DeVos

by NoahSo... Trump, his capos like Betsy DeVos, and the rest of his Republican Party, just had to ram through their Tax Scam to enrich themselves and their biggest donors. But, obviously that wasn't the only reason.

by NoahOn the same day that Trump gleefully announced his plan to throw the entire American healthcare system into total chaos and condemn tens of millions of American citizens to ill health and an early unnecessary death, one of his right hands in cruelty, Betsy Devos, smiled and announced that she would end the government's portion of the funding for the Special Olympics. Yeah. Hitler had no time for people with "birth defects" either.

I don't know a better observer of life in America's evangelical communities than author and filmmaker (and former evangelical) Frank Schaefer. He and I are both working on a project called VoteCommonGood, "an effort to dislodge control of Congress from the Republican Party by inspiring Christians to vote on November 6, 2018 according to what our faith tells us is the Common Good.

by NoahI thought Republicans were all for the death penalty for things like kidnapping. As of this writing, hundreds of children are still "separated from their parent." How's that for a euphemism for kidnapping? Court-ordered deadlines have come and court-orderd deadlines have gone. Our burgeoning totalitarian government has even stated that they simply will not be returning at least 600 children.

My best friend Roland is a public school teacher in Compton.

Last month Digby introduced me to another extraordinary woman running for Congress, this one in Michigan, Ellen Lipton. Ellen's district is the 9th, from which Sandy Levin is retiring. This is a safe Democratic district in the suburbs north of Detroit (PVI is D+4 and Hillary beat Trump there 51.5% to 43.7%.

In 2014 Oklahoma reelected conservative Republican Mary Fallin over conservative Democrat Joe Dorman 460,298 (55.8%) to 338,239 (41%). Although there have been some shocking recent special election wins by Democrats in Oklahoma, the state Senate has 39 Republicans and just 8 Democrats and the state House has 73 Republicans and 28 Democrats. The Oklahoma congressional delegation consists of 5 Republican congressmen and 2 Republican senators...

Sidd BikkannavarOne of my friends is a senior VP at one of the major American investment firms. A couple of years ago her company took all the senior officers for a convention in China. They were instructed to leave their cell phones and computers at home and were all give clean electronics with no data. That seemed extreme to me. I recently spent a day in the Beijing airport.

(ANTIMEDIA) While we were distracted by the onslaught of executive orders President Trump pushed through during his first two weeks in office, legislators in Congress were busy quietly introducing legislation to bolster his top-down moves.
Here’s what you missed:
1. A House Panel Voted to Terminate the Election Assistance Commission

-by Alice MarshallIn order for DeVos to carry out her plan to destroy public education she has to have thousands of collaborators. Therefore we must act to deprive her of collaborators. School boards and state legislatures are the first fields to be worked.