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Trump Is Audaciously Trying To Privatize Native American Land

Trump Is Audaciously Trying To Privatize Native American Land

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Each and every day, we the people are forced to endure something profoundly horrific being committed by Trump. And since Republicans only concern is maintaining their tenuous grip on power, they could care less what damage their president does tho their constituents. We’ve already seen scientific, environmental, and social groups get slaughtered by this one sociopaths desire to do everything to enrich himself and his amoral wall street pals. Now it seems it’s Native American Tribes’ turn.

Trump began mobilizing to pursue the privatization of Indian lands back in October of last year with the formation of his 27 member Native American Affairs Coalition. The Coalition is chaired by so-called Cherokee Rep. Markwayne Mullin. Much like termination policy that took place more than 60 years ago, the Coalition feels that impoverished tribes are overwhelmed by federal regulations that impede self-reliance and prosperity. Therefore, all tribal lands should be privatized so that American Indians can pursue development projects that lift them out of poverty.

Featured image via CounterCurrentNews
The map above shows the amount of Naive American land being controlled by the federal government, which will be endangered by Trump’s “America First” energy policy that seeks to give industry a free pass to drill on many of these lands.

According to Trump’s America First energy policy:

Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own.

Making matters worse, Trump picked Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke for Secretary of the Interior, the very agency overseeing the Borough of Indian Affairs. Much like every amoral pick Trump has chosen to run major governmental departments, Zinke is notorious for being a deceptive con man. For example, Scientific American rates Zinke as a “mixed bag” with a very anti-environment, pro-industry voting record. So it’s as likely that he will be an asset to Native American affairs as HHS Secretary Tom Price is for sick Americans.

Trump has had a very spotty past with Native America tribes.

In 1993, Donald Trump testified before a House subcommittee that the mafia was running rampant on Native American gaming casinos. Here, he bickers with members of Congress about taxes, the FBI and if certain tribes “look Indian.”

In short, we’re seeing yet another example of Trump trampling on the rights of Native Americans.

 

Michael Hayne is a progressive comedian, writer and voice artist. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook or visit ImpressionsGuy.com. 

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

If Trumpcare Ends Up Happening, Up To 7 Million Veterans Could See Their Health Care Ruined

If Trumpcare Ends Up Happening, Up To 7 Million Veterans Could See Their Health Care Ruined

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

The abominable AHCA (or simply “Trumpcare), the House Republican’s replacement of Obamacare, is being felt far and wide. While the Senate has already said it has no intention of taking up the House version and the hope is it will die there, many are frightened by the sheer amount of malice that it contains.

Among the great many negatives in the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare, it seems that one of their hastily-added “improvements” to the bill could wind up making 7 million military veterans ineligible for health care tax credits. Indeed, the very party that shamelessly exploits our troops out of political expediency–feigning patriotism in the form of tacky flag pins is now screwing veterans Worst of all, Press Secretary Sean Spicer has absolutely no answer for it.   The snafu was discovered by Chris Jacobs, the Former Policy Advisor for the House Republican Conference under Chairman Mike Pence. Here was what Jacobs discovered:

The most recent estimates suggest about 9.1 million individuals are enrolled in VA health programs. However, a 2014 Congressional Budget Office score of veterans’ choice legislation concluded that about 8 million [veterans] qualify to enroll in VA’s health system but have not enrolled. Subtracting for VA enrollment gains since that CBO score leaves approximately seven million veterans eligible for, but not enrolled in, VA health programs, and thus potentially affected by the House’s ‘technical’ change.

Just when you thought these disingenuous, greedy lawmakers couldn’t possibly get any more evil, they go full-blown Lex Luthor. Here was the very angry response from Will Fischer, Iraq War Veteran and Director of Government Outreach for VoteVets:

What started as a bad bill has now turned into a grotesque Frankenstein monster, a crude and rushed patchwork of mini-bills that hurt people who can least afford it. Now, we find out that Trumpcare will strip tax credits from potentially millions of veterans, and flood the VA with new patients at a time the VA is understaffed to handle a rush, thanks to the Donald Trump’s hiring freeze.Since the freeze went into effect, we’ve already seen wait times lengthen; the claims backlog that President Obama had virtually eliminated, starting to grow again. This will only cause things to get worse. We cannot put it more simply than this: Trumpcare will punish veterans. You cannot be pro-veteran and vote for Trumpcare.

Now, we all know how much Trump loves to pretend he gives a crap about the military so as to compensate for his macho insecurity and lack of military service. But not even Spicer could spin this when speaking to reporters. Here was his exchange with John Gizzi of Newsmax.  GIZZI: Several publications, including Sara’s, reported today that as a result of a change of a few words, veterans who benefited from a program called Veterans’ Affairs or had the option of getting tax credits would now get neither under the new legislation and that seven million veterans would be cost health care. Is the administration following this, and is urging Congress to do anything about it?

SPICER: Most veterans get their health care through Tri-care, or through Medicare if they’re over 65, or a combination thereof, correct?

GIZZI: And this is — well, but there’s two programs: One is the Veterans’ Affairs program, and the other is the option, this is under the current law, to have tax credits. And my understanding, again from Sara’s publication this morning and several others, is that seven million veterans could possibly lose both under this plan.

SPICER: Yeah, I — I’d have to follow-up with you, I’m not aware of any modifications to Tri-care, in particular, that would have that effect.

There is positively no way to spin this horrendous bill no matter how much Spicer tries, for it has about as much chance surviving in the Senate as a cancer patient has living on it.

 

Michael Hayne is a progressive comedian, writer and voice artist. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook or visit ImpressionsGuy.com.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

GOP Obstructionists Now Insist We All Must Back Our New President

GOP Obstructionists Now Insist We All Must Back Our New President

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet. 

A former reality TV star who bragged about sexually assaulting women, cheated hundreds of contractors and workers out of pay, insulted the family of a slain Muslim soldier, mocked a disabled reporter, sent out mean-girl tweets to a former beauty queen at 3am like a psychotic ex-boyfriend, avoided paying millions in tax obligations, and made a whole political career out of resurrecting the racist birther movement with continuous assaults on President Obama, has been elected president.

Donald J. Trump will soon have access to the nuclear launch codes and the power to do the following terrifying things: nominate alt-right judges to turn America back at least 50 years, fill his cabinet with people as manifestly unqualified as he is to ravage the planet, crash the economy, infringe on civil liberties, destroy reproductive rights, repeal Obamacare, and scrap longtime alliances like NATO, allowing Russia’s dictatorial Putin to do as he pleases in the Middle East and Ukraine.

If all of this sounds like grounds to nurse a bottle of Jack with some Xanax in a dark corner, that’s because it most certainly is.

But the very same Republican Party that spent eight solid years making President Obama’s life a living hell, obstructing and blocking everything he proposed under the sun all while hurling vile and racist attacks on the man, well, suddenly wants the country to come together and sing kumbaya and accept the electoral outcome. To that end, Republicans have done everything to delegitimize the outbreak of passionate protests taking place across the country in the wake of Trump’s unexpected victory. While there have been a few reports of anti-Trump protesters engaging in violence, the demonstrations have remained largely peaceful.

And a bit of bad behavior might be expected with any major protest, especially after one of the most insane and contentious presidential election in modern history, which featured Trump’s frequent incitement of his supporters to violence. Even before he was telling supporters that the election would be “rigged” and they might want to arm themselves, Trump had shown a willingness to tolerate violent resistance when things did not go the way he wanted. Well before anyone had the inkling that he might run for, let alone win the presidency, Trump tweeted an invitation for resistance by any means necessary following President Obama’s reelection win in 2012: “We can’t let this happen,” he implored his army of Twitter followers. “We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided.”

He did not need to march on Washington, the recalcitrant Republican Congress did it for him, vowing to obstruct every single action the president attempted to take, refusing to hold hearings on his budget, and hitting peak obstruction when they refused to meet with his Supreme Court nominee. The American people be damned. They were not going to do their jobs.

Outgoing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, now Trump’s chief of staff, is one of the newly converted, peace- and democracy-loving Republicans admonishing anti-Trump protesters, while simultaneously claiming to love party unity. The hypocrisy here is so strong it needs to come with a warning label.

“I’m sure that the vast majority of people are just very disappointed with the outcome of the election, so I’ll give them that, and I’ll also say I understand the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights,” Priebus said. “But this election is over now. And we have a president-elect who has done everything he can do over the last 48 hours to say, ‘Let’s bring people together.’”

Priebus thinks 48 hours is plenty of time. Never mind that Republican obstruction and disrespect for President Obama endured eight long years. Not to mention the fact that this plea comes from the committed public servant who put his country in jeopardy when he assembled a task force to ensure that President Obama’s constitutionally mandated duty to nominate a justice for the Supreme Court would be blocked at all costs. But now that Priebus has landed the position of White House chief of staff, he’s just in love with bipartisanship and finding common ground.

But it’s not just high-ranking Republican officials who are guilty of this Olympic-level hypocrisy, some of the loudest voices in right-wing media are whining about how unfair it all is as well. After spending the Bush years serving as the state-sponsored media and hating on Americans upset with unwarranted surveillance, a dishonest war and the destruction of the environment, Fox News suddenly became a bastion of resistance and opposition at all costs when President Obama got into office. Now that their guy is in, it’s time again to toe the administration line. Cherry-picking protest movements is a regular Fox ploy. The network blatantly promoted Tea Party protests and more recently armed takeovers of federal lands, while showing utter contempt for anti-Trump protests, which Fox has said features “losers without jobs” and “paid insurgents by the DNC.”

Indeed, those million-moron marches of pre-deplorables spewing treasonous (and racist) hatred at President Obama not only received an infinite amount of positive coverage from Fox News, but reporters for Fox out and out supported them. Fox News’ embedded reporter Griff Jenkins lavishly praised Tea Party Express rallies in 2009, though he claimed he was “simply reporting” on them. Reporting, cheerleading, what’s the difference? The network vigorously promoted the 2010 Tea Party Express Tour, which featured a number of white supremacists who openly called for armed insurrection. You know, people just accepting an electoral outcome.

In short, after spending an entire year fanning the flames of hate and misogyny and inspiring his supporters to threaten armed insurrection if he lost, Trump, Republican leaders and members of the right-wing media suddenly think liberals should just get in line and fall in love with their new president. Where’s Michele Bachmann to mispronounce chutzpah when you really need it?

Michael Hayne is a progressive comedian, writer and voice artist. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook or visit ImpressionsGuy.com. 

IMAGE: U.S. Via Wiki Commons/ Gage Skidmore