January 30, 2017

Jihadists mock Trump travel ban, vow more attacks

REUTERS
30 JAN 2017 AT 12:12 ET

Supporters of Islamic State mocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to deny entry to citizens of seven Muslim- majority countries, saying it would fail to stop attacks in the United States and help win new militant recruits instead.

“Your decision will do nothing. Attacks will come at you from inside America, from Americans born in America with American parents and grandparents,” one Islamic State supporter posted on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app.

In a move he said would help protect the United States from terrorists, Trump signed an order on Friday suspending the entry of people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days. Admission of all refugees was halted for four months, and for Syrians indefinitely.

The sweeping travel curbs took effect immediately, wreaking havoc for would-be travellers with passports from the seven countries and prompting an international outcry.

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http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/jihadists-mock-trump-travel-ban-vow-more-attacks/

January 30, 2017

Today in Kellyanne Filibusters: Her Inability to Say Whether McCain, Graham 'Want to Start WWIII'

by J.D. Durkin | 8:27 am, January 30th, 2017

Senior counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway is a master wordsmith whose ability to avoid tough questions is unmatched in today’s political media arena. And today she demonstrated again how flexible she can be when it comes to bobbing and weaving her way through an interview, as evidenced by her Monday morning hit on ABC’s Good Morning America.

The subject at hand as presented by coanchor George Stephanopoulos stemmed from Tweets on Sunday sent by President Donald Trump about two of his Republican colleagues, Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Arizona’s John McCain.

-snip- (Trump's tweets)

POTUS accused the longtime GOP leaders of, “always looking to start World War III,” a premise that Conway danced around instead of responding to head-on Monday. Stephanopoulos asked, “How are Senators McCain and graham looking to start World War III?”

Instead of responding to that question, Conway offered, “Well the first part of the Tweet is really instructive and operative, George!”

She continued, “The President is basically saying to people, ‘You protested my nomination, you protested my candidacy, you protested my inauguration, you protested the day after the inauguration, you protested my executive orders, you protested’ — how about this cooperation and collaboration and bipartisanship that we’re always talking about?”

“Kellyanne, these are Republican Senators!” Stephanopoulos shot back. Again, she invoked the beginning of Trump Tweets instead of addressing the subject at hand. She also seemed to take a slight swipe at Graham and McCain at one point by indicating that both men have run for the office of the President before unsuccessfully.

more + video
http://www.mediaite.com/online/today-in-kellyanne-filibusters-her-inability-to-say-whether-mccain-graham-want-to-start-wwiii/

January 30, 2017

'It Felt Like Our Stuff': Ex-CIA Director Describes How Intel Community Views Russia Dossier

Source: Mediaite

by Justin Baragona 11:35 am, January 30th, 2017

During his [link:http://freespeechbroadcasting.com/free-speech-broadcasting-podcastsweekly podcast], Mediaite columnist John Ziegler spoke with former CIA Director Michael Hayden in a wide-ranging interview that covered a number of subjects such as President Donald Trumps travel ban and Trumps post-inauguration speech at the CIA.

-snip-

Ziegler asked Hayden to give his evaluation of the document that provides claims that Russia attempted to compromise Trump. The ex-CIA head first expounded on the intel communitys conclusion on Russian interference to clarify the dossier wasnt part of the assessment at this point. Switching to the doc drawn up by an ex-MI6 agent who Hayden commended for his [link:http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-very-credible-trump-dossier-author-has-gone-into-hiding/high-level of reliability] in the past, the former intel leader had this to say:

[div class"excerpt"]When I read it, it felt like our stuff. You know what I mean? John, the part of our stuff it felt like was the stuff we put labels on top and bottom. This is raw, unevaluated information. This is not finished intelligence. And, so, if that were our stuff, if we had gotten that from our sources, wed have then started holding that up to the light and asking questions like, So the guy who told you this, would he have reasonably been expected to know this? Has he reported reliably in the past? Do we have other sources that seem to reinforce this particular story?. Thats the stuff that goes on. And frankly, John, best I can tell, that effort hasnt driven anyone to conclude that any part of that dossier is true.

The two went on to talk about how and why the dossier eventually got presented to President Trump and also how Trump may be acting like Russia has compromising info on him even if that may not actually be the case.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/it-felt-like-our-stuff-ex-cia-director-describes-how-intel-community-views-russia-dossier/

January 30, 2017

GOP congressman shrugs off detainment of Iraqi war heroes: 'This happens' to 'people of this color'

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/gop-congressman-shrugs-off-detainment-of-iraqi-war-heroes-this-happens-to-people-of-this-color/

January 30, 2017

Judicial Branch Page Restored To White House Site After Social Media Outcry

Source: Talking Points Memo

By MATT SHUHAM Published JANUARY 30, 2017, 11:39 AM EDT

As soon as the official White House website changed hands to the Trump administration on Jan. 20, a page on the site explaining the judicial branch as part of "our government" was removed. It was restored on Monday morning.

Following reports over the weekend that Customs and Border Patrol officers had defied federal judges’ orders not to detain permanent legal residents affected by President Donald Trump’s immigration order, several Twitter users noted an ominous omission from the White House website:

Charles Johnson
?@Green_Footballs

On the left, the White House website’s footer earlier this year. On the right, what it looks like today. Notice anything missing?

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/judicial-branch-restored-to-white-house-website

January 30, 2017

Trump, Breitbart, and the rejection of multicultural democracy

The hostility to immigrants and Islam in the executive orders comes straight out of Breitbart.

Updated by Daniel Kreiss Jan 30, 2017, 10:30am EST

Amid reports that Trump elevated his chief strategist Steve Bannon to the National Security Council, as well as reports that he had a hand in shaping the executive orders banning immigration from several Muslim countries and refugees, understanding Bannon’s worldview has become all the more important.

That’s because Trump’s executive orders should be interpreted as the outgrowth of a coherent ideological framework and set of ideas about American democracy.

Bannon's ideology is most clearly reflected in Breitbart, the right wing nationalist site Bannon headed for a number of years.

Over the past month, I spent some time doing close readings of Breitbart articles published during and after the campaign, and came away with an overarching conclusion: For Bannon and Trump’s core group of supporters, the president’s victory was a rejection of multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalization, and the triumph of white, Christian populist nationalism.

more
http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/30/14431544/trump-breitbart-rejection-multicultural-democracy

January 30, 2017

Team Trump's messy defenses of the immigration order could hurt them in court

Incompetent, contradictory — and accidentally revealing.

Updated by Dara [email protected] Jan 30, 2017, 11:28am EST

The Trump administration’s defenses of its executive order banning people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US (as well as nearly all refugees) are consistent with the way the executive order’s been applied: all over the place.

Reports from inside the administration have made it clear that the executive order wasn’t developed with anywhere near the typical amount of caution, interagency involvement, or review that would normally happen before an executive order was published — and that, after the order was published, the White House overruled lawyers at the Department of Homeland Security, who initially concluded it wouldn’t apply to green card holders.

Administration officials’ appearances on Sunday talk shows appeared to be less cautious than one might expect in explaining and defending the order, too — and it could really come back to hurt them.

That’s because the administration is already being sued all over the US over the order, with more lawsuits on the way. Public statements about the order from administration officials aren’t just spin, they’re evidence. And the evidence that Trump spokespeople offered into the record on Sunday could make it harder for the government to defend this case in court.

more
http://www.vox.com/2017/1/29/14430478/trump-admit-muslim-ban-giuliani

January 30, 2017

Trump's Rasputin seizes the moment: A week of chaos may suit Steve Bannon's master plan

Alt-right guru turned Trump adviser is using both the "Muslim ban" and bogus voter-fraud charges to spread disorder

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

There was so much going on in President Donald Trump’s first week of presidential decrees that it was hard to keep track of it all. The most acute problem, in that it immediatelyaffected people’s lives, was the executive order issued on Friday that banned entry to the United States for immigrants, refugees or visitors arriving from a list of certain Muslim-majority countries designated as having terrorist activity. On Saturday when it became clear that the ban was taking effect immediately and people were being denied entry or told at their point of origin that they could not board U.S.-bound planes, all hell broke loose.

Nobody understood the rules. Passengers were being held and interrogated. Chaos ensued at international airports all over the country. Protesters gathered en masse at terminals to show their solidarity. Immigration lawyers arrived to help detainees and their families navigate a system that nobody understood — because it was arbitrary and constitutionally dubious. The world reacted with disbelief.

Finally several federal judges issued stays, for a variety of reasons, in response to suits filed by civil liberties and immigration attorneys around the country. Even hawkish constitutional experts were appalled.

It was a shocking moment in American history.

But we shouldn’t have been too surprised. Trump had promised to ban Muslims from entering the country during the campaign, famously making a speech after the San Bernardino terrorist attack saying it had to be done until the U.S. “could figure out what the hell is going on.” He modified his remarks later, apparently at the urging of Rudy Giuliani, who bragged that he told Trump he could only ban Muslims by nationality rather than religion (while offering priority to those who practice a different religion) or he’d run afoul of the Constitution. Now the Trump administration has absurdly proclaimed that it was just following Barack Obama’s lead (an assertion refuted by the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler.)

more
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/30/trumps-rasputin-seizes-the-moment-a-week-of-chaos-may-suit-steve-bannons-master-plan/

January 30, 2017

'Thats Deflection!': CNN's Costello Pushes Back on Rep. Darrell Issa Over Travel Ban

by Lindsey Ellefson | 9:57 am, January 30th, 2017

This morning on CNN, Carol Costello spoke to California’s Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican of Lebanese descent, about Donald Trump‘s travel ban on immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim majority countries.

Issa defended the move, even as Costello asked why he, as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, wasn’t consulted, but Steve Bannon reportedly was. When he said that he was less concerned about Bannon’s involvement than he was about Trump not having a Secretary of State yet because of Senate hesitancy, Costello said, “That’s deflection! He has a Defense Secretary and he has a Homeland Security Secretary.”

They continued that way and Issa said, “I would rather deal with what the President’s doing and make adjustments than to have a President who does nothing.”

Costello pushed back, asking if it was “okay” that protests were staged across the country, federal agents were unsure what to do, and American businesses suffered as a result of the executive order.

more
http://www.mediaite.com/online/thats-deflection-cnns-costello-pushes-back-on-rep-darrell-issa-over-travel-ban/

January 30, 2017

CNN's Carol Costello Informs Viewers That Friday Will Be Her Last Day on CNN

by Justin Baragona | 11:12 am, January 30th, 2017

At the end of her broadcast today, CNN anchor Carol Costello announced that Friday would be her last day with the network as she’ll be moving to California and will work for HLN.

Costello explained that the decision was personal and a big life change. Noting that she had lived apart from her husband for many years, she pointed out that it hadn’t been that bad because he also lived on the East Coast. However, he recently got a new job in Los Angeles, adding “and I kind of miss him.”

“I don’t want to get too emotional,” she told the audience. “But I will miss you too.”

video @ link, below

http://www.mediaite.com/online/cnns-carol-costello-informs-viewers-that-friday-will-be-her-last-day-on-cnn/

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