Julia Conley at Common Dreams writes—'Years of Work Down the Drain' as Trump Endangers Wildlife and Communities by Gutting Successful Conservation Program:
As part of its anti-environment agenda, the Trump administration has directly contradicted orders from Congress by cutting funding for a successful national conservation program.
The Guardian reported Monday that numerous scientists and employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) say President Donald Trump unilaterally slashed funding for a program put in place by the Obama administration in 2010 called Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs).
The president's actions were denounced as "disheartening and short-sighted" by one critic on social media.
Funding for the cooperatives, which cost about $12.5 million per year to operate, was written out of the budgets the president has submitted to Congress each year—but lobbying by native tribes and green groups helped convince lawmakers to approve the funding.
As a result, employees of the LCCs have been stunned to see the organizations shut down entirely or go on indefinite hiatus as the Trump administration has gone over legislators' heads to cut the LCCs off. [...]
QUOTATION
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
~~Ursula K. Le Guin, acceptance speech upon receiving the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2010—Glenn Beck's ratings: Not as meteoric as people think:
Yesterday, for some reason or another, I was curious to see how Glenn Beck had been doing in the ratings department...so I collected the ratings for each and every one of his TV broadcasts since the premiere of his show on Fox in January, 2009.
Next, I calculated the average audience size for each week that the show has been on the air, and put the numbers into a chart. (To be fair and balanced, I excluded the weeks of the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's holidays, each of which artificially depressed Beck's numbers.)
The chart revealed something of a surprise: since Glenn Beck's ratings peak during the week ending January 22 (the week of Beck's special "Revolutionary Holocaust: Live free or die" broadcast), Beck's ratings have been on a steep slide, dropping nearly 50%.
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show:
Greg Dworkin r
ounds up weekend headlines. Neilsen’s out at DHS, and Trump fakes a replacement. Dems posting big fundraising numbers. The WH is backpedaling on Mueller report; won't comply on tax returns. McGahn is talking & it's not helping.