Be Smart. Stay Informed. Actively Dissent.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

The White House is planning to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts in its proposed budget in May.  Trump's Director of Budget Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, Paul Winfree, is an economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which put out a budget blueprint last year that included axing the NEA.


Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Source: Eric Lipton / NY Times

During the first six weeks of the Trump administration, more than 90 Obama-era federal regulations have been put on hold, or enforcement has been suspended, or, in a few cases, rules have even been revoked. The decisions often were made after requests by the regulated industries. Here are 12 examples.


Wednesday, March 8, 2017

In an unsurprising, yet no less significant, vote the Senate moved one step closer to eliminating a regulation that requires federal contractors to disclose and correct safety violations.

 In a narrow result that divided along party lines, the Senate voted 49 to 48 to eliminate the regulation, dubbed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Finalized in August and blocked by a court order in October, the rule would limit the ability of companies with recent safety problems to compete for government contracts unless they agreed to remedies.


Tuesday, March 7, 2017

The budget guidelines offered by the White House last week include deep cuts to numerous important agencies and programs while proposing to pour the savings into military spending which already equals the next seven countires combined (China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, UK, India, France, Japan).  


Monday, March 6, 2017

The White House has signed a new executive order intending to achieve the same effects as the first one but with nuissances it hopes will prevent courts from blocking implentation.  Rather than attempt to summarize the enormous issues, both legal and ethical, with this action, please review and share the New York Times piece below detailing in bullet point format what's changed and what it all means.


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