inquiry.

This whole imbroglio stands out because of the favors that appear to have been exchanged here between Pruitt and someone with ties to the industry his agency regulates.


Paul Krugman
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@paulkrugman
30 Mar
Thinking some more about this Pruitt story. Kudos to Bloomberg for getting the facts; but I wish reporters wouldn't lump de facto bribes from lobbyists with padded expense accounts, like unnecessary first-class travel. Corruption is a much bigger deal 1/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-30/epa-chief-s-50-a-night-rental-said-to-raise-white-house-angst …


Paul Krugman
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@paulkrugman
Think about it: if a govt official abuses his office by taking a fancy trip, taxpayers lose the expense of that trip. But if he accepts what amount to kickbacks from corporations who can benefit from his actions, the cost can be far larger 2/

12:31 PM - Mar 30, 2018
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In March 2017, the EPA approved a natural gas pipeline extension from a company represented by Hart’s firm, Williams & Jensen, while Pruitt was living in Hart’s wife’s property.

And in December, Pruitt jetted off to Morocco to pitch “the potential benefit of liquified natural gas (LNG) imports on Morocco’s economy,” flying in first class with his head of security and another staffer.

This leads us to our next scandal.

Expensive travel

Pruitt’s Morocco trip was one of his most expensive, but it wasn’t his only travel extravagance. Between military, charter, and first-class flights, Pruitt spent more than $168,000 on air travel in his first year in office, even when internal emails showed cheaper options were available.

And he doesn’t travel alone. Pruitt and his entourage, including aides and security staffers, racked up $90,000 in just one week last summer. The administrator frequently travels from DC to Oklahoma, where he also takes charter flights.

The EPA has said Pruitt travels first class due to security risks, but Pruitt himself has said he rides in the front of the plane to avoid uncivil travelers. EPA staff claimed Pruitt had a blanket waiver to fly first class but walked that back when reminded that government travel rules prohibit such an exemption.

And revealingly, the Associated Press reported on Friday that when Pruitt traveled to Oklahoma on his own dime to attend football games, he flew coach, showing that Pruitt was willing to tolerate the supposed security risk when he was paying out of his own pocket.

Some of this travel is official EPA business, but some of Pruitt’s travel has been for media appearances and some for recreation. Pruitt also has expensive taste in hotels, having stayed in high-priced rooms in Paris and New York.

EPA staff have tried to argue that previous administrators also went on expensive international trips. But what’s different about Pruitt is that he flew first class on domestic flights. He has pledged to fly coach from now on, as past EPA administrators have traveled.

Paranoia

Since taking office, Pruitt has displayed some odd paranoia about his security. Shortly after starting his new job, he spent $3,000 to sweep his office for surveillance bugs. He then spent $5,800 to install biometric locks with fingerprint readers.

He also spent more than $42,000 to build a secret phone booth in his office. He hides his schedule from the public. His own employees need an escort to see him and aren’t allowed to take notes at meetings.

Most notably, Pruitt has surrounded himself with an unprecedented round-the-clock security detail that has accompanied him on trips to Disneyland and the Rose Bowl. The Associated Press reported that Pruitt’s security detail costs taxpayers $3 million.

And on Thursday, we also learned from the New York Times that Pruitt made other extraordinary requests of his security team: He wanted to “use flashing lights and sirens in his motorcade ... to expedite local trips in Washington to the airport or to dinner, including at least one trip to Le Diplomate, a trendy French restaurant that he frequented.”

Questionable hiring and demoting

Pruitt said one of his highest priorities at the EPA is the Superfund program, a federal initiative to clean up highly contaminated sites throughout the country.

Naturally, he’d want someone he can rely on to run the show. And that’s why he picked a guy he owes money to.

RELATED -- Scott Pruitt is slowly strangling the EPA

Albert Kelly, an Oklahoma banker, lent Pruitt money to buy a home and a minor league baseball team. Kelly was later banned from working in the banking sector for life by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and faced $125,000 in fines.

He now collects a $172,000 salary from the EPA as a senior adviser to the administrator. His résumé lists no experience in environmental management but mentions “political activity” as one of his core competencies.

Pruitt has also let staffers at the EPA keep their political consulting side gigs. And the Atlantic reported that two agency staffers from Oklahoma close to Pruitt got raises totaling $84,000 using funds appropriated under the Safe Drinking Water Act — without approval from the White House. (Pruitt told Fox News on Wednesday he hadn’t been aware of the raises and has “corrected it.”)

And the New York Times reported Thursday that in 2017, Pruitt reassigned or demoted several officials after they expressed concern about some of his spending choices and management style.

Trump still won’t unfriend Pruitt

Pruitt is hardly the most egregious offender in the Cabinet in some of these areas — former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin both racked up travel bills topping $1 million.

And even amid the bad press, Pruitt continued to run up the score for Trump this week, announcing a revision of fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for cars and light trucks. The decision is a win for US auto manufacturers who were struggling to meet the stringent targets.

And so far Trump is willing to defend him. “You know, I just left coal and energy country,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “They love Scott Pruitt. They feel very strongly about Scott Pruitt. And they love Scott Pruitt.”

Pruitt said the recent scrutiny for his travels and housing comes from people opposed to his agenda at the EPA trying to stop him. “And do I think that they will resort to anything to achieve that? Yes,” Pruitt told the Washington Examiner. “It’s toxic here in that regard.”

NEXT UP IN ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
5 lies Scott Pruitt told this week about his mounting scandals
Tribalism put Scott Pruitt in power. It may not be enough to save him.
The simple argument for keeping nuclear power plants open
This Fox News interview was surprisingly tough on Scott Pruitt
It’s time to think seriously about cutting off the supply of fossil fuels
The EPA is rolling back fuel efficiency standards


I PROPOSE THAT WE NAME TODAY “ERIC WEESE DAY!” HE’S A TRUE PATRIOT. I THOUGHT TRUMP HAD DRAINED THAT SWAMP. GUESS NOT. THE WALL HASN’T BEEN BUILT EITHER. THERE WERE HALF A DOZEN EPA OFFICIALS, TOO, WHO WERE PUT ON UNPAID LEAVE FOR “PUSHING BACK” AGAINST UNCONSCIONABLE WASTE BY PRUITT, BUT CONGRESS HAS DONE NOTINK! NOTINK! THEY’RE ALL REPUBLICANS TOGETHER, YOU SEE, WHITE HOUSE, CONGRESS AND SENATE.

WE SHOULDN’T BE PUTTING “NUT JOBS” INTO OFFICIAL POSITIONS, BUT THEN TRUMP HIMSELF IS SAID TO BE A “GERMAPHOBE,” SO HE PROBABLY FEELS A KINSHIP WITH PRUITT. ACCORDING TO AN ARTICLE ABOUT A WEEK AGO, TRUMP HAS, INDEED SAID THE HE LIKES PRUITT. THAT ARTICLE SAID IT IS BECAUSE PRUITT HAS WHACKED OUT NUMEROUS “OBAMA” APPOINTEES AND RULES.

HOW MUCH ARE WE GOING TO TOLERATE?? THIS COUNTRY HAS THE DISABLED AND THE ELDERLY TO FEED. OF COURSE, THAT’S NOT ON THE “CONSERVATIVE” AGENDA AT ALL. THE ONLY REASON THEY WILL VOTE FOR ANY PUNITIVE, OR EVEN MERELY “PROTECTIVE” MEASURES ON THE EPA IS BECAUSE IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOME WILD-EYED PERSON WHOSE WIFE HAS JUST DIED OF A TREATABLE ILLNESS IS MAY COME INTO THE CAPITOL WITH HIS AR-15 AND EXACT JUSTICE. ONE MORE SPECIAL NOTE: “... WHEN TAXPAYERS WEREN'T PAYING FOR HIS TICKET, THE EPA OFFICIAL SAID PRUITT FLEW COACH.” RIIIGHT.

SEE ALSO: https://i1.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2017/11/TrumpMap.jpg?resize=500%2C348&ssl=1

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-spent-millions-on-security-for-embattled-chief-scott-pruitt-report/
AP April 7, 2018, 9:26 AM
EPA spent millions on security for embattled chief Scott Pruitt: Report

Video – CBS THIS MORNING

WASHINGTON (AP) — Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt's concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes.

Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time detail that is more than three times the size of his predecessor's part-time security contingent.
https://www.facebook.com/reg/

New details in Pruitt's expansive spending for security and travel emerged from agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. They come as the embattled EPA leader fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps that have imperiled his job.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, Pruitt demoted the career staff member heading his security detail and replaced him with EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta*, a former Secret Service agent who operates a private security company.

An EPA official with direct knowledge of Pruitt's security spending says Perrotta oversaw a rapid expansion of the EPA chief's security detail to accommodate guarding him day and night, even on family vacations and when Pruitt was home in Oklahoma. The EPA official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Perrotta also signed off on new procedures that let Pruitt fly first-class on commercial airliners, with the security chief typically sitting next to him with other security staff farther back in the plane. Pruitt's premium status gave him and his security chief access to VIP airport lounges.

*Trump reassures Scott Pruitt in phone call

*Lobbyist tied to condo rented by EPA chief Scott Pruitt speaks out

The EPA official said there are legitimate concerns about Pruitt's safety, given public opposition to his rollbacks of anti-pollution measures.

But Pruitt's ambitious domestic and international travel led to rapidly escalating costs, with the security detail racking up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000. The demands of providing 24-hour coverage even meant taking some investigators away from field work, such as when Pruitt traveled to California for a family vacation.

The EPA official said total security costs approached $3 million when pay is added to travel expenses.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said late Friday that Pruitt has faced an "unprecedented" amount of death threats against him and his family.

"Americans should all agree that members of the president's cabinet should be kept safe from these violent threats," Wilcox told the AP.

A nationwide search of state and federal court records by AP found no case where anyone has been arrested or charged with threatening Pruitt. EPA's press office did not respond Friday to provide details of any specific threats or arrests.

Pruitt has said his use of first-class airfare was initiated following unpleasant interactions with other travelers. In one incident, someone yelled a profanity as he walked through the airport.

The EPA administrator has come under intense scrutiny for ethics issues and outsized spending. Among the concerns: massive raises for two of closest aides and his rental of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a lobbyist who represents fossil fuel clients.

At least three congressional Republicans and a chorus of Democrats have called for Pruitt's ouster. But President Donald Trump is so far standing by him.

A review of Pruitt's ethical conduct by White House officials is underway, adding to probes by congressional oversight committees and EPA's inspector general.

Pruitt, 49, was closely aligned with the oil and gas industry as Oklahoma's state attorney general before being tapped by Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump has praised Pruitt's relentless efforts to scrap, delay or rewrite Obama-era environmental regulations. He also has championed budget cuts and staff reductions at the agency so deep that even Republican budget hawks in Congress refused to implement them.

EPA's press office has refused to disclose the cost of Pruitt's security or the size of his protective detail, saying doing so could imperil his personal safety.

But other sources within EPA and documents released through public information requests help provide a window into the ballooning costs.

In his first three months in office, before pricey overseas trips to Italy and Morocco, the price tag for Pruitt's security detail hit more than $832,000, according to EPA documents released through a public information request.

Nearly three dozen EPA security and law enforcement agents were assigned to Pruitt, according to a summary of six weeks of weekly schedules obtained by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Those schedules show multiple EPA security agents accompanied Pruitt on a family vacation to California that featured a day at Disneyland and a New Year's Day football game where his home state Oklahoma Sooners were playing in the Rose Bowl. Multiple agents also accompanied Pruitt to a baseball game at the University of Kentucky and at his house outside Tulsa, during which no official EPA events were scheduled.

On weekend trips home for Sooners football games, when taxpayers weren't paying for his ticket, the EPA official said Pruitt flew coach. He sometimes used a companion pass obtained with frequent flyer miles accumulated by Ken Wagner, a former law partner whom Pruitt hired as a senior adviser at EPA at a salary of more than $172,000. Taxpayers still covered the airfare for the administrator's security detail.

Pruitt's predecessor, Gina McCarthy, also had a security detail. But it numbered about a half dozen, less than a third the size of Pruitt's. She flew coach and was not accompanied by security during her off hours, like on weekend trips home to Boston.

Pruitt was accompanied by nine aides and a security detail during a trip to Italy in June that cost more than $120,000. He visited the U.S. Embassy in Rome and took a private tour of the Vatican before briefly attending a meeting of G-7 environmental ministers in Bologna.

Private Italian security guards hired by Perrotta helped arrange an expansive motorcade for Pruitt and his entourage, according to the EPA official with direct knowledge of the trip. The source described the Italian additions as personal friends of Perrotta, who joined Pruitt and his EPA staff for an hours-long dinner at an upscale restaurant.

Perrotta's biography, on the website of his company, Sequoia Security Group, says that during his earlier stint with the Secret Service he worked with the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian finance police.

The EPA spent nearly $9,000 last year on increased counter-surveillance precautions for Pruitt, including hiring a private contractor to sweep his office for hidden listening devices and installing sophisticated biometric locks for the doors. The payment for the bug sweep went to a vice president at Perrotta's security company.

The EPA official who spoke to AP said Perrotta also arranged the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for Pruitt's office.

At least five EPA officials were placed on leave, reassigned or demoted after pushing back against spending requests such as a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 for furniture such as a bulletproof desk for the armed security officer always stationed inside the administrator's office suite.

Those purchases were not approved. But Pruitt got an ornate refurbished desk comparable in grandeur to the one in the Oval Office.

Among the officials who faced consequences for resisting such spending was EPA Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Kevin Chmielewski, a former Trump campaign staffer who was placed on unpaid administrative leave this year.

The prior head of Pruitt's security detail, Eric Weese, was demoted last year after he refused Pruitt's demand to use the lights and sirens on his government-owned SUV to get him through Washington traffic to the airport and dinner reservations.

© 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


READ THIS ONE, TOO, WHILE YOU’RE HERE. THIS LETTER ON OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM FROM OCTOBER 5, 1952 IS STILL A MATTER OF CONCERN. THE ELECTION OF A FLIM FLAM MAN TO THE PRESIDENCY IS THE RESULT OF OUR FAILING TO THINK.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2018/04/04/einsteins-letter-on-education/
Einstein’s letter on education

I came across this letter from Albert Einstein that was published in the New York Times on October 5, 1952 and am reproducing it because it mirrors my own views that those who view education purely because of its utility value are missing something profound about it.

EDUCATION FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT

Albert Einstein

It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he – with his specialized knowledge – more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community.

These precious things are conveyed to the younger generation through personal contact with those who teach, not – or at least not in the main – through textbooks. It is this that primarily constitutes and preserves culture. This is what I have in mind when I recommend the “humanities” as important, not just dry specialized knowledge in the fields of history and philosophy.

Overemphasis on the competitive system and premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends, specialized knowledge included.

It is also vital to a valuable education that independent critical thinking be developed in the young human being, a development that is greatly jeopardized by overburdening him with too much and with too varied subjects (point system). Overburdening necessarily leads to superficiality. Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.

For example, with so-called ‘hard’ subjects like mathematics that requires people to put in considerable effort into working out things for themselves, people try to coax students to put in the effort by arguing that it will be useful to them in the future. While that argument has some merit, what really makes people give of their best is to be interested in something for its own sake, because it sparks their curiosity or passion. That is what good teaching should aim for.

While I love science and mathematics, I have been greatly concerned about the downgrading in US schools of the humanities and the arts and even just recreation as disposable ‘luxuries’, to be included only if time and resources permit. All those things should be considered integral parts of any educational system.



https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731720-600-biologys-moonshot-the-mission-to-decode-the-dna-of-all-life/?cmpid=ILC|NSNS|2018_webpush&utm_medium=ILC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=webpush-Roost-biogenomeSat

Earth BioGenome Project
BOB MURPHY

Its mission is to sequence the genomes of all known species of flora and fauna on Earth. Nature’s recipe books could hold clues to making far superior medicines, materials, biofuels and crops, unravelling our evolutionary past and help us to be better custodians of our planet.


www.earthmicrobiome.org/

The Earth Microbiome Project (EMP) is a massively collaborative effort to characterize microbial life on this planet.

What is the Earth Biogenome Project? A GRAND CHALLENGE. The Earth BioGenome Project, a Moon Shot for biology, aims to sequence, catalog and characterize the genomes of all of Earth's eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of ten years.



THIS SITE CALLS ITSELF A “FREE THOUGHT BLOG.” IF YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT IT, IT DOESN’T SEEM TO HAVE GIVEN ME A VIRUS, OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. IT, LIKE MYSELF, IS MORE OR LESS OBSESSED (AND NOT IN A HAPPY WAY) WITH OUR TAKEOVER BY TRUMPITES. LOOK AT THIS STORY – “MADNESS ALL THE TIME.”

POLITICAL MADNESS: THIS IS A LONG, MAYBE ENDLESS, STRING OF READER COMMENTS, MOST OF WHICH ARE “ENLIGHTENED,” ACCORDING TO MY VIEWPOINT, AND FUNNY. YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK AT THEM.

« Ooooookaaaaay…
Discuss: Political Madness All the Time
Lynna is your curator. Oh god the madness will never end.



AND READ THIS ONE, NOT BECAUSE IT’S FUNNY, BUT BECAUSE IT’S SERIOUS.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/arun/2017/07/21/uk-to-stop-funding-homeopathy-medicines/#more-2768
UK to stop funding homeopathy medicines

Though it is a well-known fact that homeopathy is useless and equal to placebo, a large amount of scarce public resources are wasted on it by many governments all over the world. Now one such wastage will be stopped soon. The National Health Service in United Kingdom is proposing a ban on providing homeopathy medicines.

The NHS has announced a ban on homeopathy and herbal medicine as they say it is “misuse of scarce funds”.

Officials today ruled that the treatments are among dozens of medicines which should not be funded by the health service.

In the last five years, the NHS has spent almost £600,000 on homeopathic treatment, despite long running debate about whether alternative remedies work.

Today NHS England ruled that “at best homeopathy is a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds which could be better devoted to treatments that work.”

From Neurologica blog

Prof Edzard Ernst, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter, a leading critic of alternative medicine, said the decision to stop funding homeopathy was “long overdue”.

“Since it was first invented ~200 years ago, homeopathy has been criticised for flying in the face of science and common sense.

“We have now known for decades that the most reliable studies fail to show that highly diluted homeopathic remedies are more than placebos.

“The NHS has a legal, moral and ethical duty to spend our scarce funds wisely; I cannot think of a less prudent way to spend them than on homeopathy,” he said.

In contrast sadly India is embracing pseudo science more and more.



MADDOW TIME

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/6/18
Perks for Pruitt staffers swell list of scandals at Trump's EPA
Rachel Maddow rounds up the latest reports on Donald Trump's scandal-plagued EPA chief Scott Pruitt, including pay raises for his friends on staff, a no-show job for senior counsel Samantha Dravis, and Congressional interest in corruption warnings that went ignored. Duration: 14:32


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/6/18
Key figure in Russia's NRA outreach ploy added to sanctions list
Tim Dickinson, contributing editor for Rolling Stone, talks with Rachel Maddow about the inclusion of Alexander Torshin on the new list of sanctioned Russians and Russian efforts to use the NRA as a conduit to influencing U.S. politics. Duration: 11:20


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/6/18
Trump admin indifference to ethics reflected in EPA scandals
Chris Lu, who managed President Obama's first term cabinet, talks with Rachel Maddow about how typical American administrations deal with ethics scandals and how Donald Trump's disregard for governmental processes has infected his cabinet, including the EPA under Scott Pruitt. Duration: 6:52


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/5/18
Icahn role shows common thread in Pruitt ethics, policy scandals
Rachel Maddow looks at the relationship between Donald Trump adviser Carl Icahn and EPA chief Scott Pruitt and how Icahn's business interests intertwine with Pruitt's ethics scandals and peculiar EPA policies. Duration: 22:20