*president trump is seriously dangerous*

[seemslikeadream]

trumpy impeachment calls continue poll says 35 % of Americans want 'worst president since Richard Nixon impeached

If Trump Keeps Repeating a Lie, It Becomes the Truth to Many People

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Push back against misinformation! Support real, independent media by clicking here to make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout and BuzzFlash.

What does Donald Trump stand to gain from repeatedly telling lies? For the answer, we can look to the Bush administration's propaganda campaign surrounding the invasion of Iraq: If you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth to your followers, and even to some people who are more independently minded. After all, look at how the media and much of the public were persuaded that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- when even internal CIA intelligence reports were indicating that was not the case.

Therefore, it should be no surprise that Trump and his staff claimed that his inauguration crowds were larger than the DC Women's March and President Obama's inauguration, and that he keeps on repeating the claim despite evidence to the contrary. When Trump doubles down on charging that there were up to 3 million illegal voters in the last election and calling for a Department of Justice investigation, he is reinforcing a lie -- using the mantle of "justice" to further disseminate his prevarication. Of course, the fact that Hillary Clinton beat Trump by about 3 million popular votes in the election gets lost in the maelstrom of coverage over Trump's brazenly untrue illegal voter assertion. In The Hill, Jordan Fabian and Jonathan Easley wrote that Trump's assertion was a "baseless claim that widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election." They noted that some Congressional civil rights leaders fear that the lie and pending investigation may be manipulated to use as an excuse for a further crackdown to keep legitimate non-Republican voters from the polls.

In a CNBC commentary, John Barry Ryan notes that Trump is facilitated in his lying by a base of supporters that is predisposed to believing him:

People are like football fans watching a replay of a referee's call. They have an opinion of what the outcome should be first and then come up with the facts supporting that opinion second.

This is not a new phenomenon; it is not a product of the internet age and the "fake news" era. People talk about the importance of "facts", but partisans have always only acknowledged the facts that support their side....

It is most likely that people have no idea what the facts are. They are really expressing their partisan political beliefs....

The Trump administration knows this and believes it allows them to say whatever they want. Because the facts will not play much of a role in how the public view his administration.

In short, lies masquerading as "alternative facts" are swallowed whole by zealous followers of authoritarian figures like Trump. One of the critical problems that a democracy faces when "alternative facts" become an omnipresent tool of governing is that the nation further erodes its mooring to a shared consensus on what constitutes reality. It is virtually impossible to make informed public policy decisions when facts are thrown up for grabs.

This is compounded by media outlets' reluctance to call a lie a lie. Consider NPR, which asserts that it will not call Trump's untrue statements "lies." The NPR justification for its decision squares with a Washington Post opinion piece that asserts that Trump may be delusional, and actually believes the false statements he is making -- and therefore does not have an understanding of the difference between reality and what he is asserting. Following this "reasoning," since Trump allegedly doesn't know he's lying, he can't be accused of it.

Hogwash. Like any demagogue, Trump understands that reshaping public thinking through audacious lies is an essential skill of an authoritarian leader.

In fact, it's Trump's indignation in the face of criticism for his lies that persuades many backers that he is telling the "truth." After all, would someone who is now president of the United States be so scornfully dishonest if he didn't have reason to be, given his position as head of government? Thus, this legitimization of the peddling of falsehoods, with the cooperation of a large segment of the corporate media, becomes a self-perpetuating loop.

Trump knows that the media will respond to his every tweet with headline stories, so he uses Twitter as if he were conducting an orchestra composed of news editors and reporters -- overseen, for the most part, by corporate publishers. He uses Twitter to retweet lies and create original ones. He also uses it to divert the media from stories he wants buried and to toss red meat opinions to his base. Trump is shaping an "alternative" portrait of national events that is fundamentally dishonest, yet wholly believed by large portions of the country.
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/comm ... any-people

[seemslikeadream]

Trump says US will prioritize Christian refugees
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/27/politics/ ... oogle_news

[seemslikeadream]

trump would shut out the Jews from coming to this country during WWll the way he is acting today

Of course he would, but that is also what the United States actually did during World War II until January 1944. Although, "Despite many obstacles, however, more than 200,000 Jews found refuge in the United States from 1933 to 1945, most of them before the end of 1941," much harder to imagine under Trump.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.ph ... d=10007094

Interestingly the capture of one German spy posing as a Jewish refugee was sufficient to cause general hostility to letting any refugees in, which is very much comparable to the situation today.

And surely you know the story of how the St. Louis, a ship with 937 mostly Jewish refugees, was within sight of Miami but received a cable from the U.S. government forcing them to turn away.

The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies

In a long tradition of “persecuting the refugee,” the State Department and FDR claimed that Jewish immigrants could threaten national security

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/u ... 180957324/

This we can also see on this board with the crew who a) think the Syria situation was entirely manufactured through U.S. support for jihadis but b) support blocking all of the refugees, including families and children, because some of them might be jihadis. Also, Soros engineered the whole thing to destroy Europe and our Western (white) culture, etc. etc.

Ironically enough, Franz Neumann, a Jewish refugee leftist academic who had been in the Social Democrats and the Frankfurt School (but broke with Adorno/Horkheimer) with his book Behemoth (1942) and his work for the Allies was perhaps the biggest single influence in crafting the Nuremberg prosecution. And a good job he did.

.

this one's for you Jack

NEVER AGAIN?

The Trump-Shaming Twitter Account Naming Refugees Turned Away by the U.S and Killed in the Holocaust

Russel Neiss created a Twitter account with first-person narratives of Holocaust victims to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. It also happens to be the day Donald Trump is expected to sign an anti-immigrant executive order.
Amelia Warshaw
AMELIA WARSHAW

01.27.17 12:56 PM ET
As the saying goes, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” It’s a lesson Russel Neiss has taken to heart and used to create a haunting reminder of an American policy decision that led to the death of hundreds of Jews nearly 80 years ago.
Neiss is the creator behind the Twitter account for the St. Louis Manifest (@Stl_Manifest), a series of first-person narratives of the 908 Jewish refugees aboard the SS St. Louis, an asylum-seeking German ship turned away at the Cuban, U.S., and Canadian borders in 1939.
After the SS St. Louis was forced to return to Europe, it is estimated that more than a quarter of the passengers aboard the “Voyage of the Damned” later died in the Holocaust.

St. Louis Manifest @Stl_Manifest
My name is Manfred Fink. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered at Bergen-Belsen

St. Louis Manifest
‏@Stl_Manifest

My name is Eva Dublon. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered at Auschwitz

Neiss cites his family history during World War II as inspiration for the project. “My grandfather was the only one of his family who made it out of Europe alive,” Neiss told The Daily Beast. “He was one of around 630 orphans picked up by the British and gained his citizenship by fighting in Korea.”
Neiss’ project, launched January 27, 2017, was timed to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. But it also comes on the eve of a policy decision that may underline the Trump administration’s immigration strategy for the next four or more years.
January 27, 2017 is also the day President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order banning the entry of Syrian refugees into the U.S. According to a leaked draft of the proposal, it would conveniently exclude countries where the Trump Organization does business, such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
A draft of the executive order, which asserted that the ban would be to “protect Americans” and “ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward our country and its founding principles… [or] admit those who engage in acts of bigotry and hatred,” was recognized by many as a xenophobic and reactionary document, but is also one of the policies that Trump campaigned on heavily over the past year and a half.
Neiss says that while the project is tethered “first and foremost” to Holocaust Remembrance Day, he can see why, “given the political moment,” people are finding more meaning in it.
“We didn’t plan for this executive order on immigration to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day and we’re not saying the U.S. is like Nazi Germany. But when people say ‘never again, we remember,’ these things should be more than empty platitudes,” Neiss told The Daily Beast.
Neiss, who had experimented with Twitter bots previously “for fun,” says the idea behind the project only became fully formed about five hours or so before the account launched.

“This has been an idea I’d had floating around for a while, centering around the ritual of reading names for remembering the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides,” Neiss told the Daily Beast. “A friend and I were spitballing ideas and asked, ‘What would it look like if on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and with the current political climate talking about refugees, we could create something that, in a tasteful way, recognized the six million Jews and 10 million total victims of the Holocaust.’”
Using a database compiled by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Neiss programed a bot to tweet the stories of the victims of the SS St. Louis every five minutes. He calculated that with one tweet for each of the 255 victims known to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, there would be 21 hours of tweets.
And then he stepped away.
Neiss told the Beast that when he checked back Friday morning, he was excited to see the page had 77 followers. When he looked at his phone two hours later, there were thousands more. As of press time, 9,417 people were following the account.
“We didn’t anticipate this following, but I think there’s an obvious reason that this speaks to people. We like to think of ourselves as the good guys, that we would have saved everyone we could. And yet, here was an opportunity to save hundreds of people. It’s a story that for me, as an American, really kicks me in the shins.”
A direct result of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant fervor of the era, the Voyage of the Damned calls to mind the hopeless passages of today’s refugees, seeking asylum and finding persecution at every turn, especially for Neiss, whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors.
“When we talk about refugees, we’re not talking about nebulous group of Syrians, were talking about real people,” Neiss said. “This is a nation that is built on people on coming from elsewhere, not just people who have been here forever.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... caust.html

[seemslikeadream]

trumpy you are a small vicious cruel inhumane man

Holocaust Memorial Day

did you even know that?

was this another bone thrown to your hateful supporters?

[Morty]

I love how Zuckerberg is telling Trump that the US must keep its doors open to refugees, while he himself gears up to eject people from their land in Hawaii so that their land can become all his land. Different things entirely, of course. Entirely different.

I also love how Israel has announced an increase in its refugee intake to compensate for Trump's announcement, because #neveragain and stuff.

[seemslikeadream]

every 5 minutes there is a new entry to St. Louis Manifest

https://twitter.com/search?q=st+louis+m ... r%5Esearch

St. Louis Manifest ‏@Stl_Manifest 1h1 hour ago
My name is Werner Stein. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Auschwitz

[Morty]

Donald Trump didn’t come up with the list of Muslim countries he wants to ban. Obama did.
January 27, 2017

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Friday that would impose a 30-day ban on entry to the United States for visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

After word of Trump's pending executive order spread, the administration faced a lot of pushback — especially the early stages of his Muslim ban.

The executive order is widely viewed as the first step to fulfill a campaign promise to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States.

"We are excluding certain countries," Trump said of visa issuances during a Wednesday interview with ABC News.

How, though, did the Trump administration choose these seven Muslim-majority countries? The truth is it didn't: The countries were chosen during Barack Obama's presidency.

According to the draft copy of Trump's executive order, the countries whose citizens are barred entirely from entering the United States is based on a bill that Obama signed into law in December 2015.

Obama signed the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act as part of an omnibus spending bill. The legislation restricted access to the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens from 38 countries who are visiting the United States for less than 90 days to enter without a visa.

Though outside groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and NIAC Action — the sister organization of the National Iranian American Council — opposed the act, the bipartisan bill passed through Congress with little pushback.

At the initial signing of the restrictions, foreigners who would normally be deemed eligible for a visa waiver were denied if they had visited Iran, Syria, Sudan or Iraq in the past five years or held dual citizenship from one of those countries.

In February 2016, the Obama administration added Libya, Somali and Yemen to the list of countries one could not have visited — but allowed dual citizens of those countries who had not traveled there access to the Visa Waiver Program. Dual citizens of Syria, Sudan, Iraq and Iran are still ineligible, however.

So, in a nutshell, Obama restricted visa waivers for those seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen — and now, Trump is looking to bar immigration and visitors from the same list of countries.

Trump's use of a list created with Democrats' support is obviously geared toward a more nefarious end. A total visa-issuance moratorium is more severe than restricting visa waiver access. But the guilt-by-association of having a higher burden for entry at all underlies the bill Obama signed, too.

And one of the criticisms of Trump's reported proposal for the early stages of his Muslim ban — that it is security theater — is true of Obama curtailing visa wavers. Those restrictions were an early response to the San Bernardino shooting and Paris attacks, but in both cases the assailant were nationals of the countries in which they carried out such violence.

When the Trump administration announced its plans to issue the executive order, Sean Spicer told the White House press pool that people coming from the Middle East and Africa have a "predisposition" for terrorism. The visa waiver restriction, a bipartisan bill Obama signed into law, reinforces that same xenophobic sentiment.

Sarah Harvard
Sarah is a staff writer for Mic. She writes about religion, race and where it intersects with politics. Sometimes she writes hot takes on Chicago rappers. You can reach her by email: sharvard@mic.com

https://mic.com/articles/166845/the-lis ... .GP7b8PHE6

[Morty]

Ex-military leaders at Hoover Institution say Trump statements threaten America's interests

By Carla Marinucci

07/15/16 08:51 AM EDT


STANFORD, California — Some of the nation’s leading experts on foreign policy, military and economic issues at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution say Republican Donald Trump’s statements on issues like nuclear proliferation and Muslim immigration are untenable and are already doing damage to America's interests.

General James Mattis, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command who oversaw all operations involving 200,000-plus American military personnel in the Middle East and South-Central Asia from 2010-2013, told POLITICO this week that he considers Trump’s assessment of NATO as “obsolete" to be "kooky."

Regarding Trump’s contention that U.S. allies are not paying their “fair share” of costs to support the alliance, Mattis called the claim “about as kooky as [if] a president were to call our allies freeloaders.”

“Some of those allies have lost more troops per capita in Afghanistan than we have,’’ said Mattis, who also served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation, and is now a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. “Some of them are spending 20 percent of their national budget on defense.”

On Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigrants, Mattis — who rarely gives media interviews — was also sharply critical, saying that such talk prompts U.S. allies to think “we have lost faith in reason.”

Asked about the reaction in the Middle East to Trump’s suggestion, Mattis said, “They think we’ve completely lost it. This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and it’s sending shock waves through this international system.“

Mattis was among a group of leading Hoover fellows who sat down with POLITICO to mark the publication of their new book, “Blueprint for America.” The work was edited by former Secretary of State George Shultz, who called it an effort to offer “a nonpartisan roadmap” for solutions to some of America’s most pressing economic, political and foreign policy problems.

The authors — including Shultz himself, as well as economists John Taylor and John Cochrane — warned that American leadership in the last decades has entered a “strategy-free environment” in which economic and foreign policy has become increasingly unfocused and mired in partisan politics.

But even as experts from Hoover — a required stop for many GOP candidates seeking counsel on policy matters — called for more effective governance from both parties, some members of the group reserved their deepest concerns, and sharpest criticism, for Trump.

Continued at link: http://www.politico.com/states/californ ... ump-103858

[seemslikeadream]

Trump's Racist Muslim Ban Is 'Even Worse Than Imagined'
Activists caution the executive order will tear families apart and destroy lives.
By Ben Norton / AlterNet January 26, 2017

In less than a week, Donald Trump has dispelled the notion that he shouldn't be taken literally. The far-right president has already moved to implement the racist, anti-Muslim policies upon which he campaigned. Groups that advocate for the rights of Americans of Middle Eastern descent warn that his administration's ban on refugees and migrants is "even worse than imagined."

Documents obtained by media outlets show that Trump is implementing an executive order that will block refugees from resettling in the U.S. People from Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran will also be barred from entering the country, even if they have valid visas. (The U.S. is currently bombing five of the countries from which the Trump administration is banning nationals, and it has fueled political instability in the other two. Millions of refugees are fleeing violent conflicts the U.S. has instigated.)

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee noted that the order will furthermore implement a so-called values test for future visa applicants. The group describes this as an "ideology test" that will ask about an applicant's religious beliefs. Joanne Lim, senior legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union, cautioned that the wording could be used to block critics of U.S. government policies, thereby violating the First Amendment.

The executive order will divide families, ruin careers and destroy lives. It will likely even extend to spouses of U.S. citizens born in one of the blacklisted countries.

The political wing of the National Iranian American Council, which advocates for civil rights and peace, came out forcefully against the order.

“Trump’s Muslim ban is real and even more draconian than many anticipated," NIAC Action said in a statement. "Visa holders, dual nationals, and even green card holders from Muslim-majority countries may be barred indefinitely from the United States."

"The order is written in such a broad manner that it may also prohibit dual nationals of those countries who are citizens of non-targeted countries from entering the U.S. on a visa," the group warned.

The executive order could even be interpreted to prevent U.S. permanent residents who are outside the country from re-entering.

“We in the Iranian-American community are already feeling the effects of this proposed action," NIAC Action wrote. "Plans for family to visit, for loved ones to return home, for family friends to join us to study in U.S. schools, are now in jeopardy. There is a palpable feeling of being torn apart from our friends and loved ones."

An Iranian-American on the verge of completing his studies in an advanced graduate program told AlterNet that his uncle, a science professor in Iran, had planned on coming to his graduation, but now will be unable to attend.

"We are not even sure if parents will be able to attend weddings in the U.S. or if we need to put travel plans abroad on hold for fear of being blocked from coming back," NIAC Action said, condemning the U.S. government's "dangerous course of action."

Political commentator Roozbeh Aliabadi lashed out at Trump on Twitter for banning his fiancée from entering the U.S., thereby delaying their wedding. "Our love will be stronger than your ban," he tweeted.


In its current form, the executive order will implement a ban for 30 days. It is likely, however, that the ban will be extended and become permanent for at least some of the blacklisted countries. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee pointed out that the order will likewise leave an option to add more countries from which people could be banned at a later date.

The ADC advised students from blacklisted countries not to leave the U.S. during the time their visa is valid, as they will not be permitted to return. People who have valid visas but have not yet entered the U.S. will not be allowed to do so; their visas will be void under the new order.

The ADC noted that its legal department offers pro bono services for those who may be affected.

NIAC Action recalled that in 2015, when a discriminatory anti-Muslim bill was introduced in the House, it warned of a "slippery slope." Now, the group added, we are "on the way to a much darker vision of America than many of us could have imagined."
http://www.alternet.org/trump-racist-mu ... -amendment

Steve Bannon wants to turn the press into the new Hillary.

It’s no secret that the former executive chair of Breitbart News hates the media. His career as both a media executive and as the brains behind the Trump operation has been defined by opposition to the mainstream media, which he regards as an organ of the elite consensus that has ineffectively run the country for decades. But on Thursday in an interview published by The New York Times, Bannon went a step further. “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” Bannon told Times reporter Mike Grynbaum.“I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”
Bannon characteristically expressed his distaste for the media in populist terms—as part of the establishment that he and Trump are trying to tear down. But by labeling the media—and not, say, the Democratic Party—as “the opposition party,” Bannon is also nodding to the Trump White House’s strategy. Trump’s approval rating is incredibly low for an incoming president, currently sitting below 40 percent. Over the past eighteen months, Trump has always had a foil: First, 17 wishy-washy establishment Republicans, then a Democratic challenger he was able to successfully brand as being corrupt and out of touch with the concerns of (predominantly) white middle and lower-class families.

Trump does not have a well-defined foil now—it’s certainly not Chuck Schumer, or any of the other Senate Democrats. Bernie Sanders remains an effective opposition figure, but he doesn’t represent the “establishment” that Trump has so successfully run against. Bannon’s gamble going forward is that the media can be that foil—this has the added benefit of discrediting the dozens of damaging reports about the Trump administration that are issued every day. The problem is that the press is an abstraction, not a flesh-and-blood political opponent. The idea that this will win over the majority of the country that is skeptical of Trump’s new regime seems far-fetched.

Donald Trump is going to build a wall and American consumers are going to pay for it. It looks like the president will be keeping one of his promises, but not in the way that many of his supporters are expecting. Trump is forging ahead with the construction of a wall along the Mexican-American border, which he promised Mexico would pay for. But now White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has indicated that the money for the wall will come from a 20 percent tariff on goods from Mexico. The political question will be how Trump supporters respond to a regressive consumption tax that will hurt the poor and working class the hardest.
Mexico is America’s third-largest trading partner, after Canada and China. The supply chain for many industries, notably car manufacturing, depends on exports from Mexico. To build his wall, Trump is taking a drastic step that will cause incalculable economic damage.

Update: Because the Trump administration still has no appreciation for the weight its word carries, and/or because it is just now understanding how tariffs work, it is now running back its initial claim. Spicer tells NBC that the tariff is just “an example” of the options available to them to pay for the wall.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/140162/ ... ew-hillary

Trump’s ex-Breitbart advisor Bannon is drafting executive orders – and basically winging it: report
Travis Gettys
26 JAN 2017 AT 10:12 ET

Two of Donald Trump’s senior advisors — neither of whom has any previous government or legal experience — have reportedly been writing executive orders without any input from the agencies they would affect.

Aides told Politico that Steve Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and Stephen Miller, the senior White House advisor for policy, have made almost no effort to consult with federal agency lawyers or lawmakers as they wrote executive orders.

Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart, and Miller, a Republican political operative who’s written most of Trump’s major speeches, are writing many of the orders based on ideas that came from transition officials or “landing teams” who weren’t working in the White House.

The orders have come so quickly, and from seemingly out of nowhere, that aides sometimes aren’t even sure which actions Trump will sign until they cross his desk.

“He was determined to show people that he’s getting to work from Day One,” a source told Politico.

The quick pace gives the appearance of momentum as the Trump administration gets up and running, but legal experts are concerned the White House is issuing “flawed orders that might be unworkable, unenforceable or even illegal,” the website reported.

For example, the website reported the White House failed to ask State Department experts to review the memorandum on the Keystone XL pipeline, although the Canadian company vying for a permit to build the project is currently suing the U.S. for $15 billion.

A former State Department lawyer who worked on the Keystone proposal said Trump’s order was “more than unusual, that’s reckless.”

A draft order that could potentially revive banned torture techniques reportedly “blindsided” Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, whose agencies would be expected to carry out those orders.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, on Wednesday denied the draft order on torture and so-called “black sites” had come from the White House.

“It is not a White House document,” Spicer said. “I have no idea where it came from.”

GOP lawmakers complained they weren’t sure whether some of Trump’s executive orders, including his action to start the repeal of Obamacare, might conflict with existing laws because they hadn’t reviewed them.

Others have pointed out that Trump’s executive order on immigration includes only vague language on where funding would come from and does not consider the role of Congress in approving those payments.

Bannon is reportedly inviting two of his former Breitbart employees to join him on the White House staff.

Julia Hahn is expected to serve as his aide, and the site’s national security editor, Sebastian Gorka, will reportedly serve on retired Gen. Mike Flynn’s National Security Council.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/trumps- ... it-report/

[Wombaticus Rex]

Steve Bannon wants to turn the press into the new Hillary.

...aye, and they're going to do nothing but assist him, day after day. There hasn't been anything close to a reckoning for the pundit class, there probably never will be under any circumstances. Who got fired? Who lost their column? (Pointing out that Megyn Kelly booted Al Roker off the Today Show reinforces my point. They think Kelly is an alternative product! Utterly adrift.)

They'll just keep doing the only thing they've ever done and public trust will keep declining, week after week.

I am far from convinced any of this is remotely bad for America, too.

[Iamwhomiam]

Thank you for posting the Politico article Morty. I hope you'll circulate it among your Trump supporting social circle friends.

Were we to be attacked right now, there would be chaos and the quick removal from office of this buffoon. I'm sure our defenses will be ready to do their jobs, just as eager to jump into action as Pence. The slow coup progresses.

[Iamwhomiam]

Well, it won't be in trouble if the worldwide trend towards fascism keeps growing, that's for sure. But let's hope that trend's soon aborted.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Were we to be attacked right now, there would be chaos and the quick removal from office of this buffoon.

Uh....what?

Counterpoint: September 11th, 2001.

[seemslikeadream]

25th Amendment

on edit

I found it in bad taste for Vanity Fair to name Melina Trump the new Jackie Kennedy

I say to Melina stay away from Pink Chanel!




Melania Trump’s first magazine cover as first lady is Vanity Fair Mexico just as husband rows with country

[seemslikeadream]

Trump immigration ban blocks migrants from boarding jets, leads to airport detentions

President Donald Trump's signing of an executive action to bring sweeping changes to the nation's refugee policies is causing fear and alarm for immigrants in the U.S. whose family members will be affected. (Jan. 27) AP

JFK Airport
(Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)
In the first fallout from President's Trump's ban on refugees to the U.S., seven U.S.-bound migrants were stopped from boarding a plane in Cairo early Saturday and two lawyers filed the first legal challenges on behalf of two Iraqi refugees detained at JFK International airport.

One of the detainees at JFK had worked for 10 years as a interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq following the U.S. invasion, according to his attorney.

Trump’s executive order, signed at the Pentagon on Friday, suspends the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, halts the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely and bars entry for three months to residents from the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Google CEO troubled by Trump refugee ban that ‘creates barriers’ to talent
The ban includes green card holders who are authorized to live and work in the United States, according to Gillian Christensen, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, Reuters reported. It was unclear how many green card holders would be affected, but exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis, the news agency says.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, say they have either filed lawsuits or will do so shortly challenging the ban. "We'll see you in court, Mr. Trump," tweeted David Cole, National Legal Director for the ACLU.

Abed Ayoud, legal and policy director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said they’ve received more than 1,000 calls by midday Saturday from people who have been stranded or detained in the U.S. and abroad.

Trump refugee ban ensnares Iranian Oscar nominee Asghar Farhardi
He said legal immigrants who were traveling overseas to attend funerals and visit family when the president signed his order are now unable to return to the U.S.

Foreigners studying at U.S. universities who were part of study abroad programs are also stuck. Even Customs and Border Protection agents are confused about how to handle Trump’s order and responding in different ways, he said.

“The impact of what President Trump was looking for is in full effect,” Ayoud said. “Complete chaos.”

Trump's executive order suspends the entry of Syrian refugees into U.S.
According to a federal complaint filed on behalf of the two Iraqis being held at JFK airport, one attorney approached CBP agents with a request to speak to his client, but was told they were not the ones to talk to about seeing him.

"Who is the person to talk to?" the lawyer asked, according to the complaint. The unidentified CBP agents responded: "Mr. President. Call Mr. Trump."

According to one of the lawyers, Mark Doss, the pair had been approved for entry as refugees but were in the air flying to the U.S. night when the order was being signed.

The seven travelers at Cairo airport — six from Iraq and one from Yemen — were being escorted by officials from the U.N. refugee agency when they were stopped from boarding the EgyptAir plane, the Associated Press reported, quoting Cairo airport officials.

The authorities stepped in after contacting their counterparts at JFK Airport, where the plane was headed. The officials spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

In related incidents:

— Mohammed Al Rawi, chief information officer for Los Angeles County, said on Facebook that his father was removed from a flight in Qatar as a direct result of the order. "My 71 year old dad is in Qatar boarding LAX flight to come visit us and and he's being sent back to Iraq. Some US official told him that Trump canceled all visas," Al Rawi wrote.

— Vera Mironova, a Russian citizen returning from an academic research trip to Iraq, said she had been warned at check-in that she may not be allowed into the U.S. despite holding a green card, The Telegraph reported. "I just talked to Lufthansa guys and since an hour ago they need to inform all people traveling from Iraq about this possibility," she said before boarding Saturday afternoon, the British newspaper reported.

Trump says he will make Christian refugees a priority
In signing the executive order, Trump said the new administration needed time to develop a stricter screening process for refugees, immigrants and visitors. "I'm establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. Don't want them here," he said.

The executive order, which he said was aimed at protecting Americans from terrorist attacks, singled out Syrian refugees as "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

When the refugee program resumes, the executive order calls for changes to "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality."

"We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people," Trump said.

CAIR said it will file a federal lawsuit Monday in the Eastern District of Virginia to challenge the constitutionality of the order, charging its apparent purpose and underlying motive is to ban people of the Islamic faith from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

“There is no evidence that refugees – the most thoroughly vetted of all people entering our nation – are a threat to national security,” said CAIR National Litigation Director Lena F. Masri. “This is an order that is based on bigotry, not reality.”

Fact check: President Trump's first week on the job
One of the men detained at JFK, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, started working as an interpreter for the U.S. military shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He continued working as one until 2013 after his family started receiving death threats. The married father of three applied for a special visa for Iraqi interpreters and was finally granted one on Jan. 20, the same day President Trump was inaugurated.

Darweesh was detained after his flight from Istanbul landed about 6 p.m. on Friday. He was released Saturday morning and said he was scared that he would be sent back to Iraq. When asked what he thought of Trump, he simply said, “I don’t know. He’s a president, I’m a normal person.”

He focused instead on the lawyers who won his release.

“This is the soul of America,” Darweesh told reporters outside JFK. “This is what pushed me to move, to leave my country and come here. America is the land of freedom.”

Lawyers said 11 other people remained detained at JFK, including another Iraqi refugee, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, who was trying to join his wife and child. His wife worked for a U.S. contractor in Iraq as an accountant, was granted a refugee visa and is now living in Houston. Alshawi was approved for a visa to join his wife and their 7-year-old son on Jan. 11.

Trump executive order sows fear among refugees in Ariz.
Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups representing the Iraqi men, said the lawsuit is directed solely at immigrants who have been caught in legal limbo following Trump’s announcement. The lawyers are trying to expand it into a class action suit to cover the untold number of refugees caught in the same situation.

Hincapié said they are planning separate lawsuits challenging the legality of Trump’s executive actions on immigration, partly because they target majority Muslim nations. But she said for now, they simply want to resolve the cases of people who are being detained at airports. They are trying to get an emergency hearing before a judge this weekend.

“These are people who already had a horrific experience of being a refugee,” she said. “They left everything behind. And now, to find themselves in detention at an airport with no contacts, not knowing what can be done, only hearing little bits and pieces on the news about this executive order. I think folks are just scared and don’t know how to respond at this moment.”

In N.Y., refugees awaiting family face uncertainty, fear
Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council told the AP on Saturday that Trump’s temporary ban “will not make America safer, it will make America smaller and meaner.”

Egeland says the decision dealt a “mortal blow” to the idea of international responsibility for those fleeing persecution. He says the U.S. is leading a “race to the bottom” in which politicians in wealth countries provide “zero moral leadership.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017 ... /97181446/

Keith Ellison, first Muslim congressman, calls for ‘mass rallies’ to stop Trump orders
By David Weigel January 28 at 12:47 PM

Rep. Keith Ellison, (Minn.),speaks alongside other Democratic National Committee chair candidates during the DNC Future of the Party Forum on Jan. 14, 2017, in Phoenix. (David Wallace/Arizona Republic via AP)
HOUSTON — Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who in 2007 became the first Muslim member of Congress, said in an interview Saturday that opponents of President Trump’s executive orders on immigration and refugees should oppose them in the streets.

“It’s time for people to get active, to get involved, to vote and to organize,” said Ellison, who was in Houston to campaign for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “Trump must be stopped, and people power is what we have at our disposal to make him stop. We need mass rallies. We need them all over the country. We need them in Texas. We need them in D.C. We need them in Minnesota.”

Ellison, one of the first candidates to enter the DNC race, is also the most politically prominent member of a faith singled out in Trump’s executive orders temporarily halting the visa interview process from seven nations and the refugee flow from Syria. On Friday, before heading to Houston, he joined a rally in Miami-Dade County against plans for it to cooperate in Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities; former labor secretary Tom Perez, seen as the other front-runner in the DNC race, responded to Trump’s plan to investigate “voter fraud” with an op-ed about Texas’s experience chasing after phantom fraud cases.

Once in Houston, Ellison found himself zipping between meetings with DNC members while Muslim legal groups were collecting stories of stranded refugees and working, in vain so far, to reunite them with families.

“I’ve heard from people who were on the way to Minnesota and were blocked,” said Ellison. “They’re stopping people at the border right now. They’re breaking up families now. This is an absolute affront to America as a welcoming nation that gives refuge to suffering people. It is basically sending a positive signal to people who hate this country, because now ISIS gets to say — ‘See? They don’t want you.’ They get to whip up hate and anti-American sentiment.”

While no Republican members of Congress have spoken out against last night’s executive orders, Ellison pointed out that his colleagues had opposed them in the past — before the 2016 election.

“Speaker Ryan said that using religion as a criteria for any treatment of people is wrong an un-American,” said Ellison. “Well, Trump said he wanted a Muslim ban. He has selected only Muslim countries to ban people. We can’t tolerate it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... 6cc78c0124

Google recalls employees traveling abroad amid President Trump’s Muslim ban
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.2958115