WAKE UP AMERICA - CARE ABOUT EDUCATION ?

While the Alt-Right and Republicans and our media and even our Democratic Party 'leaders' are putting a nice face on it, our government is transitioning into what promises to be the most Wild Wild West destructive one ever in the White House.  

The bottom-line (that everyone seems to be avoiding with determination) is that this Republican campaign has been dominated by a dialogue where truth and honesty are treated as dispensable jokes.  Facade, fabricating alt-facts, bullying opponents, bluster are all used in what's become a generally accepted amoral exercise of avoiding objective reality.  To me it seems, another example of "Seepage" in action, although this time in politics rather than science.  Though the same cynical PR machine has driven that seepage.  (FYI - http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyseepage.html). 

This election 2016 should make clear to all concerned thinking citizens out there that no body has our back, not our political leaders, not the pundits of our liking, not the news media, certainly not those egomaniacal oligarchs who are today's masters of the universe and are busy with their own disconnected agenda.   They are going to obliterate We The Proud American People and our achievements and future goals in direct proportion to how many millions of Americans get off the sidelines and take on some responsible for turning around the national degeneration we have been witnessing.  A million conversations across the left and right fences of our respective backyards.  Don't need to go far, your family, friends, co-workers, etc.

And now we come to Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, someone who hates our public education system.  Someone who is so damned full of herself, that she believes she has a personal relationship with the God of space and time, life and love.  Heck this petty, self-centered human has so little self-recognition that she believes her personal god has sent her on a national mission to rescue American education from multi-culturalism and science based learning.  God told her to do it!  Her god has also told her that this planet I inhabit is 6,000 years old and if I don't agree with her personal belief, well, that makes me an enemy - that's it.  Nothing to talk about.  Objective down to Earth evidence means nothing when confronting the self-certainty of DeVos brand of religious zealotry.  

Americans, it's your move.  Got it in ya?  Can ya stand up to their dogma based bullying?  Better do something, or get steamrollered.  Democracy, live it or lose it!

DeVos Devoted Career To Dismantling Public Education

Nov 23, 2016 by Maggie Garrett in Wall of Separation

Today, president-elect Donald Trump tapped Betsy DeVos to serve as Secretary of Education in his administration.

DeVos, though, has all the wrong credentials to serve as Education Secretary.  An Education Secretary should be devoted to promoting and improving public education, but she has devoted her career to dismantling it.  Indeed, she’s the leader of the crusade to create private school vouchers, heading up American Federation for Children and giving huge sums of money to enact voucher programs across the country.

Knowing the troubling stance Trump has taken on education, this is no real surprise.  Trump has said he wants to create an expensive, nationwide school voucher program at a staggering price tag of $20 billion.  His plan would divert that money from existing federal programs for new “choice” block grants to states, which will fund private, charter, and home schools. That means there will be $20 billion taken away from existing programs that often serve our neighborhood public schools. DeVos, no doubt, will lead the charge.

BOYCOTT TRUMP APP

I received the following and thought it worth passing along.  If what's happening concerns you, you must get involved.  Here's one easy way of making your feelings known.  {Something else important, please consider that although writing letters and phone calls to US Representatives and Senators seems so quaint, it really is a force that puts the backbone into politicians whom you support and hands a reality check to those whom you object to.  Now more than ever, folks that want to save hard won protections and services must get involved like never before.  Otherwise you will loss what you've always assumed would always be there.  Just look at who's being put into positions of true and awesome power - this is not a drill, this is the real thing and you are in their sights.  This election should make clear no one has your back, time for you to get involved.}

Learn some lessons from the Alt-Right.  But, keep it honest, don't give into serial fabrication of lies in order to hide from inconvenient but very real truths, the way Bannon and his crowd do.  We must demand honesty and integrity and truth.  Dialogue with constructive learning and positive change is the goal.  But, I digress, this is about the simple act of BOYCOTTING TRUMP and withholding your money from the businesses of the man poised to vandalize our government and country like nothing we've never experienced.

You can download the app for free HERE or by searching "Boycott Trump" in the App Store.

It's your move disillusioned Democrats, each and everyone of us.

Engage or give up and get clobbered. 

Democracy live it or lose it, 

true now more than ever.

citizenschallenge -- 

We just took our next major step in the fight against Trump by hitting him and his allies where it hurts most - their wallets.

... we have released the first ever Boycott Trump app as part of our continuing effort to take a stand against Trump. The free app provides users with a searchable database of over 250 companies and includes many big name brands that you probably didn't realize we're connected to Trump.

Our app was even featured on NBC News! http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/want-boycott-trump-there-s-app-n686716.

Profiles in Appeasement - Alden Meyer

Driving to a job the other morning I heard an interview on “Love of Earth” a NPR program with Alden Meyer a proud old environmental warrior, Directory of Strategy and Policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.  His advice: “People should just hold their horses a little bit and wait and see what develops. Let Mr. Trump get his transition team in place, get his key nominees in place, and then see how it plays out.”

That response was like getting slapped in the face on top of everything else that’s occurring (... and that’s not occurring.).  Appeasement at it very worst in a time when Meyer and the UCS should be broadcasting and explaining how serious of a national crisis our country has been tossed into.  Nothing less than the active engagement of millions of previous sideliners into our national political dialogue will temper their future achievements.  

Don’t forget Trump and his Alt-Right and neo-Republican people have promised to dismantle huge programs and protections that our nation and its people’s wellbeing have come to rely on, given half a change.  We've f'n given them a full house.  Wake up the oligarchs are in charge now.

Democrats and traditional Republicans have proven themselves to be impotent, younger generations you better step up, lordie knows none of us older ones has your back.

_____________________________________

Love of Earth, interview with Alden Meyer 

Air Date: November 18, 2016  

http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.html?programID=16-P13-00047 

The Paris Climate Agreement came into force just before COP22 in Marrakech, this year’s high level UN Climate talks that ended November 18th. Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists tells host Steve Curwood member countries at the meeting in Morocco are determined to push ahead with implementing the Paris deal and work on climate protection even though the incoming US president vowed during his campaign he would ‘rip up’ the Paris accord. (09:45)

Petition US agencies to disclose Trump data now.

Why this petition doesn't have millions of signatures I'll never understanding.  We spend billions of dollars on every National Security concern, contrived or real.  But now when it comes to giving our government to a salesman promoter with untold business entanglements with enemy foreign nationals who themselves are entangled in enemy government affairs and so few are concerned about learning the scope of Donald Trump's obligations?  It's unbelievable, but then no more so than our last election cycle.  Can you help?  Can you spread the news?  Can you become engaged.  These Alt-Rights are chomping at the bit to demolish all we've achieved this past half century and more, unless millions of previously sideliner patriots get involved, get informed, engage !  We The People it's our move.

Campaign Action

Sign the petition: Tell U.S. agencies to free the data to increase transparency before Trump takes over.

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-tell-us-agencies-to-increase-free-the-data-and-transparency-before-trump-takes-over?source=20161117sp2

Our Message to President Obama and all federal agencies :

Under the Obama administration we've seen increased transparency and better technology to make government data accessible to the public. In light of the Trump presidency, we implore you to release as much data as you can before the administration changes and the public losses insight into valuable government data on climate science, police brutality, research and many other areas.

Obama's administration has prided itself on increasing transparency and using technology to open up government. 

We need all federal agencies to release as much of the data and information to the public as possible before Trump puts climate deniers in charge of the EPA, who could erase troves of research on climate science.

In January, Trump and his minions will run federal agencies. This is bad news for everyone who believes in a transparent government. 

Description of Alt-Right Origins - Richard Spencer

I have a free day and spent the morning writing an article I had titled “Profiles in Appeasement - Alden Meyer” based on his 11/18/16 interview on “Love of Earth.”  Good stuff, unfortunately in my haste and neglect of computer housekeeping I lost it all the way to the first two paragraphs of what was hours worth of 1500 words, both his quotes and my comments plus supplemental information.  Big bummer.

I needed a break and regroup so decided to learn a little more than Steven Bannon as the face of the Alt-right and listened to a short YouTube by Richard Spencer president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think-tank and perhaps the person who first coined the term Alt-Right a long time ago, titled What is the Alt-Right.

Under the fold he discusses the meaning and history of the Alt-Right.  It turned out to be more interesting than expected and I recommend it to every concerned citizen.

There are many different elements and agendas at play here.  The future of our country depends on millions of conversations happening across our respective "left" and "right" fences.  Lordie knows the people in charge don’t have a clue, nor do they have our backs, it's us who have to figure this out on our own.  Our collective future depends on it.

Profiles in Malicious Deception - The Myron Ebell DeSmog Files

(Thank you DeSmogBlog for collecting and sharing this important information.)

Myron Ebell

http://www.desmogblog.com/myron-ebell

Donald Trump's EPA Transition Team

In September of 2016, Myron Ebell was selected by Donald Trump to lead his U.S. EPA transition team, two sources told Scientific American. [64], [65]

“Ebell's views appear to square with Trump’s when it comes to EPA’s agenda. Trump has called global warming 'bullshit' and he has said he would 'cancel' the Paris global warming accord and roll back President Obama’s executive actions on climate change.” [65]

In March, 2016, Trump promised to make major budget cuts to the EPA and to “get rid of [EPA] in almost every form. We are going to have little tidbits left but we are going to take a tremendous amount out.” [73]

DeSmog noted that earlier in August, climate change denier Kathleen Hartnett-White, director of the energy and environment project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) joined Trump's “Economic Advisory team.” A post-election chart provided to Politico confirmed that Ebell would be managing Trump's EPA transition team. [64] , [72]

The Huffington Post reported on “11 Reasons Why Trump’s Climate-Denying EPA Guy Could Spell Disaster For The Environment,” noting that a petition had been posted on the White House website calling for Ebell to be ousted from this role (the petition has since been removed). [92]

Profiles In Courage - Dr. Warren Hern

There are a few brave insightful souls, who have stepped up already to share valuable insights and to help raise awareness.  Dr. Hern has been a physician for 45 years caring for women during the most difficult periods of their lives.  He too is concerned by the increasingly malicious Republican manipulation of the abortion issue for political gain. 

Abortion is a personal crisis of utmost importance to a woman’s life and it involves her circle of loved ones and her community.  It is a personal tragedy, not a state tragedy, the state has no morally justifiable reason for meddling in this issue of a woman’s sovereignty over her own body.  Not in a country that boasts about being “free”.

Religious zealots demand it, cynical politicians and dogma driven PR masters use it as a bludgeon.  All of them belong to the school of thought that if you don’t like a fact, or the truth of a situation create your own fictional fact and story, then refuse to acknowledge, let along consider, the validity of anyone else’s information, or evidence, or experiences.  Rather than exchange constructive information, they’ll label such messengers enemies.

That’s not right and it’s going to get a lot uglier, real soon - seems to me heroes like Dr. Warren Hern at the Boulder Abortion Clinic need to have a huge community of concerned citizens and activists vocally speaking up to support the important work they do.  This isn't something for him to do, he's busy being a doctor.

I'm talking about a citizens movement simply because you have a genuine treasure in that man and the services he provides.  Not only that, Boulder citizens who value this man might consider helping create a security barrier around his clinic, grassroots neighborhood watch.  

That’s not paranoia, that’s paying attention to what the Alt-Right is saying -