January 30, 2017

Trump also funneled Russian $ to Breitbart

https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/826074649020633088

January 30, 2017

An American-With an American passport-Detained-Asked: "Do you love your country?" You & I are next

https://twitter.com/NaderDIssa/status/825818399565553665

January 30, 2017

"America First"

January 30, 2017

Trump adviser Stephen Miller: Travel ban intended to protect America from bigots

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“We’re going to take the next 30 days to develop a new set of screening protocols to try and ensure that people entering our country, particularly on a permanent basis, truly love and support the United States of America,” he said. “There’ll be a 60-day period where countries will be asked to comply with the new directives. Countries that are in compliance will have regular, ordinary and routine migration with the United States.”

People who are permanent legal residents of the United States — a.k.a., green card holders — are already subjected to a meticulous vetting process to ensure that they have valid reasons for being in the country, that they have no criminal history, and that they pose no danger to national security.

Miller then went on to say that the administration’s overall goal is to make sure people who are intolerant of others’ differences shouldn’t be granted entry to the United States.

“It only makes sense that we engage in some kind of selections process that prioritizes the entry of people who, as the order stated, don’t hold bigotry, hatred or violence against any sexual orientation, against any race, or against any particular class of people,” he said

.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/trump-adviser-stephen-miller-travel-ban-intended-to-protect-america-from-bigots/

January 30, 2017

Schumer is a no on Mulvaney, Price, Mnuchin, Pruitt, Puzder, DeVos, Tillerson, and Sessions.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/826109264208986112

January 30, 2017

What Bannon is doing is creating what is known as a "Shock Event".

Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College is one of my favorite historians. I highly recommend her most recent book To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.

Today Richardson gave me permission to publish a piece she recently posted to her Facebook page.

Richardson is probably right in assuming that Steve Bannon is behind Trump’s recent Executive Order on Muslim refugees. She describes what Bannon is doing as a “shock event.” This is an attempt to throw the country into confusion and chaos so that the administration can present itself as the only entity capable of restoring order.

Richardson explains:

From Prof Richardson:

“I don’t like to talk about politics on Facebook– political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends– but there is an important non-partisan point to make today.

What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries– is creating what is known as a “shock event.” Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.
What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a "shock event."

When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.

Last night’s Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.

Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one’s interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won’t like. I don’t know what Bannon is up to– although I have some guesses– but because I know Bannon’s ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle– and my friends range pretty widely– who will benefit from whatever it is. If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal.

But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event. A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union. If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln’s strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power. Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it.” “

https://thewayofimprovement.com/2017/01/29/historian-heather-cox-richardson-on-trumps-muslim-ban-its-a-shock-event/
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/616283.page

January 30, 2017

STAY PISSED!

Hello:

What we are experiencing right now is a GOP blitzkrieg, concocted by the Heritage Foundation and Paul Ryan and fronted by Trump. That all the cuts and executive orders are coming fast, intense and extreme is not a surprise. It is smart strategy on the GOP’s part.

It seems impossible to counter all this stuff, while trying to tank Trump’s nominations as well as engaging in perhaps-not-so-wise-right-now-as-it-can-wait campaigns like investigating Trump’s taxes and foolhardy-pie-in-the-sky things like impeachment. You aren’t imagining anything: It is impossible to stop all of it. This sucks but you must accept it. There are going to be losses, we knew that. Now they are coming. Hang in there. Step back and look at what they are going after.

Cutting the budgets of the NEA and NEH, muzzling the EPA, USDA, and Park Service, etc. are all relatively minor attacks. They might sting and that is exactly the point. Who supports the NEA and NEH? Liberals and people on the Left. Most Americans don’t care or even know that these agencies exist. These attacks are aimed at our hearts. Trump and GOP don’t care about these agencies. They want to demoralize us. They want us to feel defeat after defeat as soon as possible. They want us to get fatigued and give up.

If you care about this country, if you are in for the long haul, you absolutely must let these defeats go. Yes, you can care. Yes, you can get angry. But don’t rest on the anger. Try to use it for energy, for motivation, but that is all. Make a note of it – we will rebuild – and let it go. There are much bigger things on the GOP’s agenda – getting rid of Medicare, Social Security, stripping down government to everything but defense and police functions, and selling off whatever is public. They also want to put as much in the way between us and our rights, including voting rights, as possible. These are the things to watch and fight. While we were fretting about cabinet appointments before inauguration, Congress devalued public lands. That is the first step to selling them off and allowing mining in National Parks. Selling off what is public to corporations and the mega-wealthy is what really matters to them.

Please note that I am not saying that the NEA and NEH or muzzling public agencies does not matter. It does and we must make noise about it, but we also must look at what the GOP’s fundamental goals are, realize the motives behind what they are doing, act on what we have the power to change, and be mindful of how we act and react. These people are not acting willy-nilly. As flaky and screwed-up as Trump is/seems, the people behind him are not. They are rational. They are professionals. They are tacticians. They know exactly what they are doing and exactly how to kill our spirit. This is basic strategy: Use the enemy to destroy the enemy (Sun Tzu). They are trying to destroy our resistance by creating frustration and despair, and letting that do the job. Know that. Drill that into your brain. Come back to this when you are feeling defeated. This insight in one of the most important things to know.

Scott Soriano, 1/26/17
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/01/30/stay-pissed/

January 30, 2017

Mad King Donald - By Tom Tomorrow

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January 30, 2017

Hundreds of foreign service officers are planning to be party to dissent memo on Trump Refugee Order

BREAKING NEWS: Full Text of Draft Dissent Channel Memo on Trump Refugee and Visa Order

Consider this a major bureaucratic uprising on the part of career foreign service officers against the President on his executive order on refugees.

If you are finding Lawfare useful in these times, please consider making a contribution to support what we do.

Numerous Foreign Service officers and other diplomats have drafted a dissent memo expressing opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States. ABC reported this morning on the draft, which is likely to be submitted today.

Here’s a copy of the actual draft. We are hearing that literally hundreds of foreign service officers are planning to be party to the dissent memo; it’s still unclear exactly how many. We have redacted all names and personally identifiable information from this document:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3438487/Dissent-Memo.pdf
https://lawfareblog.com/breaking-news-full-text-draft-dissent-channel-memo-trump-refugee-and-visa-order

January 30, 2017

Just so you know who is pulling the strings.

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/826078382471397378