February 8, 2017

CEO of King Center & Daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King & Coretta Scott King posted this on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBerniceKing/posts/10158320528270571



https://twitter.com/yashar/status/829195944969302016

February 8, 2017

Hitler and Trump Against Normalization: Lesson of Munich Post

https://twitter.com/Patbagley/status/829063305821949952

.....after Trump’s victory I began to follow the debate over how much deference Trump was owed, how much responsibility he had for the hate speech the alt-right morons cheered. Some found solace in the hashtag #notmypresident. David Remnick seemed to have woken the next morning with an especially felicitous gift of disgust, writing: “The fantasy of the normalization of Donald Trump — the idea that a demagogic candidate would somehow be transformed into a statesman of poise and deliberation after his Election Day victory — should now be a distant memory, an illusion shattered.”

He was joined in that spirit of defiance by Teju Cole in The New Times Magazine, Jamelle Bouie in Slate, Masha Gessen in The New York Review of Books, Charles M. Blow in The New York Times, and, most recently, Charles P. Pierce in Esquire.

It looked like a movement was building. What form it would take was unclear.

But now, a couple months later, the momentum is dissolving. The default position is normalization. Should we be content with that? Or should we resist, be it by taking to the streets or simply by “preferring not to,” Bartleby-style?

While sifting through possible courses of action, I remembered something sad — possibly the saddest thing I had ever read: the last few issues of the Munich Post. They had put up a brave front. Somehow, most touchingly, they had continued the serialization of a novel begun before Götterdämmerung, the way a normal newspaper might in normal times. It was a novel by the elusive, pseudonymous B. Traven, called The White Rose. It’s a novel about corporate greed and land-grabbing in Mexico’s oil fields — a text of protest perhaps more relevant to our current struggle than to the struggles of Germany in the 1930s.

I had to search another Munich archive to find the very final issues of the Munich Post, but they were even more dispiriting than I could imagine. The paper went down fighting a lie, fighting Nazi murderers, refusing to normalize the Hitler regime.

A week after Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, the Munich Post published their regular murder survey under the headline “Nazi Party Hands Dripping with Blood,” enumerating the bloody casualties: 18 dead, 34 wounded in street battles with the SA Stormtroopers.

These are the headlines that followed in daily succession:

“Germany Under the Hitler Regime: Political Murder and Terror”
“Blood Guilt of the Nazi Party”
“Germany Today: No Day Without Death”
“Brutal Terror in the Streets of Munich”
“Outlaws and Murderers in Power”
“People Allow Themselves to Be Intimidated”

The era of normalization had begun everywhere else, but the Munich Post resisted.

The Munich Post lost, yes. Soon their office was closed. Some of the journalists ended up in Dachau, some “disappeared.” But they’d won a victory for truth. A victory over normalization. They never stopped fighting the lies, big and small, and left a record of defiance that was heroic and inspirational. They discovered the truth about “endlösung” before most could have even imagined it. The truth is always worth knowing. Support your local journalist.



https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/normalization-lesson-munich-post/

February 8, 2017

Look at all the good white supremacist terrorists do for our country--& No-Gabby Giffords Isn't Dead

I give you Congressman Sean Duffy:

Duffy said Trump was justified in stopping Syrian refugees from entering the United States “until in Syria they figure out this conflict in the civil war and this hotbed for terrorism.” Presumably, however, once the conflict is over, women and children, for example, won’t feel it is as necessary to escape their country to find a safe haven.

Host Alisyn Camerota pressed Duffy on Trump claiming that the media were intentionally covering up terrorist attacks and either not reporting or underreporting them. The White House later Monday released a list of 78 attacks it said backed up Trump’s claim.

The list notably did not include a recent attack on Muslims inside a Quebec City mosque that killed six people. Trump, who frequently tweets about terrorist attacks, also has not mentioned this one.

Duffy argued in his CNN interview that attacks by white people ― such as the one in Quebec City ― aren’t as big of a problem.

“You don’t have a group like ISIS or al Qaeda that is inspiring people around the world to take up arms and kill innocents. That was a one-off. That was a one-off, Alisyn,” Duffy said.

Camerota then pointed to the massacre of black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, as acts carried out by white terrorists. Duffy tried to make lemonade out of the Charleston attack, in which a white supremacist killed nine people:

CAMEROTA: How about Charleston, congressman? He was an extremist. He was a white extremist?

DUFFY: Yes, he was. OK?

CAMEROTA: How about that? That doesn’t matter?

DUFFY: No, it does matter. It does matter. Look at the good things that came from it. (Then-South Carolina Gov.) Nikki Haley took down the Confederate flag, that was great.

But you want to say I can give you a couple of examples. There’s no constant threat that goes through these attacks. And you have radical Islamic terrorists and ISIS that are driving the attacks, and if you want to compare those two, maybe you can throw another one ―

CAMEROTA: You can.

Duffy claimed that people on the left were manufacturing outrage, saying there was plenty of blame to go around.

“Look at Gabby Giffords. The Marxist, who took her life, a leftist guy, and now you see violence and terror in the streets all across America, burning and beating people with Donald Trump hats. The violence you have to look in, you’re trying to use examples on the right,” he said.

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) is not dead. As a congresswoman in 2011, she survived an assassination attempt, and she remains an outspoken proponent of gun safety reform.

Duffy said he’d be happy to help do something about white supremacy but he just didn’t know what to do: “Can we vet that? How should we vet that to keep ourselves safe? I will join you in that effort, what do you do?”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/look-at-all-good-white-supremacist.html

February 8, 2017

Love the look of Orrin Hatch picking his nose behind Mitch as he snowflakes away Sessions' racism

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/829164907274842112
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/829148988318179329
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/elizabeth-warren-sessions-silence-234779

February 8, 2017

The end of Republican economics.

A Quiet Giant Of Investing Weighs In On Trump
https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/829309351525507074
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/business/dealbook/sorkin-seth-klarman-trump-investors.html?smid=tw-share&mtrref=t.co&gwh=716772EF15EB2BACF44BF5AAF5D625E0&gwt=pay

February 8, 2017

Trump's 3am call asking his national security adviser if it's a strong or a weak dollar that's good

White House leaks are common, but leakers suggesting the president might be unfit for office are not.
https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/829161586417754113

MORE from Huffpo article:




the rest:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/trump-administration-leaks_us_589a45f1e4b04061313a1fbb

February 8, 2017

Donald Trump takes away Sean Spicers Communications Director title after SNL debacle

It turns out all it took to get Donald Trump to demote Sean Spicer was to have him portrayed as a woman on Saturday Night Live. Nevermind that Spicer has been bumblingly incompetent for the entirety of his two-plus weeks on the job in the White House; that didn’t seem to matter so much. But now Trump thinks Spicer is “weak” because SNL used a female actress, Melissa McCarthy, to lampoon him, and sure enough, Spicer is being demoted.

Don’t get too excited just yet, as it appears Sean Spicer will continue doing the White House press briefings even after his demotion. But from the start, Spicer has been serving as White House Press Secretary and White House Communications Director, after Jason Miller had to decline the latter job due to a sex scandal. Communications Director is the more senior role of the two, but now that role is going to be taken away from Spicer, as CNN is reporting that the Trump White House has begun actively searching for a new Communications Director.

That means Spicer is being busted down to just being Press Secretary, and the new White House Communications Director will be his boss. When you hold two titles and the more senior title is taken away from you and given to someone new who then becomes your supervisor, that’s the textbook definition of a demotion no matter how the Trump White House ends up spinning it.

And that’s not a huge surprise, considering that the aggressively angry and defensive Spicer has the opposite demeanor of someone who should be dealing with the media, and based on his consistently poor performance, he needs supervision. But what stands out is that Donald Trump appears to have only instructed his people to demote Spicer and find a new Communications Director after Trump was embarrassed that a woman portrayed Spicer. No wonder the internet is now trying to get Rosie O’Donnell to portray Steve Bannon on SNL next.


http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/communications-director-title-donald-trump-sean-spicer-snl/1417/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/politics/sean-spicer-white-house-communications/index.html

February 8, 2017

Lawyers File Motion-Accuse Trump Admin of Failing to Comply With Judges Order in Travel Ban Lawsuit

A group of lawyers on Tuesday filed a motion in federal court in New York asking a judge to force the Trump administration to disclose a list of any individuals detained by his ‘extreme vetting’ Executive Order. The motion also seeks the return of any individuals who were removed from the United States as a result of the order. The lawyers, in court paperwork filed Tuesday afternoon, accuse the Trump administration of failing to comply with prior judicial orders issued in the case.

“The government has already been ordered to produce a list of individuals detained, pursuant to the January 27, 2017 Executive Order, to the petitioner’s counsel. However, despite repeated written requests for this list, Respondents have yet to provide Petitioners’ counsel with even one name of any person held at any U.S. airport or returned to a foreign port,” the motion states.

The original lawsuit was brought on behalf of two Iraqis, Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkaleq Alshawi, who were being held at JFK airport. The ACLU and a group of attorneys filed the case as a class action lawsuit shortly after the Trump executive order was signed. On January 28th, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn) issued an order banning customs officials from deporting or detaining anyone who had arrived in the United States with valid visas, lawful permanent residency, or approved refugee status.

In the newly filed motion, the plaintiffs allege that the Trump administration is now not complying with some of the terms of the judge’s previous orders. In addition, they claim that border patrol agents “intimidated” travelers into withdrawing their visa applications “under conditions that cannot, under any reasonable interpretation, be construed as ‘voluntary.'”

“If the allegations in this legal memorandum — allegations that are shocking but seem entirely plausible on their face and appear to be supported by the affidavits and other materials referenced in the memo — are indeed true, then the President and those acting under his direction have a great deal to answer for and are skirting ever closer to outright defiance of lawful judicial orders or perhaps even crossing the line. Needless to say, such defiance is powerful grist for the awesome mill of impeachment,” Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe told LawNewz.com


http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/breaking-lawyers-accuse-trump-admin-of-failing-to-comply-with-judges-order-in-vetting-lawsuit/

February 8, 2017

Trump's words come back to bite him in court hearing

As a federal appeals court heard arguments over the validity of President Trump's executive order temporarily banning travel from seven mostly Muslim countries, some of the strongest evidence for his opponents came from the president's own words.

A key argument in the case is whether Trump's executive order violated the Constitution's ban on religious discrimination. Lawyers for the states of Washington and Minnesota have alleged that the order was designed to discriminate against Muslims.

Asked for evidence to support that claim, the lawyer for Washington pointed to "the public statements from the president and his top advisors," which he described as "rather shocking."

Trump called for a "Muslim ban" during his presidential campaign, Noah G. Purcell said. And the day he signed the order, he gave an interview to a Christian television network in which he said he wanted to give priority to Christian refugees.

The evidence indicates that the order was "intended to favor some religious groups over others," Purcell said, which would be a violation of the 1st Amendment's ban on an established religion.


http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-live-updates-9th-circuit-arguments-trump-s-words-come-back-to-bite-him-in-1486511992-htmlstory.html

February 7, 2017

Starbucks Is Now Offering Its Baristas Free Advice On Immigration Law

Starbucks Is Now Offering Its Baristas Free Advice On Immigration Law
The coffee chain told staff they can now access a free service for advice on immigration rules and travel restrictions.

posted on Feb. 7, 2017, at 9:47 a.m.

Starbucks has told its employees that it will provide them and their families with free legal advice and guidance on immigration issues, to help them “get answers in these uncertain times,” BuzzFeed News has learned.

The advice will come from professional services firm Ernst & Young, and “will allow all partners and family members to help navigate immigration issues,” according to a letter sent to staff. “If you are a partner or a family member and you have questions about immigration, travel restrictions, or how the Executive Order and any related actions may otherwise impact you, please access this legal support and guidance from the Global Mobility and Immigration team.”

President Trump’s plans to tighten immigration laws has alarmed workers and employers around the country, including wide swathes of the country’s business community. In a recent letter, technology industry leaders said “these actions are both morally and economically misguided, and will inflict irreversible harm on the startup community and America’s ability to compete globally.”

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz took one of the strongest stands on the Trump administration’s executive order barring immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries, saying the American dream was being “called into question” by the move.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/venessawong/starbucks-is-offering-immigration-support-to-employees?utm_term=.vtoPQK0PL#.is6aX6Mak