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FTR #944 Fireside Rant: WTF Is Going On? The Caligulization of America and the End of the American Century

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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.

NB: This program contains information that was not contained in the original program.

Trump kept a copy of this by his bedside.

Trump kept a copy of this by his bedside.

Introduction: This broadcast is a (probably partly unsuccessful) summary attempt at explaining what will be the results of the ascendance of the Trumpenkampfverbande in the U.S.

It is to be hoped that this description will go further toward explaining what is going on than the original program.

In addition to the excerpts of articles presented in the program, we will summarize some of the central arguments in the broadcast, with links to other programs and lectures, where possible.

In AFA #37, we discussed the Gehlen “Org” and related elements as a Trojan Horse, using anti-communism to infiltrate the United States and, ultimately, destroy it from within. In this program we develop that analysis further, adding the role of the House of Habsburg and associates to the Trojan Horse metaphor.

When the U.S. frustrated the de-Nazification of Germany, opted to ally with the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network and the associated Habsburg royal family, and returned the Japanese and Italian fascists to power (with a civilian facade), this country signed its own death warrant.

America’s entry into two World Wars, after the combat had proceeded for years, decided both conflicts against Germany. The American revolution was the first successful revolt of a European colonial power against its colonial master.

Both Germany and the House of Habsburg vowed never again! Never! 

In this context, we observe that the Habsburgs (royal house of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) ruled for six hundred years. Six hundred years ago–1417–was three quarters of a century before Columbus sailed.

To the Habsburgs, America is a blip. Democracy is a blip. They see things in an entirely different way. Because the U.S. was an unassailable military power and the most powerful economy on earth, the country could only be brought down by subversion from within.

We gave the Underground Reich and the Habsburgs the keys to the kingdom, not unlike the Praetorian Guard–Germanic mercenary troops appointed to guard the Roman Emperor. Eventually they controlled the throne and preserved the Roman Empire for as long as it could make lucrative payments to the Germanic tribes who eventually defeated and sacked Rome.

The thrust of the broadcast is that the ascension of Trump–an American Caligula–is indeed the end of what Henry Luce called “The American Century.”

The author of our first article is a former editor for Time magazine and a former State Department officer, so his literal take on Luce’s pronouncement is not surprising.

What Stengel is talking about is the end of “Brand America,” to coin a phrase–the successful PR marketing of this country as the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, etc.

That political mythology, which compelled much of Mr. Emory’s initial involvement in this research when he began in the early ’70s, will evaporate. That dissipation, however, will be eclipsed by the devastating economic, environmental, social and political devastation that will surely follow Trump’s policies.

As Mr. Emory forecast in FTR #’s 918 and 919, among other programs in the “Trumpenkampfverbande” series, Trump’s anti-NATO rhetoric and general disparaging of the Atlanticist alliances that have held sway during the better part of “The American Century” are focused on precipitating the Underground Reich goals of: an all-EU army replacing NATO, a German-dominate Europe  assuming center stage in world affairs, and the forging of an economic alliance with Russia (following Russian concessions on Ukraine) that will give “Corporate Germany” economic domination over the Earth Island.

Our next article heralds Mr. Emory’s prognostications. We do not feel Trump is necessarily conscious of his role. In the age of mind control, what goes on between a given individual’s ears is impossible to gauge, past a point.

Among the various and sundry disastrous outcomes of Trump’s policies may well be a cyber-terrorist incident from a nation-state actor or a lone malefactor, this the result of a federal hiring freeze.

” . . . On his first official day in office after inauguration, President Donald Trump has made good on his plan to institute a federal hiring freeze—part of his effort to slash the federal workforce. Details are sparse: Trump has said there would be exceptions for the military, and a White House memo notes the freeze would be waived “when necessary to meet national or public safety responsibilities.” Some experts fear a temporary hiring freeze could exacerbate a chronic problem in the federal government: a widespread shortage of cybersecurity talent. A hiring freeze could signal to essential cybersecurity talent—especially those who might consider joining the public sector from higher-paying industry jobs—that there’s no need or desire for them in the federal government, Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, told Nextgov. . . .”

Exemplifying a disconnect that is sure to help bring our economy down, Labor Secretary Puzder lauds the value of machines over humans. While he is correct that machines do not do many things that he sees as counter-productive, he ignores the fact that machines don’t by food at Carl’s Junior or Hardees, the food chains for which he is chief executive. No machine has ever bought anything.

” . . . Fast food executive Andrew Puzder, who President-elect Donald Trump is expected to tap as labor secretary, has advocated replacing some human workers with machines as a way for businesses to reduce costs associated with rising wages and health-care expenses. While machines require regular maintenance and can sometimes malfunction, Puzder said, they are also easier to manage than humans and don’t pose the same legal risks. “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case,” Puzder told Business Insider in March. Puzder serves as the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, the corporate parent behind fast food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. . . .”

When automation, inflation of the price of consumer goods that are imported and have had tariffs slapped on them by “The Donald,” lack of health care forcing working people to devote increasingly scarce resources toward maintaining their and/or their families’ health, the subversion of minimum wage, overtime and unionization laws and statutes and increasing concentration of economic ownership have brought American consumers to their knees, our consumer-based economy will collapse.

Lastly, we note something that heralds poorly for the response of the American people to the chaos that is sure to envelope this country after the environmental, economic and social chaos that will inevitably result from Trump’s rollback of decades of necessary regulation, enormous budget deficits from the GOP’s tax cuts, neutralization of decades of progress on health care and rollback of the New Deal.

With Betsy De Vos appointed as Secretary of Education, the already dismal, frightening civic awareness of our public school students figures to get worse. In and of itself, that is cause for extreme pessimism.

As our society disintegrates from the interplay of various economic, political and military factors, the calls for “someone to do something” to repair our dysfunctional society are likely to increase exponentially.

“. . . . When, 2011, the World Values Survey asked US citizens in their late teens and early 20s whether democracy was a good way to run a country, about a quarter said it was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad,’ an increase of one-third since the late 1990s. Among citizens of all ages, 1 in 6 now say in would be fine for the ‘army to rule,’ up from 1 in 16 in 1995. In a different national survey, about two-thirds of Americans could not name all three branches of the federal government or which party controlled the House of Representatives. In a third study, almost half of the respondents said the government should be permitted to prohibit a peaceful march. . . .”

Program Highlights Include:

  • Review of the Habsburg role in Ukraine.
  • Review of Karl von Habsburg and his UNPO.
  • Review of Karl von Habsburg’s marriage to Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza and, through that, the Bormann capital network.
  • Review of the intimate proximity of the House of Habsburg and the House of Liechtenstein.
  • Review of House of Liechtenstein cousin Martin Wachter’s stewardship of a Bank al-Taqwa subsidiary.
  • Review of the Habsburg proximity to the death of Antonin Scalia, which may have helped to solidify the GOP behind Trump.

1. The thrust of the broadcast is that the ascension of Trump–an American Caligula–is indeed the end of what Henry Luce called “The American Century.” The author is a former editor for Time magazine and a former State Department officer, so his literal take on Luce’s pronouncement is not surprising.

What Stengel is talking about is the end of “Brand America,” to coin a phrase–the successful PR marketing of this country as the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, etc.

That political mythology, which compelled much of Mr. Emory’s initial involvement in this research when he began in the early ’70s, will evaporate. That dissipation, however, will be eclipsed by the devastating economic, environmental, social and political devastation that will surely follow Trump’s policies.

“The End of the American Century” by Richard Stengel; The Atlantic; 1/26/2017.

The inaugural address of Donald Trump did not contain the word justice or cooperation or ideals or morals or truth or charity. It has only one reference to freedom. It did mention carnage and crime and tombstones and a variety of words never uttered before in a presidential inaugural. Since then, the president has doubled-down on his desire to build a wall on America’s Southern border and has said his administration will re-evaluate accepting refugees from designated Muslim countries and cut back by half the relatively small number of refugees accepted by the Obama administration. I spent seven years as editor of Time before I worked in the State Department as under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. While I was editor of Time, I never wanted to be the first of Luce’s successors to pronounce the end of the American Century. In part, this was because of a misunderstanding of the term. Most people thought it meant American power or hegemony and there was not much diminution in America’s global power. What it really means is America as a global model and guarantor of freedom and rule of law and fairness.

Trump ’s administration is the death knell of the American Century. . . .

2. As Mr. Emory forecast in FTR #’s 918 and 919, among other programs in the “Trumpenkampfverbande” series, Trump’s anti-NATO rhetoric and general disparaging of the Atlanticist alliances that have held sway during the better part of “The American Century” are focused on precipitating the Underground Reich goals of: an all-EU army replacing NATO, a German-dominate Europe  assuming center stage in world affairs, and the forging of an economic alliance with Russia (following Russian concessions on Ukraine) that will give “Corporate Germany” economic domination over the Earth Island.

This article heralds Mr. Emory’s prognostications. We do not feel Trump is necessarily conscious of his role. In the age of mind control, what goes on between a given individual’s ears is impossible to gauge, past a point.

“The Moment of the Europeans;” german-foreign-policy.com; 1/18/2017.

Germany’s top politicians are calling on the EU to close ranks behind Europe’s “central power,” Germany, following President-Elect Donald Trump’s recent declarations in an interview. Trump suggested the possibility of “deals” with Russia, predicted the further disintegration of the EU and pointed to Germany’s dominant role within the EU. A new Russian-American world order is looming, according to Elmar Brok (CDU), Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, it is therefore imperative that the EU “close ranks.” Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed a similar opinion. Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, called for Russian and US disarmament and for enhancing the EU’s militarization. He recommended that “German nuclear armament” not be discussed – at least “at the moment.”

“Vehicle for Germany”

Donald Trump’s declarations in a recent interview have provoked Berlin’s call for the EU to close ranks. In his interview with the German “Bild” and the British “Times,” Trump called NATO “obsolete,” because only five member countries are investing the generally agreed two percent of their respective GDPs in their armed forces. He also suggested the possibility of “some good deals” with Russia, hailed the Brexit and predicted that other members would leave the EU. He also pointed to Berlin’s dominant role in the EU – a fact that is no longer denied in Europe’s foreign policy establishment. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[1]) “You look at the European Union, and it is Germany; basically, a vehicle for Germany,” Trump was quoted.[2]

Close Ranks on Military Policy

The prospect that Washington under Trump could reach agreements with Moscow on international policy issues without the EU – which, for years, has been crippled with crisis and actually is facing disintegration – has provoked indignant reactions from German foreign policy makers and appeals to close ranks. “If we fail now to close ranks in the field of security and foreign policy, we will be faced with a new world order under Russia’s President Putin and the new US President Trump,” Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs contended on Monday.[3] Already at the beginning of the year, Wolfgang Ischinger, Chair of the Munich Security Conference had called for the EU to “speak more in unison in the future” and certainly not in the “cacophony of 27 or 28 European heads of states and governments.”[4] Germany’s Foreign Minister – who will soon become Germany’s President – Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared, following a meeting with his EU counterparts last Monday that it has “perhaps become again clearer to one or the other, just how important it is that Europe stands together and assumes common positions.”[5] Brok packaged his plea for a pan-EU closing of ranks into an appeal: “This is now the moment of the Europeans.”[6]

Disarm the Rivals

In Berlin, the contention is making the rounds that an eventual rapprochement between Washington and Moscow could be politically advantageous – not least of all to put the power struggle over Ukraine on ice. This would permit a roll back of sanctions on Russia and create new room for German companies to make lucrative business deals with the East – without relinquishing one’s own positions.[7] Thus, Ischinger alleges to have heard “courageous voices” in Kiev, who are prepared to forego membership in NATO. “A new US President Trump could talk to President Poroshenko in Kiev and Putin in Moscow and offer Ukraine security guarantees in exchange for renunciation of NATO membership,” explained the prominent diplomat.[8] It is also important that US-Russian negotiations reach an agreement on a new round in arms control. Disarmament must be sought. “More trust must be established again between the militaries, between NATO and Russia.” “I would make a plea for a round-the-clock jointly run crisis control center on neutral territory.” Ischinger did not mention whether he would consider Germany a suitable site.

Never Again “No War!”

While calling for US and Russian disarmament, Ischinger speaks out also for the further militarization of German and EU policy. “Putin” – meaning the conflicts concerning Ukraine and Syria – has clearly “demonstrated, how absolutely wrong it is to contend that there can be no military solutions,” he explained. Because the EU did not openly intervene militarily, “we, Europeans, … have once again been banned to the sidelines – a spectator position – which is not the appropriate role for the EU, the world’s largest trading and economic power, with a population of 500 million.”[9] He “would like to see” that “no responsible German politician” will repeat the sentence, “there can be no military solutions.” In fact, the EU is preparing – under German pressure – a considerable expansion of its foreign policy and military activities. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[10]) Even in transatlantic relations, there is “no guarantee of cooperation for eternity with us Europeans,” declared Chancellor Merkel, last week.[11] That is why “Europe” must considerably expand it radius of political and military action.

The Question of the Bomb

Wolfgang Ischinger has begun to take the question of “German nuclear armament” into consideration. Currently, it is better to avoid a debate on the EU’s “own nuclear arsenal,” the German diplomat declared. The nuclear power Great Britain is leaving the EU, while the nuclear power France is not “willing and capable” of “Europeanizing its nuclear potential.” However, “at the moment,” it would be “a political mistake to debate an alternative of arming Germany with nuclear weapons,” also “because we would provide an argument to critics in Moscow and in Europe that the central power Germany not only seeks to dominate Europe with financial policy, but also – in violation of all treaties – joint control over nuclear weapons.”[12] Ischinger did not elaborate on what conditions could invalidate his argument of temporal limitation (“at the moment”), nor did he express conclusive arguments against Germany’s acquiring nuclear weapons.

[1] See Leading from the Center.
[2] Trump: “Merkel-Asylpolitik ein schlimmer Fehler”. www.krone.at 16.01.2017.
[3] “Wir müssen auf das Schlimmste gefasst sein”. www.welt.de 17.01.2017.
[4] “Maximale Unberechenbarkeit”. www.swr.de 03.01.2016.
[5] Außenminister Steinmeier nach dem EU-Außenrat. Pressemitteilung des Auswärtigen Amts. Berlin, 16.01.2017.
[6] “Wir müssen auf das Schlimmste gefasst sein”. www.welt.de 17.01.2017.
[7] See Ostgeschäfte and Reversal of Business Trend with Russia.
[8], [9] Daniel-Dylan Böhmer, Thorsten Jungholt: “Frau Merkel muss sich warm anziehen”. www.welt.de 13.01.2017.
[10] See The European War Union, Strategische Autonomie and Shock as Opportunity.
[11] Merkel: Keine “Ewigkeitsgarantie” für Unterstützung Europas durch die USA. www.welt.de 12.01.2017.
[12] Daniel-Dylan Böhmer, Thorsten Jungholt: “Frau Merkel muss sich warm anziehen”. www.welt.de 13.01.2017.

3. Among the various and sundry disastrous outcomes of Trump’s policies may well be a cyber-terrorist incident from a nation-state actor or a lone malefactor, this the result of a federal hiring freeze.

“What Does Trump’s Hiring Freeze Mean for Federal Cyber Shortage?” by Mohana Ravindranath; Nextgov; 1/24/2017.

On his first official day in office after inauguration, President Donald Trump has made good on his plan to institute a federal hiring freeze—part of his effort to slash the federal workforce. 

Details are sparse: Trump has said there would be exceptions for the military, and a White House memo notes the freeze would be waived “when necessary to meet national or public safety responsibilities.”

Some experts fear a temporary hiring freeze could exacerbate a chronic problem in the federal government: a widespread shortage of cybersecurity talent.

A hiring freeze could signal to essential cybersecurity talent—especially those who might consider joining the public sector from higher-paying industry jobs—that there’s no need or desire for them in the federal government, Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, told Nextgov. . . .

5. Exemplifying a disconnect that is sure to help bring our economy down, Labor Secretary Puzder lauds the value of machines over humans. While he is correct that machines do not do many things that he sees as counter-productive, he ignores the fact that machines don’t by food at Carl’s Junior or Hardees, the food chains for which he is chief executive. No machine has ever bought anything.

When automation, inflation of the price of consumer goods that are imported and have had tariffs slapped on them by “The Donald,” lack of health care forcing working people to devote increasingly scarce resources toward maintaining their and/or their families’ health, the subversion of minimum wage, overtime and unionization laws and statutes and increasing concentration of economic ownership have brought American consumers to their knees, our consumer-based economy will collapse.

“Donald Trump’s Pick for Labor Secretary Has Said Machines Are Cheaper, Easier to Manage than Humans” by Steven Overly; The Washington Post ; 12/8/2016.

Fast food executive Andrew Puzder, who President-elect Donald Trump is expected to tap as labor secretary, has advocated replacing some human workers with machines as a way for businesses to reduce costs associated with rising wages and health-care expenses.

While machines require regular maintenance and can sometimes malfunction, Puzder said, they are also easier to manage than humans and don’t pose the same legal risks. “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case,” Puzder told Business Insider in March.

Puzder serves as the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, the corporate parent behind fast food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. . . .

6. With Betsy De Vos appointed as Secretary of Education, the already dismal, frightening civic awareness of our public school students figures to get worse. In and of itself, that is cause for extreme pessimism.

As our society disintegrates from the interplay of various economic, political and military factors, the calls for “someone to do something” to repair our dysfunctional society are likely to increase exponentially.

“Bully Pulpit” by Kristina Rizca; Mother Jones; January/February 2017.

. . . . When, 2011, the World Values Survey asked US citizens in their late teens and early 20s whether democracy was a good way to run a country, about a quarter said it was “bad” or “very bad,” an increase of one-third since the late 1990s. Among citizens of all ages, 1 in 6 now say in would be fine for the “army to rule,” up from 1 in 16 in 1995. In a different national survey, about two-thirds of Americans could not name all three branches of the federal government or which party controlled the House of Representatives. In a third study, almost half of the respondents said the government should be permitted to prohibit a peaceful march. . . .

Discussion

4 comments for “FTR #944 Fireside Rant: WTF Is Going On? The Caligulization of America and the End of the American Century”

  1. Here’s a reminder of how the Trump administration’s embrace of politics of xenophobia and open loathing of ‘foreigners’ isn’t just an attack on the US’s international reputation and “soft power” ability to influence the world. As the psychological effects of Trump’s “Muslim ban”, and broader ‘foreigners get out, we hate you!’ agenda takes hold and reduces the pool of international students interested in studying the US, all of that foreign money for US universities is going to fall too. And it’s money that’s effectively subsidizing US students since the foreign students tend to pay in full:

    Business Insider

    International students are now ‘subsidizing’ public American universities to the tune of $9 billion a year

    Tanza Loudenback
    Sep. 16, 2016, 12:02 PM

    Nearly 1 million international students study at colleges and universities across the United States, up 40% from a decade ago.

    These students are heading stateside to gain access to the best higher education in the worldand they’re paying top dollar for it.

    In fact, recent data from SelfScore, a company providing financial services to international students, reveals that foreign students pay up to three times more than in-state students at public universities, “effectively subsidizing tuition costs for domestic students and functioning as a bailout for universities.”

    International students are crucial to the US economy in two primary ways: They’re financing a chunk of education costs for public universities and their domestic students, and they’re fueling the US tech industry.

    The data suggests the relationship between US public colleges and foreign students grows increasingly interdependent.

    In 2015, the country’s public universities gleaned more than $9 billion in tuition and fees from foreign students, according to SelfScore’s analysis. That’s about 28% of annual tuition revenue coming from foreign students, who make up an average of just 12% of the student population. Private institutions are no exception to enrolling high numbers of international students, but data is more difficult to come by, and their tuition costs will vary less student-to-student.

    At Arizona State University, the public university with the largest number of international students (10,678 students, or about 14% of the total student population), in-state undergraduates pay $10,370, non-Arizona resident undergraduates pay $26,470, and international undergraduates pay $28,270 in base tuition and fees for the 2016-17 academic year.

    On top of paying significantly higher tuition costs, international students are largely paying out of pocket for their education at public colleges. According to SelfScore, American banks don’t recognize foreign students’ credit histories often until after they’ve graduated and entered the US labor market, disabling them from securing financial aid or student loans.

    About 72% of funding for international college students comes from personal and family funds, as well as home country government or university assistance, according to the US Commerce and Education departments.

    As of 2015, China, India, and South Korea sent the highest numbers of students to US colleges. And they’re not only helping out colleges and domestic students. In the 2014-15 academic year, international student enrollment supported about 373,300 total US jobs and contributed more than $30 billion to the US economy.

    Foreign students are also fueling Silicon Valley

    Of the 974,926 foreign undergraduate and graduate students studying in the US, about half are currently studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics, thus “creating a solid pipeline of talent for jobs in the US technology sector,” writes Kalpesh Kapadiam, cofounder and CEO of SelfScore, in an article for Tech Crunch.

    “In fact, recent data from SelfScore, a company providing financial services to international students, reveals that foreign students pay up to three times more than in-state students at public universities, “effectively subsidizing tuition costs for domestic students and functioning as a bailout for universities.””

    Yeah, somehow it doesn’t seem like an open White Nationalist administration is going to help with the recruitment of foreign students. Especially after a “Muslim ban” of seven countries that’s only likely to grow. And keep in mind that you almost couldn’t ask for a more effective means of projecting US “soft power” than to have a bunch of students come to the US and generally have a great experience and then tell their friends back home about it. And if they’re coming for a xenophobic society themselves, having a great experience in an environment that promotes and respects diversity is basically PR gold.

    But it looks like the US doesn’t want that PR gold anymore. Or the effective subsidy for American student. Hopefully Trump and the GOP Congress are at least planning on increasing funds to subsidize American students. LOL!

    All that said, there is one area of study where we could see a surge of international foreign student interest: Bible study:

    NBC News

    Jerry Falwell Jr. Asked to Lead Trump Higher Education Task Force

    by Alex Johnson

    Jan 31 2017, 9:43 pm ET

    Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical Christian leaders, has been asked to head a White House task force on reforming the U.S. higher education system, the Virginia college told NBC News on Tuesday night.

    Len Stevens, the university’s chief spokesman, told NBC News that Falwell would bring a focus on “overregulation and micromanagement of higher education” to the task force.

    Falwell wasn’t immediately available for comment Tuesday evening. In the past, he has argued that the federal government imposes too many regulations governing accreditation and financing of U.S. colleges and universities.

    Falwell is a lawyer and the son of the private evangelical college’s founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, co-founder of the Moral Majority and an architect of the conservative Christian political movement that helped propel Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980.

    He has said he was offered the position of education secretary in the Trump administration late last year but declined because he wanted to stay close to his family in Lynchburg, Virginia, where the university is based. He enthusiastically endorsed Trump’s eventual nominee, Betsy DeVos.

    Falwell was one of the first major evangelical leaders to endorse Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, along with James Dobson, founder of Family Talk Radio and the advocacy group Focus on the Family; Tony Perkins, president of the Christian conservative Family Research Council; and Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and former executive director of evangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition.

    Exit polling on Election Day indicated that about 80 percent of white evangelical voters supported Trump, consistent with white evangelical support for Republican candidates for more than 30 years. (Black evangelical voters, who historically are strongly Democratic, are generally considered a separate political demographic in many polls.)

    He has said he was offered the position of education secretary in the Trump administration late last year but declined because he wanted to stay close to his family in Lynchburg, Virginia, where the university is based. He enthusiastically endorsed Trump’s eventual nominee, Betsy DeVos.”

    Yep, Jerry Falwell Jr. was Trump’s first pick to education secretary. At least if he’s telling the truth, but considering who Trump picked instead, Betsy DeVoss, it’s not like it’s unimaginable to Falwell was the first pick. So that almost happened. And now, instead, Falwell is apparently going to heading up some sort of higher education task force. So if you’re a student interested in studying religion the Bible, things are presumably going to be looking up for religious schools. Especially really crappy religious schools that can’t current get any sort of accreditation:


    Falwell wasn’t immediately available for comment Tuesday evening. In the past, he has argued that the federal government imposes too many regulations governing accreditation and financing of U.S. colleges and universities.

    But don’t assume Falwell will just be out to help placers like his own Liberty University. He’s got a much bigger group of colleges he’s going to be championing: for-profit schools with high rates of student defaults and useless diplomas:

    The New York Times

    With Falwell as Education Adviser, His Own College Could Benefit

    Kevin Carey
    FEB. 1, 2017

    On Tuesday, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, would lead a Trump administration task force charged with deregulating American higher education.

    In describing his goals, Mr. Falwell focused on rolling back a series of initiatives that the Obama administration viewed as preventing abuses by predatory for-profit colleges. “The goal is to pare it back and give colleges and their accrediting agencies more leeway in governing their affairs,” Mr. Falwell told a Chronicle reporter.

    One nonprofit university that could benefit from this kind of regulatory retrenchment is Liberty University itself.

    In describing his goals, Mr. Falwell alluded to two Obama initiatives: tightened standards for accrediting organizations that grant colleges access to federal financial aid, and new regulations that govern how students who have been cheated by fraudulent colleges can have their student loans forgiven.

    The Obama accreditation standards were used last summer to shut down the accrediting organization that oversaw the corporate chains ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges, both of which collapsed in bankruptcy after multiple allegations of wrongdoing. The same organization oversaw numerous other for-profit schools with a history of high student loan default rates and deceit.

    The Department of Education then created new regulations to aid students who had been left holding large loan balances and worthless diplomas. In addition to granting those students debt relief, the department created new college performance standards, devised to prevent future fraud from occurring.

    Some fraudulent colleges made enormous sums of money by enrolling tens of thousands of students online — an approach that can provide many benefits when done well, but also creates potential for abuse.

    It makes sense that President Trump would turn to Mr. Falwell for advice in this area. Liberty University provided a prominent platform for Mr. Trump to reach evangelical Christians early in the Republican primary campaign. (It’s where he gave the “Two Corinthians” speech.)

    And Liberty, at first glance, isn’t in the same category as for-profit colleges. It enrolls about 14,000 students, most of whom are evangelical Christians, at its residential campus in Lynchburg, Va. But it also enrolls an additional 65,000 students online. Most colleges now have a mix of residential and online students, but it’s almost unheard-of to have four times as many online students as residential students.

    Because internet courses are inexpensive to deliver at scale, the online division is a huge revenue driver for Liberty, which brought in $591 million in tuition in 2013, against $470 million in expenses. Liberty is essentially a medium-size nonprofit college that owns an enormous for-profit college.

    The giant for-profit University of Phoenix enrolls more online students (over 100,000) than any other college. And the second-largest online enrollment? Liberty. Financially, the main difference between Liberty and the University of Phoenix is that Liberty doesn’t pay taxes. Liberty’s marketing and recruitment are driven by an 800-person telemarketing call center located in a former Sears department store near the main campus.

    Most of the tuition for Liberty’s online students comes from financial aid provided by the federal Department of Education, the same body that Mr. Falwell says is engaged in “overreaching regulation.”

    In 2015, Liberty received $347 million from federal undergraduate grant and loan programs. Few other private nonprofit colleges receive anything like that sum. To put the amount in perspective, the highly regarded University of Virginia, a nearby state university, received $37 million from the same sources that year. Arizona State, the nation’s largest public university, received $169 million. Liberty’s considerable financial success — it has built a $1 billion cash reserve, and Mr. Falwell is paid more than $900,000 a year — was underwritten largely by the federal taxpayer.

    Unfortunately, many Liberty students are struggling to pay back their federal loans. Around 9 percent default within three years of graduating, ruining their credit ratings and creating financial burdens that are nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy. Among all private nonprofit four-year colleges, the average default rate is 6.5 percent.

    Most Liberty students avoid default, but many are making no progress in reducing their loan balances. Only 38 percent of Liberty borrowers manage to pay down as little as one dollar on their student loan principal within three years of leaving school. This is probably because many struggle to land well-paying jobs. Forty-one percent of former Liberty students earn less than $25,000 per year — the typical salary for people with only a high school diploma at age 25 — six years after entering college.

    The Obama administration’s borrower protections require for-profit colleges with loan repayment rates below 50 percent to prominently note this fact, like lung cancer warnings on the side of a cigarette package, in promotional materials. The label must read, verbatim, “U.S. Department of Education Warning: A majority of recent student loan borrowers at this school are not paying down their loans.”

    Because it is technically a nonprofit (albeit a very profitable one), Liberty is exempt from these rules. But the fact remains that Mr. Falwell seems bent on repealing regulations that, in the standards they set for minimally acceptable results, paint his own university in a bad light. And because it is exempt from for-profit regulations, Liberty is ultimately accountable only to state regulators and the college’s accrediting organization.

    In describing his goals, Mr. Falwell focused on rolling back a series of initiatives that the Obama administration viewed as preventing abuses by predatory for-profit colleges. “The goal is to pare it back and give colleges and their accrediting agencies more leeway in governing their affairs,” Mr. Falwell told a Chronicle reporter.

    More freedom for for-profit schools to fleece students! Yay. This should do wonders for US higher education.

    But note that Falwell’s plan does sort of create a path for US universities to maintain high levels of foreign student enrollment despite Trump’s growing ‘foreigners out!’ agenda: By championing for-profit online universities, all those students who are either banned from entering the US or simply don’t want to go to a country that officially hates them can instead enroll online. For a degree that wouldn’t have been accredited before but will be soon. For profit. And perhaps a bit of usury. Soon to be legal usury:


    In describing his goals, Mr. Falwell alluded to two Obama initiatives: tightened standards for accrediting organizations that grant colleges access to federal financial aid, and new regulations that govern how students who have been cheated by fraudulent colleges can have their student loans forgiven.

    The Department of Education then created new regulations to aid students who had been left holding large loan balances and worthless diplomas. In addition to granting those students debt relief, the department created new college performance standards, devised to prevent future fraud from occurring.

    Some fraudulent colleges made enormous sums of money by enrolling tens of thousands of students online — an approach that can provide many benefits when done well, but also creates potential for abuse.

    And Liberty, at first glance, isn’t in the same category as for-profit colleges. It enrolls about 14,000 students, most of whom are evangelical Christians, at its residential campus in Lynchburg, Va. But it also enrolls an additional 65,000 students online. Most colleges now have a mix of residential and online students, but it’s almost unheard-of to have four times as many online students as residential students.

    Because internet courses are inexpensive to deliver at scale, the online division is a huge revenue driver for Liberty, which brought in $591 million in tuition in 2013, against $470 million in expenses. Liberty is essentially a medium-size nonprofit college that owns an enormous for-profit college.

    The giant for-profit University of Phoenix enrolls more online students (over 100,000) than any other college. And the second-largest online enrollment? Liberty. Financially, the main difference between Liberty and the University of Phoenix is that Liberty doesn’t pay taxes. Liberty’s marketing and recruitment are driven by an 800-person telemarketing call center located in a former Sears department store near the main campus.

    So there we go: while Trump’s Muslim ban might be the start of a new period of an officially sanctioned ‘we hate your foreigners, go away!’ US government attitude seemingly designed to send foreign students elsewhere, at least some of those students will still be able to study in the US. At a predatory for-profit online university that issues previously worthless diplomas.

    #MAGA

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 1, 2017, 4:08 pm
  2. Not that we needed another reminder that the Team Trump is also Team Neo-Nazi, but Team Neo-Nazi decided to give us another reminder anyway, so here it is:

    Reuters

    Exclusive: Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam – sources

    By Julia Edwards Ainsley, Dustin Volz and Kristina Cooke | WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO
    Wed Feb 1, 2017 | 8:10pm EST

    The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

    The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

    Such a change would reflect Trump’s election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase “radical Islam” in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.

    The CVE program aims to deter groups or potential lone attackers through community partnerships and educational programs or counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies such as Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook (FB.O).

    Some proponents of the program fear that rebranding it could make it more difficult for the government to work with Muslims already hesitant to trust the new administration, particularly after Trump issued an executive order last Friday temporarily blocking travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

    Still, the CVE program, which focuses on U.S. residents and is separate from a military effort to fight extremism online, has been criticized even by some supporters as ineffective.

    A source who has worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the program said Trump transition team members first met with a CVE task force in December and floated the idea of changing the name and focus.

    In a meeting last Thursday attended by senior staff for DHS Secretary John Kelly, government employees were asked to defend why they chose certain community organizations as recipients of CVE program grants, said the source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

    Although CVE funding has been appropriated by Congress and the grant recipients were notified in the final days of the Obama administration, the money still may not go out the door, the source said, adding that Kelly is reviewing the matter.

    The department declined comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

    PROGRAM CRITICIZED

    Some Republicans in Congress have long assailed the program as politically correct and ineffective, asserting that singling out and using the term “radical Islam” as the trigger for many violent attacks would help focus deterrence efforts.

    Others counter that branding the problem as “radical Islam” would only serve to alienate more than three million Americans who practice Islam peacefully.

    Many community groups, meanwhile, had already been cautious about the program, partly over concerns that it could double as a surveillance tool for law enforcement.

    Hoda Hawa, director of policy for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said she was told last week by people within DHS that there was a push to refocus the CVE effort from tackling all violent ideology to only Islamist extremism.

    “That is concerning for us because they are targeting a faith group and casting it under a net of suspicion,” she said.

    Another source familiar with the matter was told last week by a DHS official that a name change would take place. Three other sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such plans had been discussed but were unable to attest whether they had been finalized.

    The Obama administration sought to foster relationships with community groups to engage them in the counterterrorism effort. In 2016, Congress appropriated $10 million in grants for CVE efforts and DHS awarded the first round of grants on Jan. 13, a week before Trump was inaugurated.

    Among those approved were local governments, city police departments, universities and non-profit organizations. In addition to organizations dedicated to combating Islamic State’s recruitment in the United States, grants also went to Life After Hate, which rehabilitates former neo-Nazis and other domestic extremists.

    Just in the past two years, authorities blamed radical and violent ideologies as the motives for a white supremacist’s shooting rampage inside a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina and Islamist militants for shootings and bombings in California, Florida and New York.

    “The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

    And in other news, a far-right Trump fan shot up a mosque in Quebec, killing 6 and wounding 8 others. But that, of course, was in Canada. It could never happen in America. Again.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 1, 2017, 7:04 pm
  3. News today is Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch’s founding of the Fascism Forever Club while enrolled at his private Georgetown prep school.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4182852/Trump-s-SCOTUS-pick-founded-club-called-Fascism-Forever.html

    Just warms the heart, doesn’t it?

    Posted by Sampson | February 2, 2017, 7:26 am
  4. With Donald Trump once again attempting to undercut the authority of a federal judge who ruled against – the first time being Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel ruling against Trump in his Trump University fraud case and now Trump railing” against the federal “so-called judge who temporarily blocked his 7-country travel ban – along with his firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates for her refusal to implement that travel van, it’s worth keeping in mind that the current fight over the constitutionality of Trump’s travel ban executive order is going to be dwarfed by the future fights tucked away his immigration-related executive orders. Like the order that could see 8 million undocumented immigrants deported for everything from letting their kids eat a free school lunch, to using medical services for the poor, or basically any reason an immigration agent comes up with. Possibly involving immediate deportation without a hearing:

    The Los Angeles Times

    8 million people could be deported under Trump’s immigration order

    By Brian Bennet
    February 4, 2017, 12:00 PM

    When President Trump ordered a vast overhaul of immigration law enforcement during his first week in office, he stripped away most restrictions on who should be deported, opening the door for roundups and detentions on a scale not seen in nearly a decade.

    Up to 8 million people in the country illegally could be considered priorities for deportation, according to calculations by the Los Angeles Times. They were based on interviews with experts who studied the order and two internal documents that signal immigration officials are taking an expansive view of Trump’s directive.

    Far from targeting only “bad hombres,” as Trump has said repeatedly, his new order allows immigration agents to detain nearly anyone they come in contact with who has crossed the border illegally. People could be booked into custody for using food stamps or if their child receives free school lunches.

    The deportation targets are a much larger group than those swept up in the travel bans that sowed chaos at airports and seized public attention over the past week. Fewer than 1 million people came to the U.S. over the past decade from the seven countries from which most visitors are temporarily blocked.

    Deportations of this scale, which has not been publicly totaled before, could have widely felt consequences: Families would be separated. Businesses catering to immigrant customers may be shuttered. Crops could be left to rot, unpicked, as agricultural and other industries that rely on immigrant workforces face labor shortages. U.S. relations could be strained with countries that stand to receive an influx of deported people, particularly in Latin America. Even the Social Security system, which many immigrants working illegally pay into under fake identification numbers, would take a hit.

    The new instructions represent a wide expansion of President Obama’s focus on deporting only recent arrivals, repeat immigration violators and people with multiple criminal violations. Under the Obama administration, only about 1.4 million people were considered priorities for removal.

    “We are going back to enforcement chaos — they are going to give lip service to going after criminals, but they really are going to round up everybody they can get their hands on,” said David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. and an immigration lawyer for more than two decades.

    Trump’s orders instruct officers to deport not only those convicted of crimes, but also those who aren’t charged but are believed to have committed “acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.”

    That category applies to the 6 million people believed to have entered the U.S. without passing through an official border crossing. The rest of the 11.1 million people in the country illegally, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, are believed to have entered on a valid visa and stayed past its expiration date.

    Also among those 11.1 million are about 8 million jobholders, Pew found. The vast majority have worked in violation of the law by stating on federal employment forms that they were legally allowed to work. Trump’s order calls for targeting anyone who lied on the forms.

    Trump’s deportation priorities also include smaller groups whose totals remain elusive: people in the country illegally who are charged with crimes that have not yet been adjudicated and those who receive an improper welfare benefit, used a fake identity card, were found driving without a license or received federal food assistance.

    An additional executive order under consideration would block entry to anyone the U.S. believes may use benefit programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according two Trump administration officials who have seen the draft order.

    The changes reflect an effort to deter illegal migration by increasing the threat of deportation and cutting off access to social services and work opportunities, an approach that 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called “self-deportation.”

    The White House insisted that it is intent on rooting out those who endanger Americans. Trump aides pointed to 124 people who were released from immigration custody from 2010 to 2015 who went on to be charged with murder, according to immigration data provided to Congress by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    “It’s not that 6 million people are priorities for removal, it is the dangerous criminals hiding among those millions who are no longer able to hide,” said a White House official who would not be named describing internal policy debates.

    “We’ve gone from a situation where ICE officers have no discretion to enhance public safety and their hands are totally tied, to allowing ICE officers to engage in preventative policing and to go after known public safety threats and stop terrible crimes from happening.”

    The changes, some of which have already begun with more expected in the coming months, set the stage for sweeping deportations last seen in the final years of the George W. Bush administration. Factories and meatpacking plants were raided after talks with Congress over comprehensive immigration reform broke down in 2007.

    After Obama took office, his administration stopped those worksite raids and restricted deportation priorities. Expulsions of people settled and working in the U.S. fell more than 70% from 2009 to 2016.

    That era has come to an end.

    Although immigration agents will want to go after criminals and people who pose national security risks, Trump’s order gives them leeway and marks a return to “traditional enforcement,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for restrictions on immigration.

    “Almost everyone who is here illegally could potentially be considered a priority,” Vaughan said.

    Just how many people are swept up will depend on new instructions being drafted for immigration agents that will be rolled out over the next several months. But already, signs point to immigration officials embracing Trump’s order.

    In late January, Trump’s immigration policy experts gave a 20-page document to top Homeland Security officials that lays out how to ramp up immigration enforcement, according to two people familiar with the memo. A list of steps included nearly doubling the number of people held in immigration detention to 80,000 per day, as well as clamping down on programs that allow people to leave immigration custody and check in with federal agents or wear an ankle monitor while their cases play out in immigration court.

    The instructions also propose allowing Border Patrol agents to provide translation assistance to local law enforcement, a practice that was stopped in 2012 over concerns that it was contributing to racial profiling.

    In addition, Homeland Security officials have circulated an 11-page memo on how to enact Trump’s order. Among other steps, that document suggests expanding the use of a deportation process that bypasses immigration courts and allows officers to expel foreigners immediately upon capture. The process, called expedited removal, now applies only to immigrants who are arrested within 100 miles of the border and within two weeks of illegally crossing over and who don’t express a credible fear of persecution back home. The program could be expanded farther from the border and target those who have lived in the U.S. illegally for up to two years.

    ““We are going back to enforcement chaos — they are going to give lip service to going after criminals, but they really are going to round up everybody they can get their hands on,” said David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. and an immigration lawyer for more than two decades.”

    Well, it looks like exploitation of the undocumented immigrant community – one of the most vulnerable members of American society (yes, the undocumented immigrants are actually a member of the society they’re living in by virtue of living in it whether you like it or not) – is about to explode since no one is going to want any contact with law enforcement. But they won’t just go without reporting crimes. They’ll also go with basic medical services and meals for their kids:


    Far from targeting only “bad hombres,” as Trump has said repeatedly, his new order allows immigration agents to detain nearly anyone they come in contact with who has crossed the border illegally. People could be booked into custody for using food stamps or if their child receives free school lunches.

    An additional executive order under consideration would block entry to anyone the U.S. believes may use benefit programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according two Trump administration officials who have seen the draft order.

    So get ready for a much sicker undocumented immigrant community too. Along with the predictable ‘immigrants bring disease’ far-right memes. Along those lines, whenever you read any quotes from the Center for Immigration Studies (like this one):

    Although immigration agents will want to go after criminals and people who pose national security risks, Trump’s order gives them leeway and marks a return to “traditional enforcement,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for restrictions on immigration.

    “Almost everyone who is here illegally could potentially be considered a priority,” Vaughan said.

    keep in mind that the Center for Immigration Studies is a far-right group with ties to the pro-eugenics Pioneer Fund, FAIR, and what would today be labeled the “Alt-Right”.

    Also note how rapidly the number of people either expelled or held in detention could expand given the broadness of the executive order. And that could include vastly expanding the number of people who could be immediately expelled (or held) without processing through immigration courts:

    In addition, Homeland Security officials have circulated an 11-page memo on how to enact Trump’s order. Among other steps, that document suggests expanding the use of a deportation process that bypasses immigration courts and allows officers to expel foreigners immediately upon capture. The process, called expedited removal, now applies only to immigrants who are arrested within 100 miles of the border and within two weeks of illegally crossing over and who don’t express a credible fear of persecution back home. The program could be expanded farther from the border and target those who have lived in the U.S. illegally for up to two years.

    So one of the big questions going forward is just how is this surge in the number of people going to logistically happen. Well, as the article below notes, Steve Bannon has a plan for that:

    Newsweek

    Steve Bannon’s Fever Dream of an American Gulag

    By Jeff Stein On 2/2/17 at 9:56 AM

    UPDATED | Imagine: Miles upon miles of new concrete jails stretching across the scrub-brush horizons of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, with millions of people incarcerated in orange jumpsuits and awaiting deportation.

    Such is the fevered vision of a little-noticed segment of President Donald Trump’s sulfurous executive order on border security and immigration enforcement security. Section 5 of the January 25 order calls for the “immediate” construction of detention facilities and allocation of personnel and legal resources “to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico” and process them for deportation. But another, much overlooked, order signed the same day spells out, in ominous terms, who will go.

    Trump promised a week after the November elections that he would expel or imprison some 2 million or 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions—a number that exists mainly in his imagination. (Only about 820,000 undocumented immigrants currently have a criminal record, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Many of those have traffic infractions and other misdemeanors.)

    “Some 6 million to 8 million people in the country illegally could be considered priorities for deportation,” according to calculations by the Los Angeles Times.

    The spectre of new, pop-up jails housing hundreds of thousands of people is as powerful a fright-dream for liberals as it is a triumph for the president’s “America first” svengali, Steve Bannon. But, like the fuzzy Trump order dropping the gate on travelers from seven Muslim-majority states, the deportation measure presents so many fiscal and legal restraints that is also looks suspiciously like just another act of ideological showboating from the rumpled White House strategy chief.

    “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly promised to the writer Ronald Radosh at a party at his Capitol Hill townhouse last summer. “Lenin,” he said of the Russian revolutionary, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

    The executive orders were “not issued as result of any recommendation or threat assessment made by DHS to the White House,” Department of Homeland Security officials conceded in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, according to a statement from Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill. They were all Bannon-style revolutionary theater.

    Mainstream Republicans, watch out: If you oppose the deportation orders, you may end up like Eric Cantor, the not-conservative-enough House majority leader from Virginia brought down with Bannon’s help by a virtually unknown, far-right college economics professor, Dave Brat, in the 2014 election. Two years later, Cantor still could not fathom the success of Bannon’s politics of resentment and hate. “Negativity, attack and anger will not be a sustainable campaign narrative in the general election,” he predicted in a June 2016 interview with The Washington Post. “It will not.”

    Yes, it will, to borrow a line from Barack Obama. And they’ve only just begun.

    “Even as confusion, internal dissent and widespread condemnation greeted President Trump’s travel ban and crackdown on refugees this weekend, senior White House aides say they are are only getting started,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “Trump’s top advisors on immigration, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country and to block a generation of people who, in their view, won’t assimilate into American society.”

    How broadly radical their vision is can be seen in “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” the companion order to the travel ban, which lists aliens for “prioritize[d] removal.” It includes those who “have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense,” and also aliens who have “abused any program related to receipt of public benefits.”

    In other words, some targets can be deported because a DHS agent believes the person has broken a law of any kind, “regardless of whether that person has been charged with a crime,” as one analyst put it. And what does “abusing” a welfare-oriented program mean? Judges and lawyers could be fouled up with that matter alone for years.

    Other candidates for the Trump roundup include aliens who have made “a willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a government agency.”

    What is “any official matter”?

    “If these items were not broad enough,” noted Walter Pincus, the venerated former Washington Post national security reporter, “the final category for being detained for deportation is ‘in the judgment of an immigration officer, [the aliens] otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.’”

    “If ever a category encouraged racial profiling, that is it,” Pincus wrote for the Cypher Brief, a new publication by intelligence professionals covering national security issues.

    But it’s not just racial profiling. The new militancy unleashed by Trump’s campaign and election seems to be empowering the administration’s most fired up supporters, and at least some authorities to take out their rage on white protesters as well. Last week, a 22-year-veteran New York cop posted a video of a protester in Washington being struck in the face, twice, by an anonymous passerby. “The officer shared the video on his Facebook wall with the text, ‘Grow up bitches and get a job,’” according to a report by ProPublica. “Two retired Port Authority police officers joined in, saying, ‘This needs to happen more often!’ and ‘Thats [sic] what the [sic] all need, a little ass kicking.’”

    Bannon, the former executive editor of far-right Breitbart News, presumably would approve. “If there’s an explosion or a fire somewhere,” Matthew Boyle, Breitbart’s Washington political editor, said in 2015, “Steve’s probably nearby with some matches.”

    The former Goldman Sachs investment banker has amassed immense sway in the White House, not just over Trump, but over the machinery of foreign and domestic policy, including the deportations plan. The president gave him a seat on the elite “principals committee” of the White House National Security Council, effectively bestowing him parity with cabinet chiefs, including the secretary of homeland security. Democrats are complaining that the appointment should require Senate confirmation.

    Trump will ignore them. The personalities of the grandiose president and the self-described Leninist perfectly mesh, especially on matters involving immigrants and the Department of Homeland Security, where they are replacing Obama holdovers with officials who have with impressive track records for rounding up and deporting aliens.

    One of them is Thomas Homan, who Trump just elevated to run ICE, the homeland security department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau. “The White House cited his success expanding arrests and detention beds for the recent surge in children and families fleeing violence in Central America,” The Washington Post reported. ”While the number of deportations of illegal immigrants with criminal records has declined in recent years, last year this group made up almost 60 percent of the total number expelled from the country, the largest percentage in recent memory, ICE officials said.” The White House also removed Mark A. Morgan, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, who had clashed with the powerful Border Patrol union, which endorsed Trump for president.

    What will bog down the administration’s promise to round up and deport millions of immigrants is Congress—not so much its Republican majority’s distaste for the program, but paying for it. Trump has authorized the hiring of 10,000 additional immigration officers, as well as 5,000 additional Border Patrol officers. “Between the two, he has called for the hiring of more government employees than his highly publicized saving of manufacturing jobs at Carrier and Ford,” Pincus noted. The White House order also directs DHS to make money available to “immediately assign asylum officers to immigration detention facilities for the purpose of accepting asylum referrals.” The Justice Department has been told to get with the program, as White House spokesman Sean Spicer advised unhappy foreign service officers—and fast. The executive order directs it to “immediately assign immigration judges to immigration detention facilities.”

    All this thrashing about resembles nothing so much as the botched rollout of the administration’s travel entry ban—with an important difference. All it took to implement the airport chaos was an order and a few hundred confused, overwhelmed Transportation Security Administration agents and officials. In sharp contrast, the detention and deportment orders mostly require tons more bricks-and-mortar construction and an immense influx of new federal agents — all subjected to “extreme vetting,” one presumes, considering the recent spike in corruption in the border patrol service.

    Pincus noted that Mark Sandy, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, rushed out a statement saying the White House “anticipated…increased costs,” not only in the current budget but in those beyond, for “steps related to immigration enforcement” as well as for “a wall along the southern border.” All that will require vast amounts of money from the only governmental body that has it: Congress.

    “To fully implement [the detention] part of the executive order would require Congress to appropriate funds to the specific project,” says Kate Brannen, deputy managing editor of Just Security, which covers the intersection of law, national security and human rights.

    “Until then, [DHS] Secretary [John] Kelly will be limited in how much money he can move around in his budget for it, which is why it says ‘legally available resources.’”

    Expect DHS to start advertising for bids from private prison operators, a much-maligned industry that was collapsing in the latter years of the Obama administration. Two of the largest, GEO Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc., are already seeing windfalls from their second chance at life: Their stock prices have nearly doubled since the election.

    “Expect DHS to start advertising for bids from private prison operators, a much-maligned industry that was collapsing in the latter years of the Obama administration. Two of the largest, GEO Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc., are already seeing windfalls from their second chance at life: Their stock prices have nearly doubled since the election.”

    A massive network of new private prisons to hold the millions of people Trump and Bannon are planning on rounding up and expelling. That’s the plan.

    Also keep in mind that, while there’s almost no way the GOP isn’t going to end up exploding the deficit to pay for all the tax cuts for the rich, the GOP is still almost certainly going to be using “revenue neutrality” as a rallying cry for justifying widespread cuts to federal programs. Specifically, whenever there’s a new spending program, the GOP is going to say “we need to make this new spending program revenue-neutral, which means we’re going to have to make cuts elsewhere to pay for it (and ignore our budget-busting tax cuts)”. And the only way to keep this construction blitz cost-neutral is to cut federal discretionary programs…especially federal welfare programs. So in order to stop undocumented immigrants from using US welfare programs, Trump and the GOP will build a new gulag that will almost certainly be paid for by cutting US welfare programs.

    At least now we know what Trump’s real infrastructure program is going to look like.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 4, 2017, 3:45 pm

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