Mary Lemanski reads and comments on a list, compiled by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, of the Trump Administration’s civil and human rights rollbacks during the first year of his administration. More episodes to come covering all four years!
Transcription
Welcome to the Mary Kind contrary podcast. I am your host, Mary Lemanski. Welcome and thank you for listening today. Our sponsor is Cyberpunk Web Marketing and Virtual Assistant Services. Let’s talk about your business. Are you a solo professional who needs a little extra office help from time to time?
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Just visit cyberpunk marketing.com. Go to contact us and schedule a free 30 minute discovery call today. Again, that’s cyberpunk marketing.com today on the Mary kind de contrary podcast. Um, and for the next, well, for four episodes, I guess I will be doing this is I have decided, um, because, uh, last year I had gone through and posted this on my Facebook, which, so if you’re interested in my Facebook, it’s, uh, at Mary kind of contrary, um, and just go there.
Um, but I had listed for, um, several weeks. I was going through and listing every single. Civil and human rights rollback done by the Trump administration in the four years that he was in office. And I got my information from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. So I thought I would take that to my podcast and, um, actually go through and dedicate, um, an episode to each year of the Trump administration and, um, read to you all about his, uh, civil and human rights rollbacks and his administrations, um, cuz he didn’t act alone.
I am getting, again, my information from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. If you go to their website, they have a, uh, section of it de dedicated to this. It’s titled the Trump Administration Civil and Human Rights Rollbacks. And, um, they have every year of his administration starting from the beginning and they do a date by date, um, progression of what exactly his administration did in office.
It says, since Trump took office in January, 2017, his administration worked aggressively to turn back the clock on our nation’s civil and human rights progress. Um, now keep in mind, this is just his civil and human rights rollbacks. This doesn’t include his environmental rollbacks. , it doesn’t include how he basically dismantled the executive branch and rearranged it to his liking.
Um, and how he had, you know, acting, acting people in, they weren’t even, you know, appointed or anything. They’re just acting. So it’s kind of like a, a puppet government pretty much. Uh, see, the thing is our constitution and our country is founded on an experiment, and this crate experiment is dependent on everybody believing in it and everybody working toward the dream, working for a better society, a better educated society, a.
Free freer society and when people come along and they start eroding trust in our agencies and our administrative agencies in the executive branch and, um, eroding trust in our court system and eroding trust in our Congress, which has been going on for a long time. Let’s be honest, Congress doesn’t really get much done.
And, um, like all these civil rights rollbacks, like those, if those were codified in law, Trump could not have rolled all these human and civil rights rollbacks, back . He couldn’t have rolled them back. Um, if they were codified in law, he would’ve a lot harder time doing it anyway. Um, So Congress by neglecting that opened the door for Trump to do all of this.
Um, and he undid, you know, 200 plus years of people fighting and clawing and scratching their way towards freedom and towards equality. And he just pretty much, you know, did away with a lot of this stuff. So that being said, here we are, starting in the beginning on, in 2017. Now, he was sworn into office on January 20th as all presidents are.
Uh, so on January 27th, seven days later, uh, he starts with, um, Trump. He signed an executive order. The first version of his Muslim ban that discriminated against Muslims and banned refugees. Then on January 31st, a few days later, uh, under his new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pie, um, if you will remember him, and this is not brought up in these civil and human rights in this list that I remember as I was reading through it.
Um, this was also the guy who got rid of net neutrality. So there’s another blow by the, by the Trump administration to a free and fair internet. Um, but this chairman Naji Pi, under his leadership, the Federal Communications Commission refused to defend critical components of its prison phone rate rules in federal court.
It under the Obama administration, it, it was ready to defend these critical components of its prison phone rates rule in federal court. But, uh, under the new chairman, aji PI’s leadership, they decided to refuse to defend it and, um, the rules were ultimately struck down in June.
Um, on February 3rd, Trump signed an executive order outlining principles for regulating the US financial system. Because he does his, does so well with his businesses and calling for 120 day review of existing laws like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The order was viewed as Trump’s opening attack on consumer protection laws.
That was not even a month into office yet. February 3rd, again, on February 3rd. He was a busy day that day. Um, especially for the fcc. The fcc, uh, rescinded its 2014 joint sales agreement guidance, which had led to the only increase in television diversity in recent years. So we’re already starting to attack, uh, diversity and, and inclusion.
Again, on February 3rd, FCC Chairman PI revoked the Lifeline broadband provider designations for nine broadband service providers, reducing the number of providers offering broadband. So it the, it’s, that’s the government interfering with the marketplace, by the way, in case you are, uh, missed that. Um, and thus decreasing the competitive forces available to drive down prices.
Cuz if there’s more peop more companies offering broadband service, it draws Dr. Drives down the price. But when you get rid of nine of them and prices go up. So that happened busy day on February 3rd, February 7th, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting h J Res. 57 a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn a Department of Education accountability rule that clarifies state’s obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes or opposed that resolution. On February 9th, Trump signed three executive orders to fight crime gangs and drugs, restore law and order and support the dedicated men and women of law enforcement. You see, he did that so well on January 6th. The orders though vague reviewed suspiciously by civil rights organizations.
So when you start to undo civil rights, then you need to beef up your police force. because people get mad. Um, and you know,
it, it seems like, uh, the militarization of the police, it, it is a problem and seems like this, the wording of this kind of feeds into that militarization kind of a police state, if you will. Um, on February 10th, senators Patty Murray and Maria Conwell of Washington wrote to Education Secretary Betsy Duo.
After the centralized resource website for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act became inaccessible to the public for more than a week on February 17th, DEO. Issued a statement blaming the previous administration for neglecting the site because we all know when, when webpages are up, they just disappear for no reason.
You know, the, um, do they think we’re stupid? On February 21st, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo updating immigration enforcement guidance, massively expanding the number of people subject to detention and deportation. The guidance drastically increased the use of expedited removal and essentially eliminated the priorities for deportation.
So, as you can see, um, the, that was basically a month into the administration. They did all that. Um, it’s like they’re dismantling, um, things and changing policies that have been long set or, you know, or that were just set by the previous administration. On February 22nd, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s office for civil rights jointly rescinded Title IX guidance, clarifying Protections under the law for transgender students.
So when Republicans tell you they’re not being discriminatory, they’re, they, they started like a month right off the bat. I mean, you can’t, you can’t say that they’re not discriminating. On February 23rd, attorney General Sessions withdrew an earlier Justice Department memo that set a goal of reducing an ultimately ending the department’s use of PRI private prisons.
Um, I have a very strong objection to private prisons. I also have a strong objection. To healthcare for profit and to a lesser extent, education. Um, I believe that profiting office, somebody’s pain and suffering is unethical, and it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be encouraged by our government. Nobody should make money off of somebody’s pain and suffering.
So that includes sitting in a prison because there’s always ways of driving up your profit margin and somebody ends up paying for this. and when it comes to medical bills, it’s the patient. And so you’re nickel di these patients to death. And it’s unethical because on top of that, they’re suffering.
They’re, they may even be dying. And it, the way our healthcare system is, I wish we would go to a nonprofit format for it because nonprofits can exist in a capitalist state. They operate just fine. But that would take away these huge profits that are just given to shareholders at the expense of people’s healths and lives.
And I, I, I wanna include the pharmaceutical industry in this too. Uh, charging somebody outrageous amounts of money for insulin when it’s been low cost for years is just ridiculous.
So that’s my suggestion. Let’s all go nonprofit on the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. Take the profit out of it. Take the profit out of prisons. There’s no reason why any outside company should be involved in the punishment of a, a civilian in, in as, as a part of a, uh, state decision. So that’s my 2 cents on that.
Um, anyway, continuing on. On February 27th, the Department of Justice dropped the federal government’s longstanding position that a Texas voter ID law under legal Challenge was intentionally racially discriminatory. Despite having successfully advanced that argument in multiple federal courts. So the, the Department of Justice had held that a Texas voter ID law under Legal Challenge was intentionally racially discriminatory and had advanced that argument in multiple federal courts, and they just suddenly dropped it.
On February 27th, 2000, uh, 2017, the district court subsequently rejected the position of Jeff Session’s Justice Department. And concluded the law was passed with discriminatory intent, so they lost on that one. On March 6th, the Department of Justice withdrew its motion for a preliminary in John Injunction against North Carolina’s anti-trans gender HB two law.
So it had put in injunction under the Obama administration against North Carolina’s anti-trans gender HB two law, and the department under Jeff’s sessions, department of Justice under Jeff’s sessions on March 6th, withdrew its motion for the for the preliminary injunction.
On March 6th, Trump signed a revised executive order restricting travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and drastically cut back refugee admissions. So, um, so he has a Muslim ban and then he, he tried to restrict travel, um, and then of course he wants to build a wall, you know, wanted to build a wall against Mexico.
I think we see a theme here with people of brown color. So on March 6th, a week after Trump called on lawmakers to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his address to Congress, house Republicans released a proposal to replace the ACA with a law that would end the Medicaid program as we know it. And defund Planned Parenthood again on March 6th.
That was a busy day. That was four things. Now, on March 6th, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed ending the collection of data on L G B T Q, individuals with Disabilities removing questions on L G B T Q demographics from the Centers for Independent Living Annual Program Performance Report Survey On March 10th, the Department of Housing and Urban Development with Truist Survey proposed in the federal register meant to assess the efficacy and applicability of H U D funded programs to address L G B T Q Youth Homelessness.
According to its own data, 40% of young people experiencing homelessness identify as L G BT Q. So ensuring that its programs are adequately meeting the needs of young B lgbtq Q people is critical to H U D meeting its own mission. After significant public outcry, the assessment survey was eventually reinstated.
On March 13th, the Department of Health and Human Services released a draft of the annual National Survey of Older Americans Act participants, which gathers data on people who received services funded through the Older Americans Act. So now they’re going after the elderly. The Department of Health and Human Services draft collection instrument omitted the questions on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Asked on the previous years survey after receiving nearly 14,000 comments on the data collection proposal, and after facing bipartisan opposition from Congress, the Department of Health and Human Services restored the question on sexual orientation, but omitted a question that yielded information on gender identity.
So you, we see a theme here against L G B T Q, transgender, um, old people, brown people, but it’s only March. Um, so on March 16th, 2017, the Trump administration released a budget blueprint that proposed a 54 billion increase in military spending that would come from 54 billion in direct cuts to non-defense programs.
The blueprint also proposed spending $4.1 billion through 2018 on the beginnings of construction of a wall through communities on the US Mexico Borderer.
I wonder why the wall was so important. Where did that steal for the wall come from? Did it come from Russia? Just curious if, if somebody can get me an answer on that, that would be awesome. On March 17th, the Department of Housing and Urban Development removed links to four key resource documents from its website, which informed emergency shelters on be best practices for serving transgender people facing homelessness, and complying with H U D regulations.
So once again, they’re attacking the homeless, 40% of which are L G B T Q. As we learned earlier
on March 22nd, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting HR 1628, the American Healthcare Act, which leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposed. The White House issued a statement supporting the Senate’s Motion to Proceed to this legislation on July 24th. March 27th was another busy day for Trump.
On March 27th, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed a Department of Education Accountability Rule finalized the year before that would clarify state’s obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Also, on March 27th, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order.
The order signed by President Obama represented a much needed step forward in ensuring that the federal contractor community is providing safe and fair workplaces for employees by encouraging compliance with federal label labor and civil rights laws, and prohibiting the use of mandatory arbitration of certain disputes.
So now he’s attacking federal workers. I guess nobody is safe. On March 29th, the US Census Bureau asserted that there was no federal data needed to justify the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data. In the American Community Survey, the Bureau’s original submission to Congress included a table suggesting that it planned to collect data on sexual orientation and gender identity in the a c s starting in the next iteration of the survey.
But by the end of the day, the Bureau hastily removed any reference to these topics in a revised submission. During the Obama administration, at least four federal agencies had asked the bureau to add these questions. See, they’re undoing things that previous presidents worked for, uh, that other people had asked for, not just Obama.
On March 29th, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Education decided to terminate the opening Doors expanding Opportunity Grant Program, which helps local districts devise ways to boost socioeconomic diversity within their schools. In a March 31st memo, Jeff Sessions ordered a sweeping review of consent decrees with law enforcement agencies relating to police conduct a crucial tool in the Justice Department’s efforts to ensure constitutional and accountable policing.
The department also tried unsuccessfully to block a federal court in Baltimore from approving a consent decree between the city and the Baltimore Police Department to reign in discriminatory police practices that the department itself had negotiated over a multi-year period. So see, people are working on these things for years, and they’re just coming along and, oh, nope, we don’t need that anymore.
It’s kind of like they, they’re, they’re, they’re dismantling things. They were dismantling things, uh, dismantling, um, the ex, the executive branch, getting rid of various policies that protect people. Um, the, the homeless, the poor L G B T Q community, people of color and old people. And then they also, um, put distrust in these things that, you know, distrust in the fbi, distrust, distrust in the Supreme Court now, because, I mean, you have, uh, justices that are changing 50 years of president like that just because they don’t like it.
And then there’s, um, Uh, uh, our, our election system, I mean, people have been voting by mail for centuries, right? That people have, our men overseas have been voting by mail for centuries and, and, uh, so I don’t see why all of a sudden there’s something wrong with our, our voting system. And, and it wasn’t.
They had like 40 cases, 60 cases, whatever it was, and they were all, all dismissed because there was not enough evidence of voter fraud or election fraud. Um, going on. We’re still in 2017, by the way. This is just April. Um, Trump took office in January. On April 3rd, attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to back out of a consent decree to address civil rights violations by the Baltimore Police Department.
On April 11th, the administration proposed removing a question from the National Survey of Children’s Health going after kids. Now regarding preschool suspension and expulsion, without access to valid and reliable data, parents, advocates, educators, service providers, researchers, policy makers, and the public will not have the information they need to ensure early childhood settings are developmentally appropriate and non-discriminatory.
So when they, when they accuse Democrats of going after children, Trump actually was going after children right there, April 11th, 2017. On April 13th, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which overturned the US Department of Health and Human Services final Rule.
Updating the regulations governing the Title 10 Family Planning Program, a vital source of family planning and related preventive care for low income, uninsured and young people across the country,
once again, attacking the poor and young people. On April 14th, the Department of Justice voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s anti-trans gender HB two after the law was modified, although private challenges continued on April 26th. Trump released an outline of a tax reform plan that was reviewed largely as a tax giveaway for the wealthy and big corporations.
We all know how that turned out. The tax cuts are going away from the middle class. Yep. Gone. But guess who still has them? People who don’t need them. On April 26th, Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education, Betsy Duo, to conduct a study on the federal government’s role in education.
I mean, why, what a waste of taxpayer money. We know why kids need education. Do we want our country to fall behind and science and, and everything else? On May 2nd, the White House issued a Statement of administration policy supporting HR 1180, the Working Family’s Flexibility Act, which the Leadership Conference on Civil and Humans rights opposed on May 4th.
Trump signed an executive order that he claimed that he claimed to overturn the Johnson Amendment, though it did not, which precludes tax exempt organizations, including places of worship from engaging in any political campaign activity and would curtail the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act.
So he, he, he tried to do something, but he really didn’t do anything on May 10th. Just Sessions announced in a two page memo that the Department of Justice was abandoning its smart on crime initiative that had been hailed as a positive step forward in rehabilitating drug users and reducing the enormous cost of warehousing inmates.
Um, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting that they’re all worried about fentanyl now, when they did away with the smart on Crime initiative. I mean, really you can’t complain about something when you made it, made it worse. On May 11th, Trump signed an executive order creating the so-called Presidential Advisory Commission on election integrity headed by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State, Chris Kobas, who has a history of trying to suppress the vote in Kansas.
Oh my, the very best people, huh? On May 23rd, Trump released his fiscal year 2018 budget that included massive, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, which would be paid for by slashing basic living standards for the most vulnerable and by attacking critical programs like social security, disability insurance, Medicaid, food assistance, and more.
Also, on May 23rd, Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposed eliminating. See, here’s where Swear, he starts, um, trying to manipulate the office, the, uh, the executive branch itself, and get rid of agencies. Uh, on May 23rd Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposed eliminating the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and transferring its functions to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
This would ha have impeded the work of both the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as each have distinct missions and expertise, and would have thereby undermined the civil rights protections that employers and workers have re relied on for almost 50 years.
They want to tear down our government. I mean, that’s why they’re talking about seceding, that’s why they’re talking about. At the southern states leaving the, the, the union, again, this is why, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re having this divisive language at, at cpac. They’re, they’re wanting to break our country.
On June 5th, Trump released an infrastructure plan. This is June 5th, 2017. We’re still in his first year of office. This is just June. He’s only been, he hasn’t even been in office for six months. On June 5th, Trump released an infrastructure plan that focuses on putting public assets into private hands, creating another giveaway to wealthy corporations and millionaires at the expense of working families and communities.
On June 6th, the Department of Education’s office for Civil Rights issued unclear new instructions on transgen transgender student discrimination. On June 8th, the Office for Civil Rights, uh, the Department of Education’s acting head. Acting head, right? Not see, they’re all acting. Nobody actually has any accountability.
I guess the Department of Education’s office for Civil Rights acting head sent a memo to OCR staff discouraging systemic investigations in favor of individual investigations of discrimination. So they’re only looking for individual, individual instances rather than problems that happen systemically.
They really don’t wanna solve the problem is what it is. . So then on June 14th, Devo Devo decided to delay implementation of and to renegotiate the borrower defense to repayment and gainful employment regulations, important regulations that had been designed to protect students from predatory conduct by for-profit schools
back to the for-profit. So I did, I talked a little bit about for-profit in healthcare and, uh, prisons, how, how unethical it is. I have mixed feelings about for-profit schools. I think education should be available freely, but then if there’s a specific kind of thing that you’re teaching that’s different, I could see where somebody would want to charge for their program, um, at a, you know, a profit.
But if your, your program is n not really any different than any other college, I don’t understand why, why you would have a, have a for-profit school. Why wouldn’t you have a nonprofit school? Uh, ed education is not my area of expertise, although I, I mean, I’ve, I’m a teacher , I, I, um, I’m not like an administrator or anything like that.
You know, it, I’ve taught music, so, you know, maybe I don’t know some things, but it just seems that education for the most part should be freely available if we want an educated society. And so that is why public education is important. If you want to pay to send your kid to private school or a for-profit school, then by all means you can do that.
You have that freedom. But if we truly want an educated populace, which we should want an educated populace, then education needs to be freely available for people at some level. That’s just my 2 cents anyway. Onward. So on June 14th, 2017, the Department of Education withdrew without any explanation, a 2016 finding that an Ohio school district discriminated against a transgender girl.
On June 15th, the administration rescinded President Obama’s deferred action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent residence program, an initiative that. Had it gone into effect would’ve offered a pathway to citizenship for immigrant parents with children who are citizens or residents of the United States.
So now he’s Administ administration was attacking people have lived here mostly their whole life. On June 27th, labor Secretary Acosta requested information on the Obama era overtime rule signaling his intent to lower the salary threshold of the overtime rule. Also, on June 27th, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting HR 3 0 0 3, the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposed.
As I mentioned before, at the beginning of this, I am reading all of this. Off the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights website, you can go to civil rights.org and find this. I’m just reading it and giving my commentary on it. So also, again, on June 27th, this is the third thing, uh, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting HR 3004 Kate’s Law, which the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposed.
On June 28th, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to 44 states demanding extension information on how they maintain their voter roles. This request was made on the same. That President Trump’s so-called commission on election integrity sent letters to all 50 states demanding, intrusive and highly sensitive personal data about all registered voters.
You can see how fascist, this is starting to sound. Oh, we’re in July. Oh, he went almost a month without doing anything from June 28th. This is just for the civil rights, right? We’re not talking about environmental or anything else. Infrastructure. Nothing like that. Uh, so on July 24th, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting HJ Res one 11, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the consumer Financial Protection bureau’s Final rule on forced arbitration clauses.
The leadership conference on Civil and human rights opposed the resolution. The White House issued a statement on October 24th, opposing the Senate companion resolution. July 26th was another busy day on July 26th. Trump declared in a series of tweets that he was barring transgender people from serving in the military.
He followed through with a presidential memo on August 25th, though the issue, um, well at the, at the time of the writing of this was still being challenged in the courts. It’s no longer of course. Um, on July 26th, again, the Department of Justice filed a legal briefing arguing that Title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, a decision that contravened recent court decisions and equal employment opportunity commission guidance.
So basically now they’re wanting to discriminate against, against people because of their sexual orientation. On August 1st, the New York Times reported that this Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirm of affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants in a move without recent precedent.
This investigation and enforcement effort was planned to be run out of the Civil Rights Division’s front office by political appointees instead of by experienced career staff in the division’s Educational opportunities section, let’s just appoint random racists to, to make decisions about, uh, affirmative action.
That sounds like a good idea. On August 2nd, Trump announced his support of Republican backed legislation that would slash legal immigration in half over a decade. On August 7th, 2017, the Justice Department filed a brief in the Supreme Court in Houston versus a Philip Randolph Institute arguing that it should be easier for states to purge registered voters from their roles.
Reversing not only its longstanding legal interpretation, but also the position it had taken it in the lower courts in that case. So basically throwing our court system and into turmoil. I mean, the Justice Department had already already taken a position in the lower courts on the case and just reversed it.
Does that make you feel safe when you go to a court? Does that make you feel like it’s a stable court system that we have? and, and then the Supreme Court add the icing on the cake with the reversal of Roe versus Wade. And then, you know, certain justices on the, on the, on the court are now just shocked.
Why don’t people respect the court anymore? Gee, I wonder why it’s your own fault Dip shit. On August 28th, sessions lifted the Obama administration’s ban on the transfer of some military surplus items to domestic law enforcement. See, like I said, militarizing the police rescinding guidelines that were created in the wake of Ferguson to protect the public from law enforcement misuse of military grade weapons.
So they won a police state. So they control our every move, our, our, I mean, when they set the precedent that a woman does not have control over her uterus. , they can have then set the precedent that a man doesn’t have control over his body either, because if a woman doesn’t, then they can take it away from a man too.
Because when they, when they rescinded Roe versus Wade, they got rid of the, the argument for right to privacy. There’s literally one court case now holding up right to privacy. So they’re getting rid of right to privacy, um, causing turmoil, uh, and distrust of our US institutions, our elections, our uh, administrative agencies and our judicial branch on September 5th, still in 2017.
Jeff Sessions announced that the administration was rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the DACA program. On September 7th, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cake Shop versus Colorado Civil Rights Commission, arguing that businesses have a right to discriminate against L G B T Q customers.
On September 12th, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting HR 36 97, the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act, which the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposed. On September 15th, the Department of Justice ended the Community Oriented Policing Services Collaborative Reform Initiative, a Justice Department program that aimed to help build trust between police officers and the communities they serve.
I guess that’s not important anymore. People don’t need to trust the police officers in their community, I guess. Seems like a real smart thing to do. What a mess. Huh? What a mess. On September 22nd, duo announced that the Department of Education was rescinding guidance related to Title IX and school’s obligations regarding sexual violence and educational opportunity.
On September 24th, Trump issued the third version of his Muslim band, which unlike the previous versions, was of indefinite duration. On September 27th, the Trump administration and Republican leadership in Congress unveiled tax principles that would provide trillions in dollars of unnecessary tax cuts to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations.
And they wonder why we’re our deficit is. So high now, and they’re so worried about the debt ceiling and all this. Well, it’s your own damn fault. On October 2nd, 2017, still duo resented 72 guidance documents outlining the rights of students with disabilities. Though it wasn’t until October 21st until the public learned of the rescissions, nice to keep people informed and nice transparency there, huh.
On October 4th, the Department of Justice filed a brief in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to dismiss a lawsuit against the president’s transgender military ban. On October 5th, Jeff Sessions reversed a Justice Department policy again, reversing. Which clarified that transgender workers are protected from discrimination under Title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
On October 6th, the Department of Justice issued sweeping religious liberty guidance to federal agencies, which will create a license to discriminate against L G B T Q individuals than others. What if your religion says that you can discriminate against Republicans? Is that okay? On October 8th, the White House released a list of hardline immigration principles, a list of demands that included funding a border wall deporting Central American children seeking sanctuary and curbing grants to sanctuary cities.
Effectively stalling any possible bipartisan agreement on a bill to protect dreamers. Why don’t they want people coming here? Why don’t they want people to come here and build the life? Well, I hinted at I, well, I didn’t hint it. I more than hinted at it in my, uh, one of my earlier podcasts about white supremacy.
So if you wanna go back and listen to that, that’s shockful of information. My thing with this podcast is I wanna talk about things that the regular media is not talking about. They’re not talking about this. People are like, oh, the, the, the people on, on the news are saying We’re, we’re, uh, we’re losing our country, but, you know, I’m fine.
Nothing’s happening with me. Well, this is why we’re losing our country, because they chipped away at it for four years. And I’m just, you know, I’m just in October. It’s not even the, the end of the, the fourth quarter yet. They’re just getting started. Folks, on October 12th, Trump signed an executive order to undermine healthcare, and later that day announced that he would end subsidies for certain healthcare plans.
On October 27th, the Department of Education announced it was withdrawing nearly 600 policy, 600, 600 policy documents that people have worked on for years, probably regarding K through 12 and higher education. If this doesn’t make you mad, I don’t know what will America wake up on November 1st. Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed the consumer Financial protection bureau’s rule on forced arbitration.
Overturning the rule will enable big banks, payday lenders, and other financial companies to force victims of fraud, discrimination, or other unlawful conduct into a kangaroo court process where their claims are decided by hired arbitration firms rather than by judges and juries. Harming consumers and undermining civil rights and consumer protection laws.
On November 6th, the Trump administration announced it would terminate the temporary protected status designation for Nicaragua. Boy, they’re trying to lock out all the brown people, huh. On November 14th, 2017, the White House issued a statement of administration policy supporting HR one, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposed.
The White House subsequently issued statements supporting the this legislation on November 30th, the Senate version, and on December 18th, the conference report. On November 16th, the Federal Communications Commission voted to gut lifeline the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low income people.
Seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. They also voted to eliminate several rules, promoting competition and diversity in the broadcast media, undermining ownership chances for women and people of color. I mean this, this doesn’t sound like America to me.
On November 20th, no, 2017, the Trump administration announced it would terminate the temporary protected status designation in 18 months for approximately 59,000 Haitians living in the United States. On November 24th, Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director, acting against, still see the SH shadow puppet government.
Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a member of Congress. Mulvaney supported abolishing the consumer Bureau. All the best people, huh? All the best and has in the past, referred to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a sick, sad joke, quality man quality.
On December 4th, 2017, the Department of Labor proposed changing its long-standing position, codified in regulation that prohibited employers from pooling together tips and redistributing them to workers who don’t traditionally earn tips. Now they’re ripping off people that work for tips. Do you need every freaking penny we have?
Really? Do you need every freaking penny? I don’t think you need anymore. On December 12th, the Department of Justice wrote to Acting Census Bureau Director Ron Jarin requesting a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. It was untimely and un unnecessarily intrusive request that would destroy any chance for an accurate count, discarded years of careful research and increased costs significantly.
And finally, right before Christmas on December 21st, 2017, it is R. It was reported that Jeff’s sessions rescinded 25 guidance documents, including a letter sent to Chief Justices and court administrators to help state and local efforts to reform harmful practices of imposing fees and fines on poor people, again, attacking poor people again, again.
do poor people really need to be attacked anymore? So that was 2017. That was 2017, and I’ve been talking for an almost an hour. So that is everything that Trump did to Ro rollback Civil and human rights in 2017 alone, his first year in office. We’re just getting started. I’ve got three more episodes planned, so look forward to more.
And in closing, I, I just, I just wanna say that our democracy is still on the line. These people that spent four years destroying our country, some of them are still in office, some of them are in Congress right now. Some things that are not talked about in here, like I said before, is, Environmental rollbacks.
He, I mean, gosh, I could probably do four episodes on that every year. I just, I think that we all need to realize that our freedom is buried, fragile, and it doesn’t take much to undermine our freedoms. And if somebody spent four years, I mean, you just heard that was just one year. It got four more, three more to go.
All those, uh, things that he did, I don’t think that Joe Biden has gone back and, and fixed them. So they’re still broke. And so if Trump or another Republican comes in office, they’ll just do more. He was literally dismantling the executive branch, taking apart all the policies. , um, trying to get rid of some of the offices, fold them into other offices and lying the whole time saying that he’s there for us, the American people, when he’s really just there for his buddies, the other millionaires and billionaires, and the cruelty is what gets me the cruelty towards people with disabilities, the cruelty towards the poor, the cruelty towards transgender people and other LGBTQ community.
The hatred toward people of color, discrimination against women. I mean, is this the America that we really wanna live in? We really want more of this. We really want four more years of this, eight more years of this. I mean, I’m never honestly ever going to vote for a Republican ever again in my life after this.
They’re not to be trusted. , they’ve been lying, and they’re obviously compromised. Something’s going on where they’re all in lockstep with each other. I mean, that’s not normal. Even the de the Democrats aren’t even in lockstep with each other. It’s un cany and unnatural. And who supports Russia? Who has ever supported Russia in this country?
You’re going against the fbi, you’re going against the cia. You’re going against all of our intelligence agencies. You’re going against our military itself. The military has been supportive of Ukraine, and the misinformation is what kills me is just flat out lies. And then people believe it by the time that the truth has got its shoes on.
The lie is halfway around the world. There’s no stopping it, and then everybody, you know, it’s spread and the truth never really gets disseminated, I don’t think. I mean, look how many people’s reputations are ruined by the media and my own included. And, uh, they didn’t tell the whole truth. I, I told, I told the Chicago Tribune that the proud Boys targeted me, and they just, they left that all out.
The whole, my whole, how I knew that the Proud boys made my tweet go viral. And then I, I told the, the Chicago Tribune that, and they’d left all of my story out. They only, they only gave the story that fit the narrative that everybody else was giving. And, and I had given them an exclusive story where they could have actually, actually shared what I actually said.
and my viewpoint of what actually happened, because I have a degree MBA in E-business and I’ve done social media forever. And I know from my statistics and my, uh, analytics in the backend exactly what happened. And I know because I spoke at a school board meeting a week before it happened, and other people in our group were targeted.
So if, if you want more of that elect Republicans, if you want more fascists at school board meetings, targeting moms who get up and speak at school board meetings, elect Republicans, because that’s what we’ll. And I’m going to read and comment on every single one of these civil rights rollbacks for the next three podcasts after this one, because it’s important that everybody gets this out.
And please share this podcast. Please share it with people so that they know all of these things that the Republicans and Trump did while he was in office. And this is just 2017. We’re just getting started. So I guess that’s all I really have to say for now. I hope you all have a great week. I will be back with another podcast soon and, um, you’ll get to hear all of the civil and human rights rollbacks of Trump from 2018 next episode.
So until then, have a good one later.