They will take for their own enrichment the proverbial mile, and your children's well-being, your grandparents' longevity, your public lands, clean air and water, and more.
With control of all three branches of the Federal government, GOP donor-water carriers in Congress are refusing to fund children's health care, while trying to cut income tax deductions for already-strapped college students on scholarship, and also for the disabled and chronically ill - - while stuffing into their last-ditch, hand-written tax bill fresh breaks for corporations already enjoying record profits, and for billionaires, Trump heirs, and even private airplane owners.
So think about that: no deduction should your child with spina bifida or spouse with ALS needs a wheelchair, but breaks for someone who wants a new private jet.
Look no further to the cold-hearted House Speaker and long-time senior Wisconsin Ayn Rand apologist Paul Ryan. along with the admittedly self-interested Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson for the handiwork.
Also thrown into a version of the tax bill is permission to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve - - just one more stick in the eye to environmentalists battling against a mission-destroying US Environmental Protection Agency that is handing over protected waterways and clean air to the very fossil fuel polluters whose recklessness and greed brought the agency, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act into being in the first place.
And where are Congressional Republicans and Team Trump getting some of their inspiration?
In Wisconsin.
Where, under Scott Walker since January, 2011, the formerly-progressive state that gave the nation the great conservationists Aldo Leopold, John Muir and Gaylord Nelson has served as the Republican's template and proving ground for right-wing favoritism and a public policy wrecking ball freely unbound once the GOP gained control of all three branches of government.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, formerly a national leader in science-based resource management and conservation, is now on the second of Walker's hand-picked 'chamber of commerce mentality' secretaries; the first, despair-dispenser, developer, and former McDonald's manager Cathy Stepp - - and vocal Trump campaign backer - - had overseen the firing of agency scientists, easing of pollution controls over big dairy operations, enabling of groundwater contamination and scrubbing of climate change information from agency web pages.
Her reward: a management job from Trump at the EPA regional office in Kansas City.
Her replacement as Walker's next 'chamber of commerce mentality' secretary of the DNR is Dan Meyer, who, until recently was the Executive Director of the River Falls Chamber of Commerce.
His highest profile actions to date: allowing sham agency 'hearings, and appointing a right-wing ideologue as DNR general counsel - - in that case no doubt to improve DNR coordination with with Brad Schimel, Wisconsin's GOP right-wing and corporately-aligned Attorney General.
Schimel, for his part, has aligned his office staff and litigation Walker and also with Scott Pruitt, Trump's Cathy Steppish EPA administrator.
Schimel also gave GOP legislators all the cover they needed when he issued a sweetheart, pro-business opinion that opened the floodgates - - literally - - so big polluting dairy operations and other large groundwater users could get permanent control of all the water they wanted.
Also coming soon to Wisconsin: massive deregulation of a million acres of state wetlands, cyanide-based mining for metals near rivers, and special environmental exemptions for the Trump-and-Walker-boosting Foxconn project, all mirroring the Trump-Interior Department overturning of protections for western monument sites' while green-lighting coal mining on other federal lands.
As I said, give these people an inch, and the miles and miles they want and will includes filled wetlands, contaminated rivers, and for many of the nation's poor, seniors, disabled and powerless, a road to personal ruin.
With control of all three branches of the Federal government, GOP donor-water carriers in Congress are refusing to fund children's health care, while trying to cut income tax deductions for already-strapped college students on scholarship, and also for the disabled and chronically ill - - while stuffing into their last-ditch, hand-written tax bill fresh breaks for corporations already enjoying record profits, and for billionaires, Trump heirs, and even private airplane owners.
So think about that: no deduction should your child with spina bifida or spouse with ALS needs a wheelchair, but breaks for someone who wants a new private jet.
Look no further to the cold-hearted House Speaker and long-time senior Wisconsin Ayn Rand apologist Paul Ryan. along with the admittedly self-interested Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson for the handiwork.
Also thrown into a version of the tax bill is permission to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve - - just one more stick in the eye to environmentalists battling against a mission-destroying US Environmental Protection Agency that is handing over protected waterways and clean air to the very fossil fuel polluters whose recklessness and greed brought the agency, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act into being in the first place.
And where are Congressional Republicans and Team Trump getting some of their inspiration?
In Wisconsin.
Where, under Scott Walker since January, 2011, the formerly-progressive state that gave the nation the great conservationists Aldo Leopold, John Muir and Gaylord Nelson has served as the Republican's template and proving ground for right-wing favoritism and a public policy wrecking ball freely unbound once the GOP gained control of all three branches of government.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, formerly a national leader in science-based resource management and conservation, is now on the second of Walker's hand-picked 'chamber of commerce mentality' secretaries; the first, despair-dispenser, developer, and former McDonald's manager Cathy Stepp - - and vocal Trump campaign backer - - had overseen the firing of agency scientists, easing of pollution controls over big dairy operations, enabling of groundwater contamination and scrubbing of climate change information from agency web pages.
Her reward: a management job from Trump at the EPA regional office in Kansas City.
Her replacement as Walker's next 'chamber of commerce mentality' secretary of the DNR is Dan Meyer, who, until recently was the Executive Director of the River Falls Chamber of Commerce.
His highest profile actions to date: allowing sham agency 'hearings, and appointing a right-wing ideologue as DNR general counsel - - in that case no doubt to improve DNR coordination with with Brad Schimel, Wisconsin's GOP right-wing and corporately-aligned Attorney General.
Schimel, for his part, has aligned his office staff and litigation Walker and also with Scott Pruitt, Trump's Cathy Steppish EPA administrator.
Schimel also gave GOP legislators all the cover they needed when he issued a sweetheart, pro-business opinion that opened the floodgates - - literally - - so big polluting dairy operations and other large groundwater users could get permanent control of all the water they wanted.
Also coming soon to Wisconsin: massive deregulation of a million acres of state wetlands, cyanide-based mining for metals near rivers, and special environmental exemptions for the Trump-and-Walker-boosting Foxconn project, all mirroring the Trump-Interior Department overturning of protections for western monument sites' while green-lighting coal mining on other federal lands.
As I said, give these people an inch, and the miles and miles they want and will includes filled wetlands, contaminated rivers, and for many of the nation's poor, seniors, disabled and powerless, a road to personal ruin.
