That’s H. R. 861. Not the title of H. R. 861, it’s the whole bill.

The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.

The bill, introduced by Florida Republican Matt Gaetz and co-sponsored by Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, Mississippi’s Steven Palazzo, and Georgia’s Barry Loudermilk doesn’t bother with anything like wondering what happens to the data the agency collects, or the enforcement the agency carries out. It doesn’t sweat the details of employees or contracts. There’s nothing about what happens to the Clean Air Act, or the Clean Water Act, or the Endangered Species Act, or … anything at all.

Just ‘terminated.’

Of course, Republicans already have an alternative means of destroying the EPA in place. Under Scott Pruitt, the plan is already underway to subvert and pervert the agency’s mission, to make sure it is critically understaffed, to turn it into a prime example of a non-functional bureaucracy.

So it’s likely that Gaetz’s bill won’t get the support it needs. This time.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/spicer-makes-up-new-islamist-attack/ar-AAmIP8G?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

Kellyanne Conway’s “Bowling Green massacre” isn’t the only case of a White House aide pointing to a terror attack that didn’t happen to make the case for President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order limiting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly pointed to Atlanta, along with San Bernardino and Boston, as one of three U.S. cities that have been attacked by Islamist terrorists to argue that the Trump administration needed to act quickly to prevent another attack in the future.

While the Boston bombing and shootings in San Bernadino were both carried out by Islamist terrorists, neither involved foreign nationals from the seven countries in Trump’s executive order. There has never been an Islamist terror attack in Atlanta.

In a Jan. 29 appearance on ABC’s This Week, Spicer explained to Martha Raddatz that the White House needed to implement its executive order quickly, before another terror attack could take place. “What do we say to the family that loses somebody over a terroristic (sic), to whether it’s Atlanta or San Bernardino or the Boston bomber?”

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/317758-swedish-climate-minister-appears-to-mock-trump-administration-with-all-woman



Swedish Deputy Prime Minister and Climate Minister Isabella Lövin appeared to mock the Trump administration with a photo of herself surrounded by women as she signs a climate law.

In the photo, Lövin stares straight at the camera and is surrounded by seven women as she signs a law that set a goal of phasing out fossil fuels by 2045.

The photo bears a resemblance to an image of President Trump signing an executive order on his third day in office to restrict funds for overseas organizations that provide abortion services or support abortion rights.
In the photo, Trump is surrounded by Vice President Pence and six male advisers.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) presented the photo on the House floor last week.

“Look at this picture. Where are the women?” Maloney asked. “Yesterday, the president signed an executive order affecting and restricting healthcare for millions of women across the world while no woman was present.”

http://boingboing.net/2017/02/02/sean-spicer-claims-that-houthi.html

Houthi rebels from Yemen attacked a Saudi frigate; White House spokesman Sean Spicer falsely claimed that this was Iranian forces attacking a US Naval ship and thus an act of war; no one from the White House press corps corrected him or followed up.

The White House Press corps wanted to know what being put “on notice” entailed, and Spicer responded by claiming that Iran’s government took actions against a U.S. naval vessel, which would be an act of war. “I think General Flynn was really clear yesterday that Iran has violated the Joint Resolution that Iran’s additional hostile actions that it took against our navy vessel are ones that we are very clear are not going to sit by and take,” he said.

Pentagon Spokesman Christopher Sherwood confirmed to The Intercept that the attack was in fact conducted against a Saudi warship, and that the Pentagon suspects Houthi rebels. “It was a Saudi ship – it was actually a frigate” said Sherwood. “It was [conducted by] suspected Houthi rebels off the coast of Yemen.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/01/30/trump-targets-techs-h1b-visa-hiring-tool/97240588/

SAN FRANCISCO — President Trump's relationship with Silicon Valley has always been volatile at best, but it seems things soon may get even more contentious.

Administration officials have drafted a new executive order aimed at overhauling, among other things, the H-1B work-visa program that technology companies have long relied on to bring top foreign engineering talent to their U.S.-based locations.

In his news briefing Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the possible executive order on work visas "is part of a larger immigration effort" and stems from "an overall need to look at all of these measures."

The order, which has yet to come into effect, arrives on the heels of Friday's controversial immigration ban targeting seven majority-Muslim countries that sparked protests at airports around the country over the weekend.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/resistance-from-within-federal-workers-push-back-against-trump/ar-AAmts5m?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

The signs of popular dissent from President Trump’s opening volley of actions have been plain to see on the nation’s streets, at airports in the aftermath of his refu­gee and visa ban, and in the blizzard of outrage on social media. But there’s another level of resistance to the new president that is less visible and potentially more troublesome to the administration: a growing wave of opposition from the federal workers charged with implementing any new president’s agenda.

Less than two weeks into Trump’s administration, federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new president’s initiatives. Some federal employees have set up social media accounts to anonymously leak word of changes that Trump appointees are trying to make.

And a few government workers are pushing back more openly, incurring the wrath of a White House that, as press secretary Sean Spicer said this week about dissenters at the State Department, sends a clear message that they “should either get with the program, or they can go.”

At a church in Columbia Heights last weekend, dozens of federal workers attended a support group for civil servants seeking a forumto discuss their opposition to the Trump administration. And 180 federal employees have signed up for a workshop next weekend, where experts will offer advice on workers’ rights and how they can express civil disobedience.