Majorityrights News > Category: The American right

Ivanka’s simple presence as part of the entourage of the Trump administration is helping that brand promote itself

NPR, “Trump’s Potential Conflicts Of Interest: ‘They’re Everywhere”:

Donald Trump tweeted that he will be taking himself out of his business operations and will announce the detail his plan on Dec. 15th. But that hasn’t eliminated concerns that the trump organization’s business interests in the US and in at least twenty countries around the world could lead to conflicts of interest when Trump becomes president.

In response to Trump’s tweets yesterday, the office of government ethics tweeted that - as we discussed with your council - divestiture is the way to resolve these conflicts.

As we are about to hear, “divestiture” is different from Trump taking himself out of his business operations.

16 democratic members of the house judiciary requested that the committee hold hearings to discuss conflict of interest provisions that might apply to Trump when he becomes president.

New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that because of a “quirk in the law,” American presidents are not mandated to separate themselves from their businesses.

“He could legally continue to operate them and even take actions as president that would benefit those businesses, and it wouldn’t be a formal ethics violation,” Lipton says.

Trump’s business entanglements and the complication of his potential conflicts of interest as president are unprecedented.
It’s worth a listen - NPR, 1 Dec 2016

Though a resort area, and mostly White area, one in four people there live below the federal poverty level.

USA Today, “Extent of Tennessee fire damage comes into grim focus”, 30 Nov 2016:

The center of Gatlinburg’s tourist district escaped heavy damage, but “it’s the apocalypse” on either side, said Newmansville Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Bobby Balding.

[...]

“In my 25 years of federal (park) service, I’ve participated in many fires, but none of that could have prepared me for this.”

CNN, “Gatlinburg fires: 4 dead; crews search for missing”, 30 Nov 2016:

Investigators believe the trail fire was “human caused,” without offering further information, but it’s still under investigation.

READ MORE...

The Somali shooter at Ohio State had apparently been inspired by neo-liberal propaganda presuming that Muslim incursions and compradors which had been promoted and backed in Burma by right-wing Western sources supposedly had some right to remain there.

Washington Post, “I can’t take it anymore’: Ohio State attacker said abuses of Burma’s Muslims led to ‘boiling point”, 29 Nov 2016:

Participants in a vigil at Jacob’s Porch pray after the attack of Ohio State University, who rammed his car into a crowd of pedestrians and attacked them with a butcher knife.

The Ohio State University student who carried out a knife attack on campus Monday wrote in a Facebook post shortly before the rampage that the abuse of a little-known Muslim community in Burma had driven him to the “boiling point,” writing, “I can’t take it anymore,” CNN reported.

“Seeing my fellow Muslims being tortured, raped and killed in Burma has led to a boiling point,” Abdul Razak Ali Artan allegedly wrote on his Facebook page shortly before Monday’s rampage, where he injured 11 people with a butcher knife before police killed him.

                 

“America! Stop interfering with other countries,” he wrote.

Artan’s Facebook post throws a little-known and long-persecuted Muslim community in western Burma, also known as Myanmar, into the spotlight.

More than 1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Burma, but they have long been denied citizenship and other basic rights, and many from Burma’s Buddhist majority consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Aung San Suu Kyi — the Nobel laureate leading Burma’s new civilian government — has been criticized for refusing to use the term “Rohingya,” which she says is inflammatory.

In recent weeks, thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing into the forests and neighboring Bangladesh on the heels of a brutal military crackdown that followed a terrorist attack on police posts Oct. 9, allegedly carried out by Rohingya militants.

Human Rights Watch has alleged that the military has perpetrated a scorched-earth campaign, providing before-and-after satellite images that showed three villages completely burned. The death toll estimates vary, but several dozen have been killed since October, activists say.

Earlier this week, a U.N. refugee agency official, John McKissick, was in the Bangladesh region of Cox’s Bazar — where more than 30,000 people, many of them Rohingya, have fled to — and told the BBC that Burmese troops were “killing men, shooting them, slaughtering children, raping women, burning and looting houses, forcing these people to cross the river” into Bangladesh. He said that the “ultimate goal” of Burma’s government is “ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority.”

       
        Kosher/ Neo-liberal media jerking the tears and prayers from fellow Abrahamics

As Trump shows his right wing and Jewish-collaborative colors the dubiousness of White Nationalist support is highlighted.

Mnuchin led the 2009 mortgage bailout of failed subprime mortgage lender IndyMac, now known as One West - the bank received 900 million in federal bail-out money.

Minuchin helped back the construction of Trump International Hotel in Chicago. Trump later sued him to secure more favorable terms.

Minuchin also has interests in the film industry.

Minuchin donated to both Republicans and Democrats in the past, including to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Washington Post, “Trump expected to name financier Steve Mnuchin to Treasury”, 29 Nov 2016:

President-elect Donald Trump is planning to name investor and former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary, opting for an industry insider with no government experience to helm the agency in charge of the nation’s finances, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mnuchin (pronounced mah-NEW-chin) joined Trump’s whirlwind campaign in May as finance chairman, despite the fact that he had never worked in politics and that he had donated to Democrats in the past. He quickly earned Trump’s trust as he worked closely with the Republican National Committee to raise substantial amounts of money in a short period. On policy issues, he was instrumental in crafting the details of Trump’s proposal to overhaul the tax code.

“He’s an expert on finance issues,” said Stephen Moore, who worked with Mnuchin as an adviser to the president-elect on the campaign trail. “He clearly, like Donald Trump, understands that the number one goal for this administration is going to be to grow the economy and get jobs.”

The president-elect scored an early victory Tuesday night when air-conditioning manufacturer Carrier announced that it would reverse plans to move one of its factories from Indiana to Mexico. The company, which is owned by United Technologies, said about 1,000 U.S. jobs would be preserved.

Trump’s tough talk on trade during his campaign helped cement his populist appeal. But Trump — a real estate developer famous for his flashy style — appears to be staffing his Cabinet with advisers who also have amassed extraordinary wealth. Trump is expected to nominate industrialist billionaire Wilbur Ross to lead the Commerce Department, and Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos was named as Trump’s pick for education secretary last week.

Wallsreet Journal, “Treasury Pick Steven Mnuchin Bet on Donald Trump and Won”, 29 Nov 2016:

Former Goldman Sachs executive turned Hollywood financier was Trump’s campaign finance chairman

During an on-the-record editorial board meeting with the New York Times today

“‘I Condemn Them’: Trump Tells NY Times He Disavows Alt-Right Conference”

During an on-the-record editorial board meeting with the New York Times today — a meeting he canceled at one point — President-elect Donald Trump hit on a number of topics and issues that were tossed at him from reporters.

One of the pressing subjects on the journalists’ minds was how Trump viewed the support he’s received from those in the alt-right. Specifically, they wanted to know how the incoming POTUS felt about the recent conference alt-right leaders held in Washington over the weekend in which attendees were seen giving Nazi salutes as Richard Spencer exclaimed “Hail Trump!”

                     

When first asked about whether he felt he did anything to “energize” the alt-right, Trump said he didn’t think so.

Source: Media.com, 22 Nov 2016

Daily News, “President-elect Donald Trump’s disavowal of his support among white nationalists didn’t sit right with the alt-right, 23 Nov 2016:

In one of his most direct repudiations of the once-fringe movement’s proximity to his bid for the presidency, Trump finally said Tuesday that he doesn’t “want to energize the group and I disavow the group,” during an on-the-record sit-down with the New York Times.

Alt-right members took to Reddit forums to express dismay over the president-elect’s comments, some saying they’ve been “fooled” into thinking Trump had truly taken up their white supremacist vision.

Donald Trump disavowed the support of the alt-right movement during a sit-down with the New York Times on Tuesday.

“Trump’s a civic nationalist which is a step in the right direction,” one Reddit commenter wrote. “His election was all about buying time, securing the Supreme Court and stopping illegal immigration. His victory is important but I hope no one deluded themselves into thinking that he was the second coming.”

Trump’s comments on Tuesday came days after white nationalists gathered at a conference in Washington D.C. organized by the far-right think tank National Policy Institute and its founder, Richard Spencer, in celebration of the “year of Donald Trump.”

Video of Spencer speaking showed scores of alt-right members raising their arms in a Nazi salute. Message board commenters said Trump wouldn’t stand by their cause after footage of the Neo-Nazis emerged.

“Certainly not after Richard Spencer saying ‘Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!’ and people in the audience doing the Nazi salute,” one post read.

The Anti-Defamation League, a leading advocacy group fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, praised Trump’s condemnation of his white supremacist supporters, specifically citing the NPI conference in D.C.

“We welcome President-elect Trump’s denunciation of the National Policy Institute convention just blocks from the White House,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt in an emailed statement. “Racist and anti-Semitic groups have absolutely no place in our politics or society.”

Trump was criticized during his campaign for being sluggish about condemning the support of white supremacists, most notably after receiving an endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

His forthcoming administration continues to be associated with the alt-right movement due to the prominent role of Stephen Bannon, who was recently tapped to be Trump’s chief strategist.

Before becoming Trump’s campaign manager, Bannon was the chairman of Breitbart News, a haven for white nationalist news and anti-Semitism.

       

NPI Conference Washington D.C. 19 November 2016.

Part 2

       
Speakers taking questions from the press included alt-right supporters (left to right) Peter Brimelow, Kevin MacDonald, Jason Jorjani, and Jared Taylor.

       
Protesters gather along 14th Street outside of the Reagan Building before the start of the press conference.

Millennial Woes interviews Matt Tate, Richard Spencer and Nathan Damico about protestors:

Pre-NPI conference protested by anti-fa

       

       

...outside Trump International Hotel afterward.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova: “You have to talk to the Jews, naturally.”

RadioFreeEurope, “Russian Government Spokeswoman Suggests Trump Won Thanks To ‘The Jews”, 17 Nov 2016:

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who has made caustic rhetoric and sarcastic social-media posts a staple of her public outreach, has an idea whom U.S. President-elect Donald Trump can thank for his stunning victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton: “the Jews.”

In an appearance that has triggered accusations of anti-Semitism, Zakharova suggested on a nationally televised talk show over the weekend that money from Jewish people played a key role in Trump’s win.

Conversations she had with American Jews in September while in New York for the UN General Assembly made it clear that the billionaire businessman would triumph, she said.

“If you want to know what will happen in America, who do you have to talk to? You have to talk to the Jews, naturally. But of course,” Zakharova said, prompting applause from the studio audience of Sunday Evening, a show hosted by pro-Kremlin television personality Vladimir Solovyov.

Zakharova then adopted a cartoonish Jewish accent while impersonating her alleged interlocutor.

“They told me: ‘Marochka (a Russian diminutive for Maria), you understand, of course, we’ll donate to Clinton. But we’ll donate twice as much to the Republicans.’ That was it! The matter was settled, for me personally,” she said.

Zakharova added that “if you want to know the future, don’t read the mainstream newspapers—our people in Brighton [Beach] will tell you everything,” a reference to the southern Brooklyn enclave with a large diaspora of Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union.

Prominent Russian officials made it clear that they were rooting for Trump, who has called for repairing battered bilateral ties with Moscow, though the Kremlin repeatedly stated it had no preference in the race.

While the program aired November 13, Zakharova’s remarks only grabbed widespread attention on social media after they were picked up by Ukrainian and Russian-language Israeli websites on November 17.

WATCH: Zakharova’s remarks, in Russian (starts around the 3-minute mark).

Her comments sparked accusations of anti-Semitism by suggesting Jews secretly pull the levers of American power.

“It turns out press secretary Zakharova explained Trump’s victory as a Jewish conspiracy,” prominent Russian opposition activist Roman Dobrokhotov wrote on Twitter.

Michael McFaul, who had bitter run-ins with Kremlin-loyal TV journalists during his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Russia and who has been sharply criticized by Zakharova, wrote on Facebook: “Wow. And this is the woman who criticizes me for not being diplomatic.”

Russian journalist Vladimir Varfolomeyev, a staunch opponent of President Vladimir Putin, called Zakharova’s appearance “vulgarity masked as diplomacy.”

The Russian-language Israeli site Newsru.Co.Il said the Israeli Foreign Ministry had declined to comment on Zakharova’s remarks.

Since winning the November 8 election, Trump has faced criticism for appointing as his chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, the former executive editor of the conservative website Breitbart News.

The site is an online hub for the so-called “alt-right,” a grass-roots political movement with many adherents who openly endorse white supremacism and anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League calls Bannon the “chief curator for the alt-right” but that it is “not aware of any anti-Semitic statements” he has made.

But Trump did, in fact, defeat Clinton in Brighton Beach and nearby neighborhoods with substantial numbers of Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union, who are traditionally conservative voters and tend to support Republicans in U.S. presidential elections.

Thanks to Mancinblack for the tip on this story.

DAILYKENN.com—Donald Trump has promised to provide vouchers to inner city children, allowing them to attend high-quality private schools rather than being locked in to government schools dominated by teachers’ unions.

                           
                        President-elect Donald Trump.  (AP)

(CNSNews.com) - Trump’s Education Plan: School Choice for ‘Every Single Inner City Child in America”, 11 Nov 2016:

As presented on the campaign trail and detailed on the Trump-Pence website, President–elect Donald Trump wants to implement school choice programs in all 50 states that will allow students and their parents to pick the school that works best for them, and the money to pay for it will follow the student, not the school bureaucracy.

“If we can put a man on the moon, dig out the Panama Canal, and win two World Wars, then I have no doubt that we, as a nation, can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in America,” said Trump in a Sept. 8 speech in Cleveland, Ohio.

   

The proposal calls for using $20 billion in federal funds to incentivize the states to start (or expand their existing) school choice programs.

From there, “if the states collectively contribute $110 billion of their own education budgets toward school choice,” said Trump, “on top of the $20 billion in federal dollars, that could provide $12,000 in school choice funds to every K-12 student who today lives in poverty.”

   

“The money will follow the student,” he said. “That means the student will be able to attend the public, private, charter, or magnet school of their choice – and each state will develop its own system that works for them.” Trump reportedly has added home schools to the proposal. 

There are a some school choice programs in the United States, but they are limited and vary widely in terms of which schools a student may choose; who is eligible to participate;  how many students may participate; and how much funding is available for each program.

For example, California does not offer private school choice, but it allows intra-district and inter-district open enrollment at its public schools, reports the Heritage Foundation. Texas offers the same as California. Virginia does not allow private school choice or public school choice and it has “weak charter school laws, reported Heritage.

In his speech, Trump emphasized the need to help American students in the inner cites to be offered the opportunity to pick their school, which will help them to get on the ladder to success.

“We are one nation, and when any part of our country hurts, our whole country hurts,” said Trump. “My goal as president will be to ensure that every child in the nation – African-American, Hispanic-American, all Americans – will be placed on the ladder of success: a great education, a great job.”

“The Democratic Party has trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth in failing government schools that deny them the opportunity to join the ladder of American success,” he said. “It is time to break up that monopoly.”

“I want every single inner-city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom – the civil right – to attend the school of their choice,” said Trump.  “Our government spends more than enough money to easily pay for this initiative, with billions left over. It’s simply a matter of putting students first, not the education bureaucracy.”

He then explained that the United States, at the state and federal levels, spends approximately $620 billion on K-12 education each year. (The federal government kicks in $64 billion and states provide about $570 billion.) That averages to $12,296 for every student. 

Chicago, for instance, spends about $11,976 per student, said Trump, and Los Angeles spends about $10,602.  New York City spends $20,226 per student.

By offering $20 billion more in federal funds to encourage states to participate in school choice – to establish (or expand) their own programs for their citizens – “it would create a massive education market that is competitive and produces better outcomes,” said Trump.  (Currently, only about $1.9 billion is spent on school choice programs nationwide.)

The $20 billion would be allocated to states that “have private school choice and charter laws, encouraging them to participate,” said Trump.

“These schools would then cater to the needs of the individual student and family, not the needs of the Teachers’ Union,” he said. “But the $20 billion is only the beginning,” said Trump. “As president, I will establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child living in poverty…. Each state will develop its own formula, but we want the dollars to follow the student.”

“I will use the pulpit of the presidency to campaign for this in all 50 states,” he said, “and I will call upon the American people to elect officials at the city, state and federal level who support school choice.”

Way to go White Trump voters!

Trump, ever “the advocate of White working people,” has determined that it is teacher’s unions and the capacity for educators to be discriminatory (by the de facto means in this case, of pricing out the pattern) of black menace to White school children, that is the problem - not the blacks: Donald is all for this group of Americans: in fact, it is the only racial/ethnic group that he explicitly supports.