What Trump Did When You Weren't Looking

Thanks, Politico, for documenting Admin actions with consequence, the Trumpster's outrageous & boorish behavior notwithstanding.
By my count, at least 40% of these could be posted in "Trump screws his base" thread:

5 things Trump did while you weren't looking
Behind the scandal-of-the-day news, the White House really is changing American policy. A new series from The Agenda explains how.
Danny Vinik | 06/09/2017

1. A boost for Uber and McDonald’s. (contractor or employee?)
2. A trade war with Mexico averted — for now. (sugar agreement)
3. The end of a DOJ “slush fund.” (BOA third party agreements)
4. A win for nursing homes. (arbitration can be stipulated in contracts)
5. Get THAAD out of here. (S Korea blocks US missile defense system)

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/06/09/five-policy-changes-trump-this-w...
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5 things Trump did while you weren't looking: Week 2
From a trio of deals with China to more power for the Pentagon, here's how the White House changed policy this week.
Danny Vinik | 06/16/2017

1. U.S. and China make nice on beef, dairy and poultry
2. Education Department targets Obama-era student protections (loans)
3. The Pentagon flexes its muscles (Somalia, Afghanistan)
4. VA civil service reforms heads to Trump’s desk (dismissal)
5. New food labels? Not so fast.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/06/16/5-things-trump-did-while-you-wer...
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5 things Trump did while you weren't looking: Week 3
Including a little-noticed executive order on immigration.
Danny Vinik | 06/23/2017

1. The Labor Department loosens a rule on beryllium exposure
2. A new emergency alert for cops
3. The Yucca nuclear controversy re-opens
4. The White House gets tough with Russia (to discourage House taking up Russian sanctions bill?)
5. Trump quietly releases another immigration executive order (eliminates 3 wk limit for 80% of non-immigrant visas)

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/06/23/trump-policy-change-immigration-...
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5 things Trump did while you weren't looking: Week 4
The Department of Labor quietly had a busy week.
Danny Vinik | 06/30/2017

The Labor Department was busy, Part 1 (the overtime rule, the fiduciary standard and an electronic recordkeeping rule)
The Labor Department was busy, Part 2 (opinion letters replace guidance documents)
Trump expands his trade fight with Canada (2nd penalty on timber)
EPA targets a top Obama-era rule (water pollution)
Trump tightens the grip on China—and North Korea (direct sanctions on Chinese bank)

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/06/30/trump-policy-change-labor-worker...

Or I could bookmark Politico and read it whenever I want, rather than have you read it for me and tell me what to think.

>2 barney67: Well, Barney, that's you. I appreciate links to sites and articles I might otherwise miss. If I don't like what I'm reading I can stop. The fact is, though, that there have been too many great links from not only Margd, but others, that I am way behind. So unlike you, I don't feel these are being crammed down my throat, rather that they are being kindly offered.

>2 barney67:
You could, but if you didn't, now you've seen it--and you've emerged unscathed, maybe even having been exposed to a few pieces of information you hypothetically might not have encountered before.

Which you can interpret or argue with as you see fit, of course.

No harm done.

The CBO thinks Trump's budget math is about $3.4T off
Ryan Struyk | July 14, 2017

...The White House says its blueprint balances the budget over the next decade, reining in the deficit from $603 billion this year to a $16 billion surplus in 2027. But the CBO estimates a $720 billion deficit in 2027 -- and more than double the cumulative deficit over the next 10 years.

So here's the fundamental mismatch: The CBO says Trump's budget math overestimated economic growth to the tune of $3.4 trillion in tax revenue over next decade.

Trump's calculations rest on the assumption that real GDP will increase 3% year-over-year by 2020. But the CBO says not so fast. The nonpartisan agency pegs its estimate around 1.8% -- much closer to the average rate over the last two decades...

(See graph: Trump administration estimates balanced budget in 10 years but CBO projects steady deficit)

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/14/politics/cbo-trump-budget-math/index.html?sr=twCNN...

Trump’s EPA is caving to chemical industry, environmental groups say

Trump's EPA Has Rolled Back Dozens Of Environmental Regulations

Infrastructure - is anyone working on that promise?

Trump backs off vow that private sector should help pay for infrastructure package

President Trump told lawmakers this week that he was abandoning a key element of his planned $1 trillion infrastructure package, complaining that certain partnerships between the private sector and federal government simply don’t work.

Now the administration wants to force states and localities to foot most of the bill.

138 things Trump did this year while you weren't looking

Behind the crazy headlines, more conservative priorities got pushed through than most people realize. An exhaustive list of what really happened to the government in 2017. (thru Dec 22)

DANNY VINIK | 12/29/2017

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/12/29/138-trump-policy-changes-2017-0...

___________________________________________________

5 things Trump did this week while you weren't looking

As a busy year in Washington comes to an end, the Trump administration is just getting going.

DANNY VINIK | 12/22/2017

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/12/22/trump-policy-housing-climate-ch...

___________________________________________________

Then there's

What Congress actually did in 2017

It wasn't all partisan gridlock: 97 bills made it into law this year. Here's what you might have missed.

DANNY VINIK | 12/26/2017

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/12/26/congresss-secret-achievements-0...

Trump’s true priorities revealed in holiday news dumps

1. Overturning key regulations on fracking
2. Weakening the rules that were designed to prevent another Deepwater Horizon spill
3. Declaring open season on migratory birds
4. Reinstating mining leases for Ivanka Trump’s landlord
5. Letting nursing homes off the hook when patients suffer in their care
6. Civil servants may not get a bonus because the rich got a tax cut
7. Undercutting enforcement by waging a war of attrition against the bureaucracy
8. Reneging on a federal commitment to fund a major infrastructure project
9. Firing all the members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS
10. Maneuvering behind the scenes to “sabotage” the Census

While You Are Tweeting About the Nunes Memo, Russia Is Plotting Its Midterms Attack
David Corn | Feb. 1, 2018

The point is distraction. And it’s working dangerously well.

...On Monday, Trump’s CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, told the BBC that Russia will “target” the midterm elections this year. The very same day, it was reported that the Trump administration will not implement the new sanctions on Russia that Congress passed last year in legislation that Trump begrudgingly signed into law. So here we have word that the US political system remains under threat from Vladimir Putin’s covert information warfare campaign and that the Trump administration has decided not to intensify sanctions that might deter Moscow from again subverting American democracy. Still, these significant events received a sliver of the coverage devoted to the tussle over #releasethememo.

...In our nanosecond-driven news cycle, it can be tough not to jump at every new piece of chum thrown into the water. But Trump’s goal is to churn and muddy. Clarity is not his friend. He benefits when diversions take hold. And so does Putin.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/while-you-are-tweeting-about-the-nu...

Forbes contributor, Stan Collender (this guy? Stanley E. Collender) posits
Will Trump Wage A Privately Funded War?

He points out:
"In one of the most frightening stories I've read since the start of the Trump presidency, The New York Times reported on Saturday that the administration is seriously considering paying for the new U.S. embassy it wants to build in Jerusalem with funds provided by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
...
Spending these funds would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution, a violation of federal law, an end run around Congress and a big step toward presidential anarchy.
...
But the scariest part is the other things Trump might want to do this way. If privately funding an embassy is possible, what would stop Trump or some future president from raising funds to finance and conduct a war with mercenaries? An oligarch-like president with deep-pocketed friends would be able to ignore the checks and balances set in the Constitution and the legislative process to do whatever he or she (and they) wanted to do."

Also revealed this week, Thanksgiving 2017, Interior reversed ban on elephant trophies in spite of Trump and per NRA (on biota thread)...

5 things Trump did this week while you weren't looking
DANNY VINIK | 03/02/2018

1. The Department of Education boosts charter schools, lightens civil-rights scrutiny

2. In Mexico, Trump’s trade agenda moves forward

3. EPA weakens a rule on methane emissions

4. Treasury closes a loophole in the tax law

5. After a reversal of a reversal, an Obama labor policy survives

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/03/02/trump-policy-education-methane-...

While you weren’t looking, the House passed a bill that would give companies free rein to make predatory loans with triple digit interest rates, and gut protections for consumers in New York.

I wrote @SenSchumer and @SenGillibrand today to ask them to block it.

Eric Schneiderman (NY Attorney General) @AGSchneiderman
12:49 PM - 13 Mar 2018

Trump White House quietly issues report vindicating Obama regulations
It was easy to miss, but OMB demolishes the GOP’s deregulatory claims.
David Roberts | Mar 6, 2018

...The report was released late on a Friday, with Congress out of session and multiple Trump scandals dominating the headlines. A cynical observer might conclude that the administration wanted the report to go unnoticed.

...OMB gathered data and analysis on “major” federal regulations (those with $100 million or more in economic impact) between 2006 and 2016, a period that includes all of Obama’s administration, stopping just short of Trump’s. The final tally, reported in 2001 dollars:

Aggregate benefits: $219 to $695 billion
Aggregate costs: $59 to $88 billion

By even the most conservative estimate, the benefits of Obama’s regulations wildly outweighed the costs.

According to OMB — and to the federal agencies upon whose data OMB mostly relied — the core of the Trumpian case against Obama regulations, arguably the organizing principle of Trump’s administration, is false.

...The OMB report has a long section looking into the employment effects of environmental regulations, assessing several studies and literature reviews. Mostly it is devoted to explaining how complex and vexed such analysis is. Jobs may be eliminated in one place/industry and created in another. Jobs may be eliminated in the short term but a larger number created in the long term. Effects on employment must be disentangled from contemporaneous social and economic trends, many of which have much larger effects. And so on.

The conclusion — which is in keeping with the broader literature, as I described in this post — is that there may be local and temporary employment effects from environmental regulations, either positive or negative, but at the aggregate national level, such regulations simply aren’t a significant factor in employment. Their effects are lost amid the noise of demographic shifts and macroeconomic drivers.

They don’t “kill jobs.” From the perspective of the overall economy, they don’t do much of anything to jobs, other than shift them from certain regions/industries to others. As it happens, those shifts are often unfavorable to GOP constituencies, but that’s not a license to, you know, lie about them...

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/6/17077330/trump-regulatory-ag...

#12--I have a story about Adelson. A bunch of years ago I started getting all these e-mails from this group to stop internet gambling. It was a mystery to me why because I knew people who did a lot of that and though it wasn't for me and I always thought it was nutty it was their thing. The e-mails got so persistent though that I finally started looking into this group and it was funded by Adelson the casino magnate. Gambling and ripping off people is okay as long as he gets a cut. Anyone I fired off an e-mail to this group then and after that they left me alone.

Adelson is also the same guy bankrolling another group trying to link democratic congresspeople to Louis Farrakhan. Not a fan of Farrakhan mind you but what they're trying to do is a real reach. They are pro-Israeli govt. as in apartheid loving Netanyahu fans and rabidly anti-Moslem or another reason why the Middle East is going to be a continuing festering boil for the rest of the world to deal with because it's better to them to maintain power spreading religious hatred than try to find common ground to build towards a peaceful solution.

Anyway Adelson has deep pockets and he's a sneaky fucker and he's behind a lot of shit.

Under the Fog of Kavanaugh, House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts
Glenn Fleishman September 28, 2018

With attention fixed on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new $3.1 trillion tax cut on Friday. The vote was 220 to 191, including three Democrats.

...The House’s new bill takes effect starting in 2025, and would add $600 billion to the national debt within the next decade, and then $3.2 trillion in the 10 years after that, according to Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center.

Despite the House vote, it is unlikely the Senate will take up the legislation...

Without special rules in place, the Senate would vote under normal procedures, which can require 60 senators’ votes to pass a bill that is heavily opposed.

http://fortune.com/2018/09/28/house-3-8-trillion-tax-cut-passes/

Kanye West delivered an impromptu speech defending his support for President Trump at the end of his “Saturday Night Live” appearance, receiving boos from the audience and causing some of the cast members to shake their heads in disapproval.

West, wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, ended his season premiere guest spot on the show with the performance of “Ghost Town.” But instead of just thanking the audience and walking off stage, the rapper went on a political rant after the broadcast ended. Clips posted by audience members, including comedian Chris Rock, captured the speech.

“I wanna cry right now, black man in America, supposed to keep what you’re feelin’ inside right now…” West says with a melody playing in the background. “The blacks want always Democrats…you know it’s like the plan they did, to take the fathers out the home and put them on welfare… does anybody know about that? That’s a Democratic plan.”

In another clip West continues, “There’s so many times I talk to a white person and they say, ‘How could you like Trump, he’s racist?’ Well, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago.”

Take the fathers out of the home and put them on welfare? This guy's obviously a moron.

Trump administration officials suggested sharing census responses with law enforcement, court documents show

A June 12 email from Department of Justice attorney Ben Aguinaga to acting assistant attorney general John Gore suggests not saying “too much” in response to a question about the confidentiality of the survey, in case the issue were to “come up later for renewed debate.”

Confidentiality is a key feature of the census, and it is protected by the Census Act, which says census data cannot be shared by the Commerce Department, which oversees the survey, with any other government agency or court.

DOI says Squanto’s tribe is “not Indian enough.”
Allowing a new land grab.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-wampanoag-reservation-thanksgiving_us...

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all

EPA to make it harder to tighten mercury rules in the future
Proposed changes could revamp how the government values human health.

Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin | December 28, 2018

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed a major change in the way the federal government calculates the costs and benefits of dangerous air pollutants, arguing that authorities should exclude some of the public health benefits stemming from new rules.

The proposal, which revisits a 2011 rule limiting mercury emissions from coal plants, argues EPA lacked justification to curb the neurotoxin in the first place because many benefits stemmed from the overall drop in air pollution that would occur once power companies adopted new technologies. The EPA is not reversing the Obama-era standards — with which the industry has already complied — the agency wants to alter the underlying calculations to set a precedent for future public health rules.

The proposal represents a balancing act, of sorts. In keeping in place the Obama-era standards on mercury emissions, Trump officials are acknowledging the billions of dollars companies have already spent in upgrades to comply. But at the same time, the administration is advancing a broader effort to narrow what the government counts as benefits when crafting air rules.

If adopted, the change would prevent regulators from calculating positive health effects — known as “co-benefits” — that come from reducing pollutants other than those being targeted. The shift could have implications for public health protections across the federal government, experts said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/28/epa-make-it-harder-...

!

Trump administration downgrades EU mission to US
Michael Knigge | Jan 8, 2019

The Trump administration has downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union's delegation to the United States... The demotion happened at the end of last year without notice.

The unannounced move by the US State Department, which has not previously been reported, downgraded the EU delegation's diplomatic status in Washington from member state to international organization.

...After the delegation noticed that the EU's Washington ambassador had not been invited to certain events late last year, officials organizing the state funeral for President George H.W. Bush provided final confirmation to EU diplomats that the status of the representation had in fact been downgraded. Diplomats believe the downgrade must have been implemented in late October or early November.

At the high-profile event on December 5, as diplomats gathered in Washington to pay their respects, the EU's ambassador to Washington, David O'Sullivan, was not called up in the usual chronological order from the longest-serving to the newest ambassador, said the EU official. "But he was called up as the last person."

Prior to the demotion, O'Sullivan — who has served as the EU's ambassador to Washington since 2014 — would have been ranked among the first 20 or 30 ambassadors of the more than 150 foreign representatives dispatched to the US capital.

https://www.dw.com/en/trump-administration-downgrades-eu-mission-to-us/a-4699060...

During Christmas week and government shutdown, Interior proposes rule to deny FOIA requests:

Court orders EPA to release Andrew Wheeler’s contacts with outside groups within 10 months
Dino Grandoni | January 7, 2019

...Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Department of the Interior proposed a new rule imposing a monthly limit on requesters and allowing public-records officers to decline to fill requests they deem “extremely broad or vague."

Environmental organizations such as the Wilderness Society, which frequently files FOIA requests with the Interior Department, say the move would violate the law by granting bureaucrats so much discretion.

...Daniel Jorjani, Interior’s principal deputy solicitor, published that yet-to-be-finalized rule* amid a partial government shutdown that has prevented the department from performing many of its regular duties, such as emptying trash cans and servicing bathrooms at National Park Service sites.

The shutdown also means the Interior Department is not accepting any new FOIA requests, despite complaints from critics the department needs no staff on site to accept the requests.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2019/01/07/court-orders-epa-re...

* If you wish to comment on Interior's proposed rle for handling FOIA requests, you have only until January 28!!
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/12/28/2018-27561/freedom-of-infor...

The International Crisis of Donald Trump
Susan B. Glasser | January 11, 2019

While Washington melts down over the government shutdown, the worst-case scenario for the President’s foreign policy has actually happened.

...Foreign Affairs is not exactly an investigative sort of committee. In a different political moment, Engel’s top priority might be to hold hearings on the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine, or China’s increasingly hostile posture toward its neighbors, or the failures of American strategy in Afghanistan. (Eliot Engel, who has just taken over the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) who has represented the Bronx and parts of Westchester County in Congress since the late nineteen-eighties, is a relatively hawkish Democrat. He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, though he later regretted it, and has long focussed on human rights and U.S. policy toward its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.

But this is not the moment for such subjects. Those international crises will undoubtedly soon come up in Engel’s committee. They will not, however, top its agenda, which will be dominated, as so many other areas of our public life now are, by President Trump’s uniquely chaotic and unsettling approach to the rest of the world. Engel told me that he sees Trump as a practitioner of “fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants diplomacy” whose erratic approach to foreign policy escaped any real accountability during the past two years of Republican “rubber stamp” rule on Capitol Hill.

I asked for a list of what Engel proposed to investigate....certain to start with the question of what, exactly, Trump agreed to in his private meeting with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, last summer...“the business interests of the President” and the extent to which Trump’s financial dealings with places such as Russia and the Middle East have “affected what he’s done in foreign policy.”...a probe of Trump, Inc., given the President’s tendency to conflate his personal interests with the national interest, now seems indispensable to the foreign-policy concerns of the day, whether it’s explaining Trump’s otherwise hard-to-fathom pro-Russia tilt or shedding light on his family’s pursuit of business deals with Middle Eastern figures who are also key to Trump’s geopolitical priorities. It’s “incumbent upon us to look at that,” Engel said.

...North Korea and the matter of Trump’s falling “in love” with its dictator, Kim Jong Un; the killing of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Trump family’s close ties with the Saudi crown prince, whose aides appear to have carried out his execution; and the wild gyrations in Trump’s policy toward the long-running civil war in Syria, where Trump’s abrupt order, in December, to immediately withdraw the two thousand U.S. forces supporting the anti-regime Kurdish fighters led to the resignation of the Defense Secretary, James Mattis.

...The Washington circus, especially at this moment, is both all-consuming and inward-looking, and it can be shockingly easy to forget how much of an impact the disruptions of the Trump era are having on the rest of the world.

..The world, however, has not stopped spinning on its axis, and, out there, American power has rarely looked so vulnerable, dysfunctional, contradictory, and outright confusing. Such worries have consumed many American allies from the start of the Trump Presidency, and they have now become a reality with the abrupt resignation of Mattis, whose scathing letter to Trump upon quitting warned explicitly about the possible damage to “alliances” and America’s standing in the world...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-international-c...

Trump administration 'rolling back women's rights by 50 years' by changing the definitions of domestic violence and sexual assault.

The Trump Justice Department’s definition only considers physical harm that constitutes a felony or misdemeanour to be domestic violence – meaning other forms of domestic violence such as psychological abuse, coercive control and manipulation no longer fall under the department's definition.

>26 -pilgrim-: Following these exemplars, perhaps:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38794677
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/27/russian-parliament-decrimiinalizes...
https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/longform/a40924/russia-domestic-violenc...

It seems softening the definitions of domestic violence is the current fashion...

Oh my God! The world is ending! Look everyone! Look out a window! Ahhh!!

> 27

No, no one is panicking. The swamp has to be drained every few years.
It is just a process that needs attending to - the problem of a criminal POTUS will one day soon be resolved, just like it eventually was with Nixon. The wheels of justice grind slowly but exceedingly fine. We will all move forward again one day with our heads held high, knowing that the good always eventually trump's evil, er, I mean, trumps evil.
lol.

The federal budget posted a record monthly deficit in February
Gigi Sukin | Mar 22

The U.S. posted its largest monthly budget deficit on record in February with a gap of $234 billion, breaking the previous $231.7 billion mark set in February 2012, Bloomberg reports.

The big picture: According to Treasury data released Friday, the deficit for the first five months of this fiscal year jumped to $544.2 billion — a 40% increase from the 2018 fiscal year — as corporate and individual tax revenues declined following President Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut package.

Go deeper: U.S. budget deficit grew by $113 billion in fiscal year 2018.

https://www.axios.com/federal-budget-monthly-deficit-record-ecaf2f50-89a8-4124-b...

Trump’s ‘Unprecedented’ Plan to Restart the Keystone XL Pipeline May Be Illegal

… when Trump issued a federal permit for the pipeline in 2017, he delegated authority over that process to the State Department. That permit sought federal regulatory approval and input from the public and federal agencies. This time around, however, the president is not involving anyone else. The new permit is issued simply “by the authority vested in Trump as President of the United States of America.” This move is unprecedented, said Doug Hayes, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club, who is helping litigate the case.
…
(Dallas) Goldtooth (at the Indigenous Environmental Network) calls the president’s action “illegal and extremely dangerous to not only the communities fighting this project but to the checks and balances of our democracy itself.”

The Trump Administration Has Found a Creative New Way to Screw Franchise Workers

The Labor Department announced a proposal today that would limit the ability of workers to sue big companies for violations made by franchises or contractors, according to the New York Times. This would affect workers who fall under the category of joint employment, in which more than one company directly or indirectly controls their working conditions.

The new regulation would make it harder for workers to sue companies like McDonalds for failing to comply with laws like those governing minimum wage or overtime pay. Instead, they’d be forced to sue the individual franchise.

Yet another Friday night news dump, i.e., when you weren't looking:

Medicare Part B premium 2020: Rates and deductibles rising 7% for outpatient care
Kelly Tyko | 3:54 am Nov 9, 2019

...The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the new 2020 rates Friday. For about 70% of Medicare beneficiaries, the premiums will rise nearly 7% to $144.60 a month, up from $135.50 in 2019.

The $9.10 monthly increase follows a smaller $1.50 rise this year. Upper-income retirees pay higher premiums and those rates also are going up.

The annual deductible for Part B coverage, which covers doctor visits and outpatient care, also will go up by 7% to $198 in 2020, an increase of $13 from the annual deductible of $185 in 2019.

The announcement comes a nearly a month after the Social Security Administration set a modest 1.6% cost-of-living adjustment to benefits in 2020, which works out to approximately $24 a month for the average retired worker.

"People who are really counting on that Social Security (raise) will lose some of that to this Medicare increase," said Fred Riccardi, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a group that advocates on health care issues. "For people who live with little to no savings, any increase in Medicare premiums or drug costs is going to be a struggle."...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/11/09/medicare-part-b-2020-deductibles...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2020 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles
Nov 08, 2019

Billing & payments Eligibility & enrollment Medicare Parts A & B...

https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2020-medicare-parts-b-premiums-and-dedu...

Inspectors warn unsafe pork could make its way to consumers under Trump rule change

In traditional plants, as many as seven federal inspectors work on the processing line, handling hog carcasses and checking for defects.

Under the new system, that number will be reduced to two or three federal inspectors who have more experience but who will have limited hands-on interaction with the carcasses.

Instead, the plant's own employees will be checking and sorting the hog carcasses and letting the federal inspectors, called consumer safety inspectors, check their work from a distance. There is no required federal training for those employees.

Finally, the federal limit on line speed — or the rate at which hog carcasses can be moved for processing and inspection — will be removed.
…
All five of the Food Safety inspectors interviewed by NBC News have worked at these plants, and four other inspectors who've worked at those plants have expressed similar concerns in sworn affidavits sent to federal regulators.

"If this continues across the nation, when you open your package of meat, what you're gonna get for a pathogen is gonna be a mystery," Mauer said.

Potential defects, according to Mauer, include feces, sex organs, toenails, bladders and unwanted hair.

As people obsess over Trump's oxygen levels & release date,
don't forget he owes $420 million to unknown entities that will come due while he's in office if reelected,
continues to flirt with white supremacist allies &
has permitted 200,000 Americans to die on his watch.

- Joyce Alene (U alabama Law) @JoyceWhiteVance | 12:09 PM · Oct 5, 2020

Here are the Executive Orders so far signed by Trump in 2020 (with my friendly reminder that the titles can be misleading, as in not representative of what the orders actually do).

I intend to add neutral notes about several of the orders later.

EO 13902:
Imposing Sanctions With Respect to Additional Sectors of Iran
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-00534

EO 13903:
Combating Human Trafficking and Online Child Exploitation in the United States
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-02438

EO 13904:
Ensuring Safe and Lawful E-Commerce for United States Consumers, Businesses, Government Supply Chains, and Intellectual Property Rights Holders
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-02439

EO 13905:
Strengthening National Resilience Through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Services
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-03337

EO 13906:
Amending Executive Order 13803Reviving the National Space Council
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-03556

EO 13907:
Establishment of the Interagency Environment Committee for Monitoring and Enforcement Under Section 811 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-04730

EO 13908:
Establishment of the Interagency Committee on Trade in Automotive Goods Under Section 202A of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement Implementation Act
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-04755

EO 13909:
Prioritizing and Allocating Health and Medical Resources to Respond to the Spread of COVID-19
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-06161

EO 13910:
Preventing Hoarding of Health and Medical Resources To Respond to the Spread of COVID-19
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-06478

EO 13911:
Delegating Additional Authority Under the Defense Production Act With Respect to Health and Medical Resources To Respond to the Spread of COVID-19
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-06969

EO 13912:
National Emergency Authority To Order the Selected Reserve and Certain Members of the Individual Ready Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-06985

EO 13913:
Establishing the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-07530

EO 13914:
Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-07800

EO 13915:
Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of the Interior

EO 13916:
National Emergency Authority To Temporarily Extend Deadlines for Certain Estimated Payments

EO 13917:
Delegating Authority Under the Defense Production Act With Respect to Food Supply Chain Resources During the National Emergency Caused by the Outbreak of COVID- 19

EO 13918:
Establishment of the Interagency Labor Committee for Monitoring and Enforcement Under Section 711 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act

EO 13919:
Ordering the Selected Reserve of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

EO 13920:
Securing the United States Bulk-Power System

EO 13921:
Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth

EO 13922:
Delegating Authority Under the Defense Production Act to the Chief Executive Officer of the United States International Development Finance Corporation To Respond to the COVID-19 Outbreak

EO 13923:
Establishment of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force Under Section 741 of the United States- Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act

EO 13924:
Regulatory Relief To Support Economic Recovery

EO 13925:
Preventing Online Censorship

EO 13926:
Advancing International Religious Freedom

EO 13927:
Accelerating the Nation's Economic Recovery From the COVID-19 Emergency by Expediting Infrastructure Investments and Other Activities

EO 13928:
Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated With the International Criminal Court
(declaring a national emergency to "deal" with the international investigation of the US and its allies in places such as Afghanistan)
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-12953

EO 13929:
Safe Policing for Safe Communities

EO 13930:
Strengthening the Child Welfare System for America's Children

EO 13931:
Continuing the President's National Council for the American Worker and the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board

EO 13932:
Modernizing and Reforming the Assessment and Hiring of Federal Job Candidates

EO 13933:
Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence

EO 13934:
Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes

EO 13935:
White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative

EO 13936:
The President's Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization
(terminating agreements with the HK government)
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-15646

EO 13937:
Access to Affordable Life-Saving Medications

EO 13938:
Increasing Drug Importation To Lower Prices for American Patients

EO 13939:
Lowering Prices for Patients by Eliminating Kickbacks to Middlemen

EO 13940:
Aligning Federal Contracting and Hiring Practices With the Interests of American Workers

EO 13941:
Improving Rural Health and Telehealth Access

EO 13942:
Addressing the Threat Posed by TikTok, and Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-17699

EO 13943:
Addressing the Threat Posed by WeChat, and Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-17700

EO 13944:
Combating Public Health Emergencies and Strengthening National Security by Ensuring Essential Medicines, Medical Countermeasures, and Critical Inputs Are Made in the United States
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-18012

EO 13945:
Fighting the Spread of COVID-19 by Providing Assistance to Renters and Homeowners
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-18015

EO 13946:
Targeting Opportunity Zones and Other Distressed Communities for Federal Site Locations
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-19032

EO 13947:
Lowering Drug Prices by Putting America First
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-20887

EO 13948:
Lowering Drug Prices by Putting America First
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-21129
(The two EOs actually have the same title, incredibly.)

EO 13949:
Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to the Conventional Arms Activities of Iran
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-21160

EO 13950:
Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-21534

EO 13951:
An America-First Healthcare Plan
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-21914

EO 13952:
Protecting Vulnerable Newborn and Infant Children
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-21960

EO 13953:
Addressing the Threat to the Domestic Supply Chain From Reliance on Critical Minerals From Foreign Adversaries and Supporting the Domestic Mining and Processing Industries
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-22064

Each EO is available from the Federal Register. I recommend updating your malware protections before selecting any for download.

>35 aspirit:

Haha haha, haha, sorry, I'm actually still laughing, thanks. Haha....haha... I really can't stop. Hahaha, you may not believe it, but that's the funniest thing I've read so far on this board.

You, you are going to add neutral notes? It's like Kirstie Alley wrote, why does the media bother with the lies and bias, just literally report that they hate Trump. Don't waste the time, just honestly say it and leave the rest blank.

>35 aspirit: Some of these will need to go through public consultation before being rolled back, if as I assume will be indicated.
Some they've written in a way that will require legislation to overturn.

Biden Harris will want to disinfect and search for bugs before they move in. New mattresses, fer sure!

They'll want to remove that large orange testament to taxidermy skills, of course.

>37 margd:

Harris will need new mattresses as she continues to, 'navigate' her way through politics.

How can can an executive order require legislation to overturn?

I was surprised, too. A recent EPA initiative. I'll see if I can find it.

>36 Cubby.R.S.: what are you talking about? My "neutral notes"? That's a reminder to myself to summarize each EO instead of bothering to link to related material (which I expect y'all to do for what catches your attention). I think it strange that you got a laugh out of that, but good for you, I guess. We all need stress relief in these times.

Seriously, though, I doubt Donald Trump has read any of executive orders in its entirety. I'm not certain he can read and comprehend more than a paragraph at a time. Some of the EOs don't make sense, but they also don't sound like him, who is widely believed to be functionally illiterate. So who knows what he thinks each one is about. That's not the point. What he signs as POTUS is never about him.

The point is looking at presidential executive orders is because they have power. Many impact the daily lives of Americans. That's why one of Trump's political campaigns was to undo all of President Obama's EOs. Like what margd suggested, the Biden-Harris Administration would need to take a hard look at what this current administration pushed through, what each EO or created.

It's a good idea for the average citizen to know these exist, as well. The titles aren't really informative enough, so... notes. Short summaries. I'm sure you can do it yourself if you'd like.

>38 Cubby.R.S.: Yet another strategy for alienating women voters. Go for it, fellas!

Did Kamala Harris Have an Extramarital Affair with Willie Brown That Boosted Her Career?
Harris long ago distanced herself from the relationship.
Bethania Palma | 14 August 2020
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-affair-willie-brown/

>38 Cubby.R.S.: Just a quick tip: not all of the people who vote are neanderthal shitheads. Some of them find misogynistic attacks to be less than appealing, and in fact this might explain why Trump and Pence are currently underwater even in states that they had been able to take for granted.
It's a bit late to turn this one around, but the next time you involve yourself in politics you might want to consider the fact that a good percentage of the electorate actually like and respect women, and factor that into your decisions about who to support and how to support them.

>39 jjwilson61: >40 margd: Here's what I was thinking of--guidance documents that can only be replaced by a new regulation formally issued, "a lengthy legal process that can take months or even years, meaning that until it is complete, those Trump guidance documents will stand as the official policies of the Biden administration."

E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance
Lisa Friedman | Nov. 27, 2020

...last month, the agency finalized a rule that creates a lengthy new legal process to overturn or withdraw certain policy directives known as “guidance documents,” which give federal agencies direction on the specifics of how to enforce laws.

...guidance documents can give an administration some license to interpret laws in ways that advance their policy agenda...not legally binding, but they do stand as the official policy of a government agency until they are formally withdrawn or changed. Under the new guidance document rule, the E.P.A. would have to formally issue a new regulation in order to withdraw the guidance — a lengthy legal process that can take months or even years, meaning that until it is complete, those Trump guidance documents will stand as the official policies of the Biden administration.

Jody Freeman, a professor of environmental law at Harvard and a former adviser to the Obama administration, called the rule a “little I.E.D.,” referring to an improvised explosive device, or roadside bomb, aimed at slowing a Biden administration’s plans to overturn Mr. Trump’s rules.

“Shenanigans like these are what awaits the Biden team,” she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/climate/epa-trump-biden.html