Today's U.S. Politics, A Summary
D is not what one would call... aware... of current events, but after the election it became a personal mission to make sure that he was as aware as I could make him. So many things have happened today, though, there was no way I could come close to summing up what had happened just with what was in my head, so I wrote up a summary sheet. For anyone else who may find it useful, today's U.S. politics included the following events/information (and sorry for the ugly links, this was done quickly):
It is 9 PM EST on January 25, 2017. Leading the forefront of the resistance are Teen Vogue magazine, Badlands National Park's social media, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary's Twitter account. I'm not joking.
The EPA was initially ordered to erase all climate change references from their websites, but a LOT of pissed off people has caused them to back off on that one for now. The general EPA gag order has been partially rescinded - they can publish factual data after it's "undergone review by political staff". http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/trump-officials-suspend-plan-delete-epa-climate-web-page
The Badlands National Park is still leading the charge of federal science agencies social media accounts defying the gag order, but most have switched over to "rogue" accounts that their employers (at this point) can't censor or shut down.
A scientists march on Washington entered the planning stages this afternoon. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/scientists-march-dc-trnd/index.html
At least 4 Journalists are being charged with felonies for covering inauguration unrest.
Minnesota House committee has passed a bill that would allow governments to sue protesters, specifically it allows police departments to sue for overtime and "use of department resources" generated by any demonstration. They cite blocked highways in the linked article, but the law is much more vaguely worded (by design). No bonus points for guessing what groups it's aimed at because that's too easy. https://t.co/WnOpsYIUD7
North Dakota is seeking to legalize "accidentally" hitting protesters with a motor vehicle. North Dakota is where the NoDAPL protests are happening.
Speaking of, Trump has un-blocked the DAPL pipeline project. He owns stock in the company putting in the pipeline. In Canada, a related pipeline just broke and spilled 200,000 gallons of oil.
Trying to keep Betsy DeVos from being confirmed as Ed. Secretary is still a thing because: "Betsy DeVos won't rule out defunding public schools as education secretary" [NBC News, Jan 17th] http://nbcnews.to/2iMZNRv
The fucking wall, what the hell. We can't afford health insurance and there's a federal hiring freeze to "save costs" but we can afford $25+ billion for a useless fucking wall. And that doesn't even take into account the ongoing maintenance and staffing. And that doesn't even take into account the costs of "more detention space" they're planning for "the southern border". In case you needed to know where they're planning to put the detention camps. (We already detain illegal and quasi legal immigrants in detention camps near the border, often in terrible conditions, for years, with little recourse. It's already bad - this is exponentially worse.)
Relatedly, a Muslim travel ban is in the works. As I understand it, even U.S. citizens who happen to be practicing Muslims wouldn't be able to travel by air within the country, a definition that could be stretched to any public transportation, such as buses. Regardless, it's exclusion on a religious basis, which is theoretically unconstitutional, but there are loopholes.
Also relatedly, banning all Syrian refugees. Other people banned include anyone from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Somalia.
Trump says this will "stop the hundreds of attacks by foreigners since 9/11". The vast majority of terrorist attacks on American soil are committed by American citizens: http://www.vox.com/2015/11/23/9765718/domestic-terrorism-threat
Hundreds - er, no, looks like it has grown into the thousands - are gathering in New York's Washington Square Park to protest the travel and immigration bans. Images:
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/824390305327747072
https://twitter.com/mpshapiro/status/824421806312488961
Trump administration has said they will be publishing a weekly list of crimes supposedly committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities.
Trump is further threatening financial sanctions against Sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities have said, "Fuck You."
Trump is threatening to send "the feds" to Chicago to crack down on street violence. Chicago's violence rates are not out of line with other major cities. Causes of the existing violence include CPD's tactics, expanding the definition of "gang violence" (for example, any crime committed within a geographical area regardless of people involved), and the fact that Indiana and its very lax gun laws are literally right next door. Indiana, as in the state Mike Pence was the governor of until last week. https://twitter.com/karnythia/status/824284475454537729
M-W's word of the day is 'ab ovo' (from the beginning) which seems innocuous (they're not usually even close to this subtle) until you click through and read the first example:
"Given Arthur's fondness for approaching a problem ab ovo, without reference to previous results, and adding to it a certain obscurity of presentation that even I, who knew him well, had found disturbing, it was a wonder that he had done as well as he had." - Charles Sheffield, "A Braver Thing," 1990
This relates to:
Trump is trying to instigate a "large scale investigation" into "millions" of cases of (non-) existent voter fraud that "cost him the popular vote".
Even Jon Husted has spoken out against that one. The same Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that purged the voter rolls pre-election with VERY strict criteria, starting with the blue districts.
Hilariously, at least 3 people close to Trump (his daughter Tiffany and Steve Bannon among them) are registered to vote in 2 different states.
Trump has started the process of lifting the ban on C.I.A. Black Site prisons - in effect, this means practicing various forms of torture as a major interrogation method.
Oh, right, the Republicans are still trying to repeal the ACA (Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) without any actual replacement. Regardless, replacing it would be about slighting Obama not in interests of the general public, would cost millions if not billions, and would almost certainly completely eradicate the pre-existing conditions prohibitions.
5 days into his presidency, Trump has never severed ties with his business interests. Shocking. Meanwhile, Mar-a-Lago has doubled its fees and his hotel business is apparently planning to triple in size.
Electricians are suing Trump's company for stiffing them $2+ million dollars on a rush job at his D.C. hotel.
White House spokespeople (read: Sean Spicier and Kellyanne Conway) have flat out said that Trump is very sad about people being mean to him because it's keeping him from "enjoying" the presidency.
Of general note, an actual (old) quote from Steve Bannon: "Lenin wanted to destroy the state & that’s my goal... I want to bring everything crashing down & destroy the establishment.”
I've never had a good impression of Greenpeace, but today 7 members scaled a 300' crane near the White House and hung a 70' banner that just read "RESIST".
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511620048/resist-activists-unfurl-massive-banner-on-crane-behind-white-house
(The latter half of the day, Merriam-Webster has been tweeting a lot about whiskey. I think we're gonna need to sober them up tomorrow morning.)
Crossposted to Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. ♥ Blue :)
It is 9 PM EST on January 25, 2017. Leading the forefront of the resistance are Teen Vogue magazine, Badlands National Park's social media, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary's Twitter account. I'm not joking.
The EPA was initially ordered to erase all climate change references from their websites, but a LOT of pissed off people has caused them to back off on that one for now. The general EPA gag order has been partially rescinded - they can publish factual data after it's "undergone review by political staff". http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/trump-officials-suspend-plan-delete-epa-climate-web-page
The Badlands National Park is still leading the charge of federal science agencies social media accounts defying the gag order, but most have switched over to "rogue" accounts that their employers (at this point) can't censor or shut down.
A scientists march on Washington entered the planning stages this afternoon. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/scientists-march-dc-trnd/index.html
At least 4 Journalists are being charged with felonies for covering inauguration unrest.
Minnesota House committee has passed a bill that would allow governments to sue protesters, specifically it allows police departments to sue for overtime and "use of department resources" generated by any demonstration. They cite blocked highways in the linked article, but the law is much more vaguely worded (by design). No bonus points for guessing what groups it's aimed at because that's too easy. https://t.co/WnOpsYIUD7
North Dakota is seeking to legalize "accidentally" hitting protesters with a motor vehicle. North Dakota is where the NoDAPL protests are happening.
Speaking of, Trump has un-blocked the DAPL pipeline project. He owns stock in the company putting in the pipeline. In Canada, a related pipeline just broke and spilled 200,000 gallons of oil.
Trying to keep Betsy DeVos from being confirmed as Ed. Secretary is still a thing because: "Betsy DeVos won't rule out defunding public schools as education secretary" [NBC News, Jan 17th] http://nbcnews.to/2iMZNRv
The fucking wall, what the hell. We can't afford health insurance and there's a federal hiring freeze to "save costs" but we can afford $25+ billion for a useless fucking wall. And that doesn't even take into account the ongoing maintenance and staffing. And that doesn't even take into account the costs of "more detention space" they're planning for "the southern border". In case you needed to know where they're planning to put the detention camps. (We already detain illegal and quasi legal immigrants in detention camps near the border, often in terrible conditions, for years, with little recourse. It's already bad - this is exponentially worse.)
Relatedly, a Muslim travel ban is in the works. As I understand it, even U.S. citizens who happen to be practicing Muslims wouldn't be able to travel by air within the country, a definition that could be stretched to any public transportation, such as buses. Regardless, it's exclusion on a religious basis, which is theoretically unconstitutional, but there are loopholes.
Also relatedly, banning all Syrian refugees. Other people banned include anyone from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Somalia.
Trump says this will "stop the hundreds of attacks by foreigners since 9/11". The vast majority of terrorist attacks on American soil are committed by American citizens: http://www.vox.com/2015/11/23/9765718/domestic-terrorism-threat
Hundreds - er, no, looks like it has grown into the thousands - are gathering in New York's Washington Square Park to protest the travel and immigration bans. Images:
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/824390305327747072
https://twitter.com/mpshapiro/status/824421806312488961
Trump administration has said they will be publishing a weekly list of crimes supposedly committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities.
Trump is further threatening financial sanctions against Sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities have said, "Fuck You."
Trump is threatening to send "the feds" to Chicago to crack down on street violence. Chicago's violence rates are not out of line with other major cities. Causes of the existing violence include CPD's tactics, expanding the definition of "gang violence" (for example, any crime committed within a geographical area regardless of people involved), and the fact that Indiana and its very lax gun laws are literally right next door. Indiana, as in the state Mike Pence was the governor of until last week. https://twitter.com/karnythia/status/824284475454537729
M-W's word of the day is 'ab ovo' (from the beginning) which seems innocuous (they're not usually even close to this subtle) until you click through and read the first example:
"Given Arthur's fondness for approaching a problem ab ovo, without reference to previous results, and adding to it a certain obscurity of presentation that even I, who knew him well, had found disturbing, it was a wonder that he had done as well as he had." - Charles Sheffield, "A Braver Thing," 1990
This relates to:
Trump is trying to instigate a "large scale investigation" into "millions" of cases of (non-) existent voter fraud that "cost him the popular vote".
Even Jon Husted has spoken out against that one. The same Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that purged the voter rolls pre-election with VERY strict criteria, starting with the blue districts.
Hilariously, at least 3 people close to Trump (his daughter Tiffany and Steve Bannon among them) are registered to vote in 2 different states.
Trump has started the process of lifting the ban on C.I.A. Black Site prisons - in effect, this means practicing various forms of torture as a major interrogation method.
Oh, right, the Republicans are still trying to repeal the ACA (Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) without any actual replacement. Regardless, replacing it would be about slighting Obama not in interests of the general public, would cost millions if not billions, and would almost certainly completely eradicate the pre-existing conditions prohibitions.
5 days into his presidency, Trump has never severed ties with his business interests. Shocking. Meanwhile, Mar-a-Lago has doubled its fees and his hotel business is apparently planning to triple in size.
Electricians are suing Trump's company for stiffing them $2+ million dollars on a rush job at his D.C. hotel.
White House spokespeople (read: Sean Spicier and Kellyanne Conway) have flat out said that Trump is very sad about people being mean to him because it's keeping him from "enjoying" the presidency.
Of general note, an actual (old) quote from Steve Bannon: "Lenin wanted to destroy the state & that’s my goal... I want to bring everything crashing down & destroy the establishment.”
I've never had a good impression of Greenpeace, but today 7 members scaled a 300' crane near the White House and hung a 70' banner that just read "RESIST".
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511620048/resist-activists-unfurl-massive-banner-on-crane-behind-white-house
(The latter half of the day, Merriam-Webster has been tweeting a lot about whiskey. I think we're gonna need to sober them up tomorrow morning.)
Crossposted to Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. ♥ Blue :)