Stephanie Leary

Writer and WordPress consultant

  • Books
    • Content Strategy for WordPress (2015)
    • WordPress for Web Developers (2013)
    • Beginning WordPress 3 (2010)
  • Blog
    • Fascism Watch (2016-17)
    • Content Modeling for WordPress series
    • WordPress Hidden Gems series
  • Work
    • Portfolio
    • Services
    • WordPress Plugins
    • WordPress Themes
    • Presentations and Interviews
    • on GitHub →
  • About
    • Press Kit
  • Contact
    • Mailing List

Fascism Watch, January 19

January 19, 2017 Stephanie Leary Leave a Comment

(images by Shepard Fairey)

Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates

The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of these efforts.

Congress

Chaffetz has a private meeting with OGE Director Shaub on Monday, and the Democrats on his committee want him to open it up

Chaffetz has said Shaub is acting unethically by offering opinions on conflicts of interest without fully researching the circumstances.

Democrats have countered that Chaffetz is engaging in a coordinated effort to undermine the office responsible for ethics reviews of Cabinet nominees and ensuring they will avoid conflicts of interests.

“Since you will not allow the American people to witness the meeting with Director Shaub, I am requesting that you at least allow the other members of our committee to participate — including Democrats and Republicans,” Cummings wrote. “I cannot think of any reason to deny all members of our committee the opportunity to hear first-hand what Mr. Shaub has to say.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is visiting Syria, and no one is sure why or who’s paying for the trip.

Trump

Trump: “Next time we’re going to win the old-fashioned way.”

Trump’s approval rating indicates he’s lost the support of nearly 1/3 of his voters.

Privatizing PBS and NPR, and eliminating money for minority business development, violence against women programs, civil rights, renewable energy, and climate change. Sounds about right for Trump’s budget plans.

“A member of Trump’s transition team floated the idea of including tanks and missile launchers in the inaugural parade.” He was granted a 20-plane flyover instead.

Pence

Pence defends Trump calling John Lewis a failure to black people

Transition Team & Cabinet Appointees

Elizabeth Warren: Trump’s nominees are putting us all at risk by ignoring ethics laws

Trump press secretary turned today’s press conference into an infomercial for Trump’s D.C. hotel, urging journalists to “check it out.” They can’t; the press have been banned from the hotel this week.

Newt Gingrich thinks federal employees are too partisan: “All those bureaucrats overwhelmingly voted for Clinton. There won’t be any real cooperation until we change federal law so we can fire them.”

Trump’s Potential Supreme Court Pick Literally Wants To Throw Gay Men In Jail

Scott Pruitt

Pruitt has several lawsuits pending against the EPA. If confirmed as head of the EPA, as Sen. Ed Markey pointed out, he would be “plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury.” He’s also hugely problematic in other ways:

By focusing on regulatory certainty as a key priority, Pruitt appears to view the role of EPA administrator through the lens of the regulated entity — the polluter — rather than the environment or public health. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) appeared to become frustrated with Pruitt’s process-focused approach during her questioning. She eventually urged: “I need you also to be worried about human health….I need you feel it….I need you to know it.”

Steven Mnuchin

The Treasury nominee initially omitted more than $100 million from disclosures. His company once foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman for underpaying her mortgage by $0.27. He defends the bank’s profiting from the foreclosure crisis:

During the hearing, Senate Democrats kept returning to how OneWest handled its portfolio of troubled mortgages. In one heated exchange, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown told Mnuchin, “you’ve been rather defensive, probably for good reason, about this.”

Mnuchin shot back: “It’s not that I’m being defensive; I’m proud.”

He says the unemployment rate is not real. Discrediting accepted statistics is a great approach if you don’t think they’ll be flattering to you later.

Tom Price

The It’s Time to Fight website has a great summary of the awful things Tom Price said in his confirmation hearing.

Sonny Perdue

Trump could name Agriculture Secretary whose drought strategy was to pray for rain. He’s a climate change denier.

David Gelernter

The computer scientist famed for being injured by a Unibomber package is being named a science adviser to Trump.

Beyond computer science circles, Gelernter has made a name for himself as a vehement critic of modern academia. In his 2013 book, “America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats),” he condemned “belligerent leftists” and blamed intellectualism for the disintegration of patriotism and traditional family values.

Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos’ schemes for vouchers and charter schools are a veiled attempt to make education separate and unequal

Rick Perry

Perry tried to claim his views on climate change have evolved, but Al Franken was having none of it.

Protests

Republican Lawmakers in Five States Propose Bills to Criminalize Peaceful Protest, and I’m pretty sure they missed the bill in Indiana I mentioned yesterday

A group of military veterans staged a sit-in at Sen. McCain’s office in protest of Rex Tillerson’s nomination.

About 200 people held a gay dance party near Mike Pence’s house in DC last night

Other Fascist Nonsense

Atlanta’s CBS Nightly News is hosted by a former Russia Today employee who gets his news from 4chan and InfoWars.

Politics fascism watch

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest WordPress Book

Content Strategy for WordPress

A short book for content strategists and managers on implementing a complete content strategy in WordPress: evaluation, analysis, content modeling, editing and workflows, and long-term planning and maintenance.

Read the sample chapter

Kindle Nook iBooks Kobo Smashwords

WordPress for Web Developers

WordPress for Web Developers (9781430258667)

This is a book for professional web designers and developers who already know HTML and CSS, and want to learn to build sites with WordPress. The book begins with a detailed tour of the administration screens and settings, then digs into server-side topics like performance and security. The second half of the book is devoted to development: learning to build WordPress themes and plugins.

This is the second, much-revised and updated edition of Beginning WordPress 3, with a more accurate title. Everything’s been updated for WordPress 3.6.

WordPress for Web Developers is out now. See what's inside...

The best WordPress features you’ve never noticed

  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Screen Options
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Bulk Edit
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Private Status
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Dashboard Feed Readers
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Options.php

Content Modeling for WordPress series

  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 1: analyze content
  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 2: functional and organizational requirements
  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 3: a sample content model

This is an excerpt from Content Strategy for WordPress.My latest books are Content Strategy for WordPress (2015) and WordPress for Web Developers (2013). Sign up to be notified when I have a new book for you.

Copyright © 2022 Stephanie Leary