Sunshine & Progress

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Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress.

Trump's Terrible, Troubling, Chaos Budget

Donald Trump’s released his first budget and the only people who like it, are the Republicans that are in office. It is clear the the people who will be minorities, people in poverty, the dwindling middle class, farmers, and... Trump voters. It gives more than $4.5 billion in new spending to fight immigrants with a huge, unnecessary border wall and ICE agents, prosecutors and judges who should be working other cases and fighting real crime. His budget cuts in areas that helps the most vulnerable people, such as Meals On Wheels, Foreign Aid, After-school programs, the National Endowment of the Arts, Pell grants, Medicare, etc. Trump's "wall" gets the most money, with $2.6 billion, then he gives $1.5 billion for expanded detention (dolling out one to manage a problem he is creating), transportation and removal of immigrants who have not committed any crimes, splitting families apart. The Department of Homeland Security estimated that the wall will cost $21 billion, and Trump still wants US citizens to pay for it through taxes. Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress.

In recent days, former White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Trump's claim that President Obama wiretapped phones at Trump Tower is an attempt to divert attention from questions over contacts between Trump associates and Russia. "President Trump is working very hard to try to distract the American public and the news media from the growing scandal about why his administration and why he himself has, at best, not been forthcoming about their talks and their ties with Russia," Earnest, who was Obama's press secretary, told ABC News chief global affairs correspondent, Martha Raddatz. "There is one page in the Trump White House crisis-management playbook, and that is simply to tweet or say something outrageous to distract from a scandal, and the bigger the scandal, the more outrageous the tweet," Earnest said on "This Week" on Sunday. Lying Trump made the claim about a wiretap in a series of tweets Saturday morning. Earnest said, "This may come as a surprise to the current occupant of the Oval Office, but the president of the United States does not have the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of an American citizen." Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress. 

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YL5CX9zUNQ&feature=player_embedded.

Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress.

Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress.

The Republicans have been trying to repeal Obamacare for years, since President Obama signed it into law. They have told numerous lies about it and today on March 6, 2017, they released a plan to reshape the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, it looks exactly how Liberals and Progressives thought it would look (and it has not numbers about how much it will cost, of course). Their "repeal and replace"plan kills the requirement for everyone to buy health insurance by eliminating the tax penalty for those who don't have coverage; which means not mandate. This begs the question: Do you expect for insurance companies to give 20 million for free with no mandate incentive? And: If there is no penalty for not having coverage, doesn't that make premiums higher, since less people are covered?  Their plan of idiocy also makes significant changes in the financial assistance people can receive to buy a health plan; meaning poor people won't be able to afford it, accept with a non-existent voucher. "Our legislation transfers power from Washington back to the states," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, in a statement. "We dismantle Obamacare's damaging taxes and mandates so states can deliver quality affordable options." The bill would offer tax credits to people with incomes below 75 grand year, but those credits will be lower in many cases than the subsidies now offered in the ACA, and there is no guarantee that they won't decrease over time... Continue reading on our website.

http://sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress/the-affordable-care-act-republicans-and-the-resistance

The Trump White House shows danger for the US. Their connections to Russia is unnerving and new layers of information on how close his and the Russian government, controlled by Vladimir Putin is released everyday. Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov ran a political organization and held rallies in an opposition movement against Vladimir Putin. Boris was shot in the back, just outside of the Kremlin on February 27, 2015. “There will be no let-up in our efforts, we will give up nothing. This act of terror has not achieved its goal in this sense,” said Navalny, after being jailed for 15 days, that March. He was arrested for handing out leaflets in the metro for at the protest rally/ funeral march. Nemtsov was one of the most prominent politician to be killed during Putin’s 15-year rule over Russia, and no arrests have been made over the murder. Putin’s Russian court so after leaving a Moscow detention center in Moscow Navalny said he would “go home to shower and change and then planned to visit Nemtsov’s grave.” I am not frightened and I am sure my associates are not frightened either,” said Navalny. He has decided to run for president against Putin, and since then, he has been attacked by Putin controlled entities... http://sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress/vladimir-putin-s-russian-political-nemesis-reaching-out-to-the-public-exposing-his-corruption. 

Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress.

This weekend marked the 52nd anniversary of Martin Luther King's, March on Selma. To commemorate the event many African Americans, activists, politicians, ministers. journalists and media members met in Alabama to celebrate King's work on voting right, civil rights and to show solidarity with the people who were attacked, beaten and killed on the along the journey. However not everyone that attended the events, were friends of people of color or the Voting Rights Act. many governors and representative that supported the Supreme Court's decision to gut the Voting rights Act showed their faces at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church on Sunday with not shame. Politicians like Sen. Tim Scott and Alabama's Secretary of State, John Merrill decided to attend even with the racial and political tension over Alabama’s controversial voter ID law. This blatant disregard and respect for Dr. King's advocacy of civil rights was to much for the Rev. Dr. William Barber to tolerate. The North Carolina minister and leader of the Moral Mondays Movement along with about two dozen other attendees, walked out; even though Rev. Barber was scheduled to speak along with Merrill. I also felt alarmed that Merrill a man that promoted the discriminatory law was even invited to such an event...Continue reading on our website: http://sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress/voting-rights.

Yesterday the nation's chief law enforcement officer, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions stated the Justice Department would back away from the frequently used Obama administration policy of suing local police departments to force reforms related to violations of excessive force policies, racial discrimination and other misconduct. This was a great aid in the release of reports that former DOJ chiefs Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch commissioned that revealed decades the institutional racism of law enforcement officers committed, in cities across the country like Chicago, Cleveland, and Baltimore. During the Obama Administration, more than two dozen local law enforcement agencies, including Ferguson, that were the subjects of federal investigations into misconduct. The inquiries resulted in these reports or consent decrees in which required reforms to policing operations are overseen by a federal judge. Ferguson and Baltimore police operations are subject to such court oversight, but Sessions has not decided how resolve deep problems uncovered last month by federal investigators in Chicago. Even though he tried to wave off allegations of racism and discrimination by promoting himself as a proponent of civi rights, Sessions takes steps to show that attacks on brown and black bodies do not matter by saying, "We need to help police officers get better rather than reduce their effectiveness, and I'm afraid we've done some of that. So, we're going to pull back a little on this. I don't think that it's wrong or mean or insensitive to civil rights or human rights. I think it's out of concern to make the lives of those, especially in poorer communities and minority communities, live a safer, happier life.'' the DOJ is people of color's last step when local representatives and leaders fail to protect them. Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress. 

Donald Trump has nominated Neil M. Gorsuch, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, to the U.S. Supreme Court. He announced his choice the same way that President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the exact same position over a year ago. Although, now Trump, Republicans in Congress, and Mitch McConnell, expect Democrats to fall in line a vote for Gorsuch's confirmation and ignore the blatant opposition Republicans displayed, by refusing to give Merrick Garland a Hearing, much less a vote. The organization Lambda Legal http://www.lambdalegal.org, is formally opposing Gorsuch's nomination. They believe his record shows hostility towards the LGBT community, women, and other marginalized groups. This is their first time opposing a Supreme Court nomination before a confirmation hearing. Grouch's record on critical issues like religious exemptions, is also cause for alarm.

According to the CEO of Lambda Legal, Rachel B. Tiven, “Judge Gorsuch’s opinion in the 10th Circuit Hobby Lobby decision is disqualifying. The Hobby Lobby decision set a terrible and destructive standard for bosses being allowed to meddle in our sex lives and decide whether or not birth control is covered by the employer’s insurance plan. In Judge Gorsuch’s decision, he calls the inclusion of health coverage that includes birth control – ‘complicity…in the wrongdoing of others." When ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, the SCOTUS judges mad it clear that favoring one religion over another can set a dangerous precedent; this does not move Gorsuch. We know that what happens in Washington will affect our lives for four years, but what happens at the Supreme Court can affect the nation for decades. Continue reading at: http://www.sunshineandprogress.com/sunshine-progress.