Skateboarders were a bit put out by the crowd that eventually assembled in the plaza.
The big subject since the last protest (The Women's March that was held simultaneously all over the country the day after President Trump's inauguration) was the Executive Order on immigration that was issued on January 27th. It wa an extremely abrupt order that took effect immediately, splitting families and leaving many travelers stranded. Also disturbingly,
"...one person who was not apprised of his planned Muslim ban was Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, who was in the middle of a conference call discussing Trump’s executive order on Muslim immigration while the president was signing it."
Skateboarders were a bit put out by the crowd that eventually assembled in the plaza.
Was the chaos created by the Muslim ban a bug or a feature? Was it something unintended or was it consciously and deliberately designed into the Trump Administration's stratey? My own suspicion is that "feature" is the correct answer.
One very troubling event was the abrupt replacement of the Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. It immediately reminded people of the "Saturday Night Massacre," the 1973 firing of the Waterate Special Prosecutor, which led to a series of people being fired from the office of Attorney General until President Nixon found a suitably pliable official to carry out his orders. Nixon was forced to resign shortly afterwards. Sally Yates was told to approve of the Trump Administration's immigration order to ban entry to citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. She replied:
“I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right,” Yates wrote in a letter to justice department lawyers. “At present I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful.”Now, with just about any other administration position, one would reasonably expect the official to salute, say "Yes, sir!" and carry out their instructions. But an Attorney General is not expected to do that. Yates' response was entirely reasonable and responsible.
Fox News announcer Sean Hannity and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich were clearly of the Shut Up and Do As You're Told school.
GINGRICH: This guy’s a chief executive officer. He runs a company. You’re the guy in charge of the flowers out front who walked in and said, “You know, I don’t like flowers, I’m thinking cactus.” He fires you.There is some dispute over whether the Office of Legal Counsel, which is supposed to review all Executive Orders to ensure that they're lawful, was consulted. So it's not really clear that the EO was properly vetted and examined to begin with. BTW, great video of Yates answering a question at her confirmation hearing put to her by the current Attrney General nominee. The courts have found quite a few problems with the EO and have blocked the order. The White House has tried to make the case that terror attacks are freqently under-reported, but ABC News had a lot of trouble with that claim. The Trump Administration claimed that the San Bernardino shooting was under-covered, but ABC News pointed out that coverage of that attack was very widespread.
And as to military affairs, President Obama had looked at a plan to attack a small, heavily-guarded brick house in a remote Yemen village in montainous terrain. The attack had to be put off until Trump was in office because the military wanted to do it on a moonnless night. Trump had dinner with the former editor of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon (Yes, I'm embarrassed to say Bannon was in the Navy, news accounts refer to him as having been a surface warfare officer, which I presume means he was an officer who got an OSWS, a designation that takes a lot of work and time and effort to earn) and son-in-law and real-estate developer Jared Kushner. The raid lost the element of surprise. Participants think that having drones fly lower than usual might have tipped off the al Qaeda fighters. Women from the village began firing and US forces ended up "destroying much of the village of Yakla." Obviously, it can't be confirmed that all of the bloody photographs of dead civilians are from Yakla, but al Qaeda has presenting them as such and Yemen has now ordered that the US cannot carry out any more raids in their country.
Hmm, what did her sign say? Something to the effect of "I love everybody," as I recall.
And how are things doing on one of those things that every president has to deal with? How is Trump doing with a natural disaster? Shortly after his inauguration, severe storms hit several states, but hit Georgia especially hard. On January 23rd, Trump promised aid, but the governors of both Georgia and Mississippi begged for help on the 25th. They did eventually receive aid.
Mexico and President Trump fought over the border wall that Trump wants to build and have Mexco pay for. Mexico has made it clear that the US will have to cover the entire cost by itself.
In defiance to the anti-science attitude of the Trump Administration, government scientsts have gone rogue and have set up competing Twitter accounts to get science news out.
President Trump commemorated Holocaust Rememberance Day, but left out any mention of the Jewish people.
My church's "Dove of Peace" flying above demonstration.
Spokesperson Kellyanne Conway cited the "Bowling Green Massacre" to justify the immigration order. Did that event ever occur? Uh, no. Something somewhat similar did. Two idiots tried sending rocket launchers over to Daesh/ISIS and are now in prison. Here's the 21 Best Twitter reactions to Conway's "Massacre" claim. And yes, Conway was clearly lying about the "Massacre." She didn't just make an honest mistake. She also referred to the two idiots going to Iraq for further traiing and returning. As they never left the country, this was a conscious and deliberate lie.
Trump suggests killing political opponents is no big deal. Good to see Republicans pushing back on that idea.
And yeah, Trump sure seems set on this whole law 'n' order thing. Civil liberties? Rational sentencing? Not so much.
PRAWN