Trump Muslim Ban

via The Intercept

According to the NYT more than 40 protests were organized across the USA, in response to Trump's ban on Muslims from seven different countries. Tens of thousands of Americans chanted and shouted their opposition to the Trump administration’s travel ban — and expressed their solidarity with refugees and Muslims.
Glenn Greenwald points out in his article in "The Intercept" on Trump's ban, that strangely enough the countries that have produced and supported the largest number of anti-U.S. terrorists — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, UAE — are excluded from the ban list because the tyrannical regimes that run those countries are close U.S. allies. Go figure. The countries that have been included in the ban,  Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Sudan, and Yemen have, according to the Cato Institue, produced virtually no terrorists who have committed terrorist acts on US soil from 1975 to 2015. So what is this really about? Europe is taking on the bulk of refugees being forced to flee countries that have been destabilized and bombed by among others, the USA. Now, the USA is not even offering these refugees asylum? I just don't get it.

Berlin Sister March

Here is a link to an article in the Berlin English language magazine, "Lola". Expats living in Berlin were interviewed at the protest march last Saturday.  Here is a quote from one of the ladies interviewed:
“Everything is at stake during this presidency – healthcare, public funding for education, welfare, the environment. Women will keep earning lower wages. The LGBT page from the White House website is already gone. I’m extremely angry and I’m here to protect my reproductive rights. I’m tired of old white conservative rich men telling me what to do with my ovaries and my vulva. They’re mine. They don’t belong to them. I feel sorry for Melania – blink twice if you need help. Women, we need to stand up for our rights. We’re not second or third class citizens. We need education. We can’t sit idle. We have to mobilise and we have to keep on pushing.”
Irene Mogollon, 43, film editor, grew up between California and New York
I feel sorry for Melania, too. Go Irene.

The next big anti-Trump demonstration is scheduled for April 15, 2017. The official hashtag is #DivestDonald and protests are being planned nationwide.
Berlin out.

The Netherlands welcomes Trump in his own words

I am getting tired of the sympathetic looks so many Europeans are giving me, like
you don't seem crazy but what is up with the homeland???  We really are not in this alone and Europe is indeed to say the very least, disconcerted with the choices that are being made in the USA.
So my BFF, who is living in London, sent this video and I would like to share an European reaction to Trump and his "America first" policy. So here is a Dutch video where the Dutch are taking a pro-active approach.
Berlin out.

Karim Sulayman - I trust you

Trump's politics simply create fear and who would have thought it possible, even greater divisions
in the good ol' US of A. This guy above is making a statement and people are reacting like human beings. Go NYC! Our only option is to come together and say no to muslims having to register, to a wall being built, ( if you have lived in Berlin, as I do, you know this will not be a constructive move!), to limiting the control that women have over their own health and bodies, to building a pipeline instead of keeping that oil in the ground, to cutting the budget for NEA and trying to destroy public radio.
Berlin out.

Welcome to reality under President Trump

As every American knows by now our President has become a tornado of activity in his first seven days and he is trying to keep his promises to all his devoted followers. If he maintains this pace our society as we know it will be upside down, is he really making each and every live better or is he turning us all against each other.
   Does every American want to own a gun, stop all immigration, deny women health care choices, destroy public education, lose social security and Medicare, NO we do not and have not made those choices through our government elections. Can he not see that more than half of the voters have said no to Trump, but I think he has forgotten about those voters. He needs to focus on the entire United States and stop his delusional rhetoric about the thousands of people who were not at his inaguration or the three to five million voters that did not exist. We need to work on solving so many issues that if he just would wrap his tiny hands around one issue with input from all the real solution seekers and policy wonks and departments that can actually help him he might be able help just a little.
   The media has made him ,why does he and all his flunkies attack the media like they are ISIS, ISIS is a real entity and they need some attention and they need it now, no walls are going to destroy ISIS, what is the plan about that, we can't count on Ms. Conway to punch their face we need to have the full might of the United States military to scrub the enemy fighters down one of those golden toilets and stop Americans from being threatened every where in the world. It will be nice if Americans can feel safe in there own country and I do agree that Trump has to get his own house in order before he plasters his trademark all over the world.
   Just needed to get the ball rolling, rant over.
South Jersey out !

Resist

via Greenpeace

January 25th, 2017 
 "Washington, DC – This morning, seven activists deployed a 70-foot by 35-foot banner of the word “Resist” above the White House. The activists from around the country are still in place, calling for those who want to resist Trump’s attacks on environmental, social, economic, and educational justice to contribute to a better America.

Since Trump has taken office, his administration has removed all mentions of climate change and LGBTQ rights from the White House website, taken steps to bring back the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, and issued a press gag order on all employees of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture."

Have we ever seen a photo like this before?  Not as far as I can remember. Think it just about sums it up, though.

Let The Good Times Roll

Well, he is indeed off to a prolific start. President Trump has been very busy since his move into the oval office. Although in an alternative universe, these may be, as Kellyanne Conway might aptly claim, alternative facts, they do seem, for what it is worth, to be documeneted. Trump's war on the press is apparently also a war on historical facts and collective memory.
Here is a record, according to CNN, of his first 72 hours....

1. Taken over running of the entire federal government.
2. Issued an executive order aimed at rolling back former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.
3. Halted a reduction to the annual mortgage insurance premiums borrowers pay when taking out government-backed home loans.
4. Ordered agencies to freeze new regulations, giving the new administration time to review them.
5. Received a key legal OK from the Justice Department for Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to take on a role in the White House.
6. Met with the CIA, where he addressed employees. Trump also took over the nuclear codes
7. Trump's nominee for CIA director, Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, contradicted his earlier testimony and said he was open to revisiting limits on interrogation techniques including waterboarding if his intelligence officers think it is needed.
8. Raised the specter of another conflict in Iraq, with Trump expressing regret for not taking over the country's oil and telling the CIA, "We should have kept the oil. Maybe we'll have another chance."
9. Spoke to the Mexican president and said the two will meet at the end of January.
10. Spoke to the Canadian prime minister about the two nations' economic relationship.
11. Announced he has meetings with leaders in Mexico and Canada to begin re-negotiating NAFTA.
12. Announced his first foreign leader meeting will be Friday with the United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May.
13. Signaled a shift in the Justice Department's civil rights efforts when it requested a delay in the lawsuit over a Texas law requiring voters to present certain types of government-issued IDs.
14. Prepared to issue more executive orders this week.
15. Told the National Park Service not to tweet after it retweeted side-by-side images showing the crowd at former President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration and Trump's inauguration.
16. Began discussions about moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
17. Confronted his first national disaster as President, deadly tornadoes in Georgia.
18. Issued executive orders to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal negotiations, as well as executive order on abortion and lobbyists who want to work in the White House.

 He has also reinstated the "Global Gag Rule" which bans U.S. funding for any international healthcare organizations that perform abortions or advocate for the legalization of abortion or even mention it, even if those activities are funded by non-U.S. money. So, I guess all the ladies who came out on Saturday to peacefully protest will be stepping up their game.

He has also signed two executive actions today to advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.
A strange move indeed for someone who regards himself as an envrironmentalist.

He is most definitely on a roll. Let's keep our eyes and ears open.