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This tiny program keeps our coasts safe. Trump’s gutting it, of course.

The semi-annual meeting of the Sea Grant Association in Washington, D.C., is usually a straightforward affair. It’s typically a time for administrators from around the country to discuss coastal research and hash out the association’s business.

But as members gather to start their meeting on Tuesday, there’s plenty of drama. The Trump administration reportedly plans to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and gut federal funding for NOAA’s Sea Grant program.

This time, Sea Grant’s very existence is at stake.

“My initial reaction [to the news] was horror and disgust,” says Jim Eckman, director at California Sea Grant. “I think we’re facing a much graver crisis that we’re going to have to deal with.”

Though hardly a household name, Sea Grant funds important work, supporting over 3,000 scientists and paying for coastal research through 33 university programs. Sea Grant projects shed light on sea-level rise, ocean acidification, the effect of melting glaciers on kelp beds, and much, much else.

Congress created the Sea Grant program in 1966 in part to improve scientific understanding for the fishing industry. Since then, it has helped pay for projects that encourage commercial fishers to adopt sustainable practices off the coast of Ventura, California. It has backed efforts to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and to forecast the loss of wetlands from hurricanes hitting Louisiana.

Sea Grant directors get federal money and hustle to match it with private and state investment for research. Sometimes they manage to double what the government gives them. But without a federal commitment, the program would be finished, says MaryAnn Wagner, a spokesperson for Washington Sea Grant.

Coming to grips with the reality of climate change is scary enough. Dealing with its assault on coasts without the extensive research to understand the consequences? Downright devastating, administrators say.

In coming days, directors will start mapping out plans to defend the program. “Big fights are a-brewin’,” Eckman says.

The Trump administration reportedly wants to use the cuts to NOAA and its $73 million Sea Grant program to help pay for a $54 billion boost in military spending.

Eckman and other directors doubt Sea Grant’s bipartisan support in Congress will erode so quickly for a program it has supported for decades. They hope Congress will have their backs.

“I have to assume there are some wise people in our Congress who see the flaw” of prioritizing defense over science, says Paul Anderson, who directs Maine Sea Grant. “Mr. Trump is setting up for a political battle.”

Sea Grant’s managers say Trump’s proposal underscores the administration’s disrespect for science. They suspect similar cuts will come to programs at the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Forest Service — at a cost to scientific understanding.

Slashing funding for scientific research would be “a disservice to everybody in the nation and the world,” Anderson says. “It’s like flying blind. Why would we fly blind if we don’t have to?”

Though the cuts seem drastic, it’s not the first time a president has threatened to obliterate the Sea Grant program. In 1981, the Reagan administration proposed pulling federal funding. A task force assembled to defend Sea Grant. An analysis of 57 examples from the program found the $270 million the government spent on Sea Grant during its first 14 years yielded $227 million in economic benefits each year. Congress was ultimately swayed to protect it.

A similar political dance could happen this time. According to Wagner from Washington Sea Grant, every federal dollar spent returns about $8 in economic benefits. A NOAA analysis shows the program helped support $575 million in economic development and more than 20,000 jobs in 2015. “This is a small but mighty program,” Wagner says.

Knowing Sea Grant has survived a challenge before buoys hope that maybe the Trump administration won’t succeed in scrapping it. “It makes me less worried,” says Linda Duguay, a Sea Grant director at the University of Southern California. “But then, I thought the election was going to go in a different direction.”

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This tiny program keeps our coasts safe. Trump’s gutting it, of course.

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Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation As Education Secretary Is in Trouble

Mother Jones

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Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) told colleagues Wednesday that they will not vote for GOP billionaire megadonor Betsy DeVos for education secretary, throwing her nomination in doubt just a day after a committee voted to advance DeVos’ bid to the full Senate.

With the GOP-Democrat split in the Senate at 52-48, “no” votes from Collins and Murkowski—and a party-line vote from Democrats—would tie the count at 50, leaving Vice President Mike Pence to cast the deciding vote. With one more dissenting Republican, however, Democrats would have officially defeated a Cabinet nominee for the first time since defense secretary nominee John Tower was voted down in 1989.

The two senators’ statements came as somewhat of a surprise given that both had voted in committee Tuesday to move DeVos’ nomination to the full Senate. But each had expressed reservations about DeVos’ support for school choice and voucher programs and her commitment to public education. “I have serious concerns about a nominee who has been so involved in one side of the equation,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor Wednesday, adding that her office had received thousands of calls from constituents concerned about DeVos.

DeVos has been the subject of criticism from teachers’ unions, Senate Democrats, and others for her defense of expanding charter schools and voucher programs, her inexperience in public education, and questions about her commitment to upholding federal civil rights laws, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. As my colleague Kristina Rizga recently pointed out in an in-depth investigation, DeVos and her family have donated millions of dollars to right-wing causes and conservative Christian groups.

DeVos’ vote before the full Senate has not yet been scheduled, though there was speculation Wednesday afternoon that the GOP would move quickly. Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters he had “100 percent confidence” that DeVos would be confirmed, adding, “I think that the games being played with Betsy DeVos are sad.”

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Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation As Education Secretary Is in Trouble

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Trump’s CIA Pick Doesn’t Seem to Understand the President-Elect’s View on Torture

Mother Jones

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The man picked by Donald Trump to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency apparently is in the dark on an important intelligence matter: Trump’s view on torture.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) has been tapped by Trump to lead the spy service, and on Thursday morning he came before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing. He addressed the matters in the headlines. He said he accepted the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian intelligence hacked Democratic targets during the 2016 campaign and then leaked material to benefit Trump. “It is pretty clear,” Pompeo said, noting the Russian motive was “to have an impact on American democracy.” Unlike Trump, Pompeo was fully embracing the intelligence community’s findings.

But Pompeo was also caught in a hack-related contradiction. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the committee, pointed to a tweet Pompeo sent out in July declaring, “Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks.” King didn’t say this, but his point was obvious: With this tweet, the incoming CIA chief had helped a secret Russian intelligence operation to change the outcome of the presidential election. King did ask Pompeo, “Do you think WikiLeaks is a reliable source of information?” Pompeo replied, “I do not.” So, King inquired, why did he post this tweet and cite WikiLeaks as “proof”? Pompeo was busted. Pompeo repeated that he had never considered WikiLeaks a “credible source.” King pushed on and asked Pompeo how he could explain his tweet. Pompeo stammered and remarked, “I’d have to go back and take a look at that.” Uh, right.

Another awkward moment came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Pompeo about the use of torture. “If you were ordered by the president,” she asked, “to restart the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques that fall outside the Army field manual”—meaning waterboarding and other methods now banned by law—”would you comply?”

“Absolutely not,” Pompeo said. He pointed out that he had voted for the law that banned waterboarding and other acts of torture that the CIA had used during the Bush-Cheney years. “I will always comply with the law,” Pompeo declared. (In 2014, however, he claimed that the interrogation techniques in use during the Bush administration were not torture.)

But Pompeo also said this: “I can’t imagine I would be asked by the president-elect or then president” to have the CIA engage in torture.

His imagination, then, is rather limited. During the presidential contest, Trump made headlines with his promise to revive waterboarding and to use other means of torture. During one of the Republican primary debates, Trump was quite firm on this point. He was asked about former CIA Director Michael Hayden’s remark that the military could defy orders from the president to torture or kill civilians, and Trump went on a roll:

They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse, believe me. You look at the Middle East, they’re chopping off heads, they’re chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way, they’re drowning people in steel cages, and now we’re talking about waterboarding…It’s fine, and if we want to go stronger, I’d go stronger too. Because frankly, that’s the way I feel. Can you imagine these people, these animals, over in the Middle East that chop off heads, sitting around talking and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding? We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding.

Trump was indicating that he didn’t give a damn about laws restricting the use of torture and that he would expect officials to follow any presidential orders to engage in such conduct. So how hard is it to envision that Trump, once in office, might order intelligence services and the military to use waterboarding and acts of torture that are “tougher than waterboarding”?

Pompeo was clear that his view on the use of torture is not in sync with Trump’s. He was clear that he would not follow an order to employ such methods. But he indicated that he didn’t understand his soon-to-be boss’ attitude toward torture. After all, it doesn’t take that much creativity to imagine Trump trying to follow through on his vow to bring back waterboading and much worse.

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Trump’s CIA Pick Doesn’t Seem to Understand the President-Elect’s View on Torture

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Gun Control Advocates Have Something to Smile About Today

Mother Jones

Even as the National Rifle Association celebrates Donald Trump’s victory, gun control advocates have something to smile about today. Of the four gun-related measures on state ballots this year, three passed.

Maine’s Question 3

The only gun-related ballot measure not to win, Question 3 asked voters whether background checks should be required for private gun sales. If neither the buyer nor the seller is a licensed gun dealer, they’d have to go to a licensed dealer who would run a background check. The measure would have also required a background check for loaning guns, with exceptions for gun transfers between family members, emergency self-defense, and temporary transfers for hunting and sport shooting. Supporters, including Maine Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense Fund and Mainers for Responsible Gun Ownership Fund, have spent $5.2 million to get the measure passed. Approximately $1 million was spent against it, the vast majority by the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action.

California’s Proposition 63

Prop 63 passed easily, garnering 63 percent of the vote. It will ban certain types of semi-automatic assault rifles, require background checks for ammunition sales, outlaw magazines that carry more than 10 bullets, create a system for confiscating guns from felons, and require gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms. Major components of the initiative already became law earlier this year, and gun rights groups say they will challenge the overlapping laws in court. Opponents spent nearly $1 million against the measure to the nearly $4.5 million spent by supporters.

Nevada’s Question 1

Similar to Maine’s ballot initiative, Question 1 will require most gun sales, including private sales, to be subject to a background check. However, it narrowly passed by less than 10,000 votes. The same exemptions that Maine allows also apply here. Supporters spent more than $18 million and received significant financial backing from Everytown For Gun Safety. The NRA Nevadans for Gun Freedom and Nevadans for State Gun Rights spent nearly $6.5 million to sink the initiative. The NRA stuck to its usual script in opposing the measure, writing, “Question 1 does nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms.”

Washington’s Initiative 1491

Initiative 1491 allows family, household members, and police to petition a judge to temporarily prohibit a person’s access to guns if that person is found to be a risk to himself or others. Petitions for an “extreme risk protection order” will last one year. Those under order can request a hearing to argue against the order. The NRA opposed the measure, saying that “if a person is truly dangerous, existing law already provides a variety of mechanisms to deal with the individual.” Nonetheless, it passed with 71 percent of the vote.

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Gun Control Advocates Have Something to Smile About Today

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Trump: Election Is Rigged. Ryan: No It Isn’t.

Mother Jones

Here is Donald Trump today in Maine talking about Hillary Clinton:

She wants 550 percent more coming from Syria than the thousands and thousands that our president, quote “president,” has coming in.

Charming, isn’t it? And if Obama isn’t a legitimate president, then Clinton won’t be either. Here is Trump in New Hampshire this morning:

Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the presidency—and the media, donors, special interests who support her will do everything they can to cling to their power and their prestige at your expense. You know it, I know it, they know it….Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted, and she should, right now, be in jail.

….It looks to me like a rigged election. The election is being rigged by corrupt people pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president….We can’t let them get away with this, folks….Remember this, it’s a rigged election….It’s a rigged election…It’s a rigged election.

Trump has been spinning up his supporters for weeks about this. If Clinton wins, she’ll be an illegitimate president. The election will be a sham. If the corrupt elites declare her the winner, don’t accept it. Fight back. In a sense, this is just standard Trump bluster. But it’s worse than that: this is banana republic talk, and with 24 days left in the campaign, Paul Ryan finally repudiated it:

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan issued a rebuke of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump Saturday, criticizing comments that question the validity of the electoral process.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the highest-ranking elected Republican said Ryan is “fully confident” in the nation’s elections system. It comes on the heels of Trump’s claims that the election is “rigged” against him by “globalist elites,” elements of the federal government, and the press. “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” said Ryan spokesperson AshLee Strong.

This is a little late, but it’s still welcome.

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Trump: Election Is Rigged. Ryan: No It Isn’t.

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Here Are the Contents of Governor Paul LePage’s Infamous Binder of Accused Drug Traffickers

Mother Jones

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Last month, Maine Gov. Paul LePage came under fire for claiming 90 percent of the state’s out-of-state drug dealers are either black or Latino—an assertion the Republican governor said he could support with a 148-page binder he kept that cataloged mugshots and police reports for the alleged drug dealers. The remarks were widely condemned as racist, and contributed to mounting calls from both sides of the political aisle for LePage to step down from office.

On Monday, after much pressure, the contents of the embattled governor’s binder were finally released to the public. A cursory look at the material appears to paint a different picture from the one LePage previously described publicly.

After making the binder public, the governor’s office said it would make no further comment on its contents. The release comes just weeks after LePage left an expletive-laden voicemail on a state representative’s phone denying that he is a racist.

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Here Are the Contents of Governor Paul LePage’s Infamous Binder of Accused Drug Traffickers

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Obama creates whole new national monument to celebrate National Park System’s 100th birthday

Parks and recreation

Obama creates whole new national monument to celebrate National Park System’s 100th birthday

By on Aug 24, 2016Share

President Obama marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service a day early by protecting 87,500 acres in north-central Maine on Wednesday.

The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, as the new preserve will be known, encompasses the East Branch of the Penobscot River as well as a vast swath of woods rich in biodiversity. The area is a popular site for outdoor recreation, and, according to a statement from the White House, the new monument will bolster “the forest’s resilience against the impacts of climate change.”

It doesn’t hurt that the place looks pretty damn nice:

Obama has now protected 265 million acres of America’s public lands and waters, more than any other president in history (though he’s also also criticized for contradictory policies like allowing offshore drilling to continue). As it goes with anything Obama does, this declaration is not without critics: Some locals, including Maine Rep. Bruce Poliquin, opposed a “unilateral” executive action on the basis of giving locals more control to do as they please with the lands.

Much of the land for this new monument wasn’t owned by locals, but by Burt’s Bees founder Roxanne Quimby, who transferred 87,000 of 120,000 acres of Maine forest to the U.S. Department of the Interior Monday.

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Obama creates whole new national monument to celebrate National Park System’s 100th birthday

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Let Us Take a Minute to Fully Appreciate the Current State of American Politics

Mother Jones

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Do you remember this famous video of the South Korean parliament from a few years ago?

How infantile! This is supposed to be a mature democracy. What the hell is going on?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Marco Rubio on Friday morning, making his case against Donald Trump:

Can you feel the burn? And here is Trump a few hours later making his case against Rubio:

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it? The presidential campaign of one of our great political parties has now degenerated into two guys in suits insulting each other for sweating a lot during a debate.

By the way, Trump’s schtick came during an event where he announced the endorsement of New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Trump now has the following endorsements:

Sarah Palin, crackpot former Republican VP candidate.
Teresa Giudice, star of Real Housewives of New Jersey.
Geert Wilders, Dutch Islamaphobe and leader of the Party for Freedom.
Joe Arpaio, famous Arizona sheriff fond of chain gangs, dressing inmates in pink underwear, feeding them moldy food, and too many other lunatic acts to count.
Paul LePage, wingnut governor of Maine governor who memorably said that Maine’s biggest problem was “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty….they come up here, they sell their heroin.”
David Duke, noted white supremacist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Alex Jones, insane talk radio conspiracy monger.
Jerry Falwell Jr., evangelical leader of Liberty University, whose endorsement came despite Trump’s well-known string of affairs, remarriages, skinflint charitable giving, and apparent lack of any serious Christian faith.
Ann Coulter, political commentator noted for her Islamaphobia, hatred of illegal immigrants, and general descent into highly-calculated derangement.
Dennis Rodman, famous basketball player and friend to Kim Jung-un
Juanita Brodderick and Paula Jones, who both made sketchy but famous accusations of sexual harrassment against Bill Clinton.
Willie Robertson, homophobic star of Duck Dynasty.
Carl Paladino, racist emailer and secret-daughter-hiding former Republican candidate for New York governor.
Chris Christie, ambitious, tough-guy governor of New Jersey embroiled in a controversy over punishing a political opponent by deliberately shutting down two lanes on the George Washington bridge and tying up traffic for miles.

This man is currently leading the national Republican polls by more than 20 points over his nearest competitor.

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Let Us Take a Minute to Fully Appreciate the Current State of American Politics

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Indicted Ron Paul Aide Is Also the Target of a Police Investigation Into a Mysterious Burglary

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, a trio of conservative operatives with close ties to Rand Paul and his father were indicted for their alleged role in an effort to purchase an influential Iowa Republican’s endorsement of Ron Paul during his 2012 presidential bid. Mother Jones has learned that one of these operatives, Dimitri Kesari, is also a target of a police investigation into a mysterious burglary last year at the Rhode Island home of a Ron Paul staffer who died in 2013. All that was taken, according to local police, was the deceased staffer’s laptop.

Kesari, who served as Ron Paul’s deputy campaign manager during the 2012 campaign, faces federal conspiracy, campaign finance, and obstruction of justice charges for his alleged involvement in paying more than $70,000 to then-Iowa state senator Kent Sorenson to switch his endorsement from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul ahead of the Iowa caucuses. The burglary case involves the childhood home of one of Kesari’s colleagues on Paul’s campaign team, a young and well-known libertarian activist named Jared Gamble, who died in 2013 at the age of 26. Gamble had worked on both of Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns, as well as on Rand Paul’s 2010 senate bid. He also had a connection to Sorenson, whose 2008 campaign for Iowa state senate Gamble had assisted. Sorenson eventually acknowledged taking money from both the Paul and the Michele Bachmann campaigns and resigned his Iowa state senate seat. He pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges last summer and is awaiting sentencing.

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Indicted Ron Paul Aide Is Also the Target of a Police Investigation Into a Mysterious Burglary

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Republicans Are Cutting Taxes on the Rich and Raising Them on the Poor

Mother Jones

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Shaila Dewan surveys the tax policies of actual Republicans who are governing actual states:

A number of Republican-led states are considering tax changes that, in many cases, would have the effect of cutting taxes on the rich and raising them on the poor.

Conservatives are known for hating taxes but particularly hate income taxes, which they say have a greater dampening effect on growth. Of the 10 or so Republican governors who have proposed tax increases, virtually all have called for increases in consumption taxes, which hit the poor and middle class harder than the rich.

Favorite targets for the new taxes include gasoline, e-cigarettes, and goods and services in general (Governor Paul LePage of Maine would like to start taxing movie tickets and haircuts). At the same time, some of those governors — most notably Mr. LePage, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and John Kasich of Ohio — have proposed significant cuts to their state income tax. In an effort to relieve some of the added pressure, Mr. LePage’s plan includes a tax break for the lowest-income families.

This gets back to what I was talking about a couple of days ago. Contrary to what Republican reformicons are proposing, Republicans on the ground continue to focus most of their attention on cutting taxes on the rich. Or, in a pinch, if they have to raise revenue, they’re raising it from the poor and middle class. This is despite the well-known fact that virtually all of the income gains in recent years have gone to the well-off.

There are ways to make consumption taxes progressive. It’s not impossible. The problem is that Republicans simply don’t want to. Their goal is, and always has been, to reduce taxes on the wealthy. Any other tax agenda just isn’t on the table.

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Republicans Are Cutting Taxes on the Rich and Raising Them on the Poor

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