Mountain Mule
Mountain Mule's JournalI just got back from my grassroots Dem organizing group and I'm Psyched!
My community of about 8,000 souls is in highly conservative ranching and farming country on Colorado's Western Slope. But the turn-out at the progressive, grass roots organizing meeting I was at this evening was tremendous! It was a standing room only crowd. When we asked who was willing to serve as officers for the County Democratic Party, EVERYONE was! We ended up voting in TWO people for every position - Co-Chair 1 and Co-Chair 2,Vice Chair 1 and Vice Chair 2, etc, etc. And lot's of enthusiasm about community out-reach to other groups who share our concerns - everyone agreed that we should go out in our community and talk about health care, women's right, etc., etc - not just as Dems but as people who are deeply concerned about our town, our county, our state, and our country. Lot's of excitement over INDIVISIBLE, as well - a group already getting much attention on this forum and across the Country.
500 hundred people from this red county marched in sympathy with the Women's March in Washington. May not sound like much, but our entire county has a population of less than 20,000 - again, the vast majority conservative - so this was huge for we local Dems. One of the things that also impressed me was how well-educated, experienced, and determined this group of people is - far above the tea party crowd by several orders of magnitude. People like the ones I met tonight using the tea party tactics advocated by the progressive group INDIVISIBLE would be nearly unstoppable, IMO. I along with many others have been going from despair to hope to defiance during the insanity of the first 11 or 12 days of the Traitor's rule. But from what I witnessed tonight, people are more than willing to fight back and fight back HARD! If anyone is not participating in their local democratic party organizing - shame on you! Get out there with your own local Dems. You just may be as amazed as I was tonight! We CAN and WILL fight back!
Senate schedules 6:30 am vote on DeVos BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 02/02/17 06:27 PM EST
Source: THE HILL
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has scheduled a vote at 6:30 a.m. Friday, an unusually early time, to advance Betsy DeVoss nomination to serve as secretary of Education.
Senate Republicans say they are getting fed up with Democratic obstruction and the extra early vote will allow them to get a head start in running time off the procedural clock.
McConnell is confident he will have the 51 votes he needs Friday to end debate on DeVos...
By voting at 6:30 a.m., Republicans have a chance of confirming DeVos by late Monday but if Democrats drag out the post-cloture debate for the full 30 hours, it could lag intoTuesday.
McConnell and other GOP leaders are confident that there will be no other Republican defections on DeVos. They expect she will win confirmation next week with 51 votes after Vice President Pence weighs in to break an expected tie...
- more
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/317675-senate-schedules-630-am-vote-on-devos
I was at an organizing meeting for my local dem grassroots group when one of the other attendees got a notification on her I-phone that McConnell had moved up the confirmation vote for DeVos. Coincidentally enough (or was it?), we had just been discussing strategy on how to express our displeasure with a possible "yes" vote on the part of one of our Republican Congressmen who seems to no longer have the staff available to answer calls from his constituents. We got the news here in Colorado at 8:30 pm MST. The vote will take place on Friday, 4:30 am MST, 3:30 am Pacific Time, and 5:30 am Central. In other words, in the small hours of the morning for most of the country when everyone is still asleep; and announced after everyone had closed up shop for the day on Thursday evening.
Way to go Mitch, wouldn't want any one on your side of the aisle have constituents call up before a crucial vote and possibly make a representative from a non-gerrymandered district change his mind. I'm calling anyhow to leave a message on Colorado Representative Cory Gardener's voicemail to let him know how displeased we Colorado folk are and that we have verrry long memories and sure won't forget this caper! GRRR!
At State Department, 'Dissent Channel' In High Gear With Refugee Ban Protests
NPR:
At the State Department, employees are expressing concern via an official dissent channel about the Trump administration's temporary visa and refugee ban.
At the State Department, there is an easy — and usually private — way for employees to register their concerns about U.S. policy. It's called the "Dissent Channel." And today, an unusually large number of foreign service officers are using it.
A dissent cable says Donald Trump's temporary visa and refugee ban "runs counter to American values" and could be "counterproductive."
Trump's Immigration Freeze Omits Those Linked To Deadly Attacks In U.S.
The White House claims it consulted for "many weeks" with the State Department before issuing its executive order on Friday, temporarily banning visas for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries and suspending the U.S. refugee resettlement program.
State Department officials who were involved in the refugee program deny this. One retired ambassador, Laura Kennedy, says the executive order did not read as if it had been reviewed by State Department lawyers or by consular or refugee officials.
"It is just, as the dissent message makes clear, inconsistent with values, with security aims of the administration, with process, with any number of things," Kennedy says.
More - this is very good stuff coming in from National Public Radio right now!
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/01/30/512494230/at-state-department-dissent-channel-in-high-gear-with-refugee-ban-protests?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news
Trumps 10 Troubling Deals with Foreign Power-Players
The latest from ProPublica:
(By Derek Kravitz and Al Shaw, ProPublica, and John Kelly, USA Today, January 19, 2017)
I really thought that I had seen it all when it comes to political corruption, but as usual, Comrade trump trumps them all when it comes to corruption and a complete lack of personal ethics in the highest office in this country. How much longer must we tolerate this man running amuck in streets both domestic and foreign? He should be sitting in a solitary cell in Gitmo right now, awaiting a trial that stretches off in some distant future just like any other terrorist who imperils the security of our country:
Government ethics experts have strongly criticized Trump’s refusal to divest ownership of any of his businesses. But they point to his ongoing foreign deals with those connected to power as the most troubling.
“These foreign deals are fertile ground for corruption,” Norman Eisen, the White House chief ethics lawyer under President Obama, told ProPublica. "When there's a pre-existing relationship, there can be wink, wink, nod, nod, or even a private whisper that turns into a quid pro quo.”
“He has to get rid of his foreign deals,” said Matthew T. Sanderson, an attorney at Caplin & Drysdale who has served as legal counsel on three Republican presidential campaigns.
Trump’s Byzantine business structures and his lack of disclosures -- he has released neither his tax returns nor details of his foreign deals -- make it difficult to get a full picture of the incoming president’s business relationships. But using government records, Trump’s own local disclosures and press reports, we’ve identified 10 Trump deals in which he has partnered with power players abroad.
We asked the Trump Organization about each of these deals. We’ve included the responses they gave.
https://projects.propublica.org/trump-conflicts/
You can't keep a good Mule down!
A survivor of the Great Election Day Hack Attack, so this is not my first ride at the DU rodeo. Given the events of the past year, I have resigned my US citizenship and I await notification about my request for asylum in the Navajo Nation about 20 miles south of my current location. My country is now the bright blue state of Colorado. I have dedicated myself to the destruction of the current oligarchy under which the US is now governed. Direct Democracy is true Democracy!
I come to DU for information, inspiration, and for hope in this dark night of the soul that our country is now experiencing. I will oppose the oligarchs in every way I can - both large and small. Trump and his sycophants will soon rule this country, but never - not ever - my soul!
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayHometown: Colorado Springs
Home country: Colorado
Current location: the Four Corners
Member since: Thu Dec 1, 2016, 02:27 PM
Number of posts: 1,002
