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Fascism Watch, February 8

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Trump

Sean Spicer references imaginary Atlanta terror attack to defend Trump’s travel ban

Canadian woman turned away from U.S. border after questions about religion, Trump

Muslim U.S. Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad says she was held by U.S. Customs

Longtime Phoenix resident in U.S. illegally detained in early display of Trump executive order’s reach

Sean Spicer just set an extraordinary standard for criticizing military operations under Trump

Spicer stood by his earlier assessment that the operation, in which Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens was killed, was a success. And then he went further — much further.

“It’s absolutely a success, and I think anyone who would suggest it’s not a success does disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens,” Spicer said at Wednesday’s daily briefing.

Trump launched Yemen raid after being told Obama wouldn’t have been ‘bold enough,’ report says

Trump’s Mix of Politics and Military Is Faulted

“When President Trump suggested that it was good to support him and said he was so thankful for the support of the military, it showed that he doesn’t understand what the military in a freely elected democracy is supposed to be doing,” said Mark Hertling, a retired Army lieutenant general.

“The military takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not certain politicians,” he added.

There’s a silver lining to Melania Trump’s libel suit against The Daily Mail.

“For students of good government, Melania’s lawsuit does have an upside: the discovery process.

Since she is seeking at least $150 million in damages stemming from missed business opportunities, the lawyers representing the Daily Mail should eventually avail themselves of their discovery powers to secure each and every e-mail, communique and document about White House business prospects that the Trump parents and children discussed. They should also subpoena the Trump family’s tax returns and banking records while they’re at it.”

Ivanka Trump oversaw Murdoch daughters’ trust. Role underscores close ties between US president’s family and Fox News.

Trump offers to ‘destroy’ Texas senator to help Rockwall sheriff

Trump administration seen as more truthful than news media: poll

Congress

Black Caucus Dems take to Senate to protest Sessions

House Republicans Chide NOAA Scientists Over Climate Data

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

Jeff Sessions is our Attorney General. Time travelers of the future, now would be a great time to show up and save us from this hell.

Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch says Trump’s attacks on judiciary are ‘demoralizing’

Trump labor nominee said 40% of his workers were once undocumented

Voting

Judges block North Carolina law limiting governor’s powers

International

Fascism Watch, February 7

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Trump

Yemen Withdraws Permission for U.S. Antiterror Ground Missions

WH official: We’ll say ‘fake news’ until media realizes attitude of attacking the President is wrong

Leaks Suggest Trump’s Own Team Is Alarmed By His Conduct He called Mike Flynn at 3a.m. to ask whether a strong dollar or a weak one is good for the economy. BUT HE’S A GREAT BUSINESSMAN.

“There are already plenty of grounds to impeach Trump. The question is when Republicans will decide that he’s more of a liability than an asset.”

Anderson Cooper Shuts Down The White House’s Terrorism List In Just 45 Seconds by showing clips of his own coverage of the “underreported” attacks. “The total number of media hits for the 78 terrorist attacks that the White House released Monday is 80,878, or about an average of slightly more than 1,000 mentions per incident.”

Trump falsely claims US murder rate is ‘highest’ in 47 years

Congress

Senate votes to silence Warren after speech against Sessions. By reading Coretta Scott King’s 1986 letter against his confirmation as a federal judge, she was insulting a fellow Senator, Mitch McConnell decided.

The Senate voted, 49 to 43, strictly on party lines, to uphold the ruling that Warren violated rules of debate. Warren is now forbidden from speaking during the remainder of the debate on the nomination of Sessions.

“I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate,” Warren said after McConnell’s motion.

Republican congressman says white terrorists are different

Mitch McConnell won’t spend federal money to investigate Trump’s claims of voter fraud

Congress has the power to obtain and release Trump’s tax returns

Immediately after confirming DeVos, GOP lawmaker proposes abolishing Department of Education

House moves to eliminate commission overseeing voting system security

The danger isn’t that Trump will build an autocracy. It’s that congressional Republicans will let him.

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

As expected, Mike Pence broke the tie to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.

EPA employees put their jobs on the line to protest Scott Pruitt

What Steve Bannon really wants

CNN invited Kellyanne Conway back. It was a train wreck.

Protests

Army Approves Dakota Access Pipeline Route, Paving Way For The Project’s Completion “In doing so, the Army cut short its environmental impact assessment and the public comment period associated with it.”

Other Fascist Nonsense

FBI axes FOIA requests by email, so dust off your fax machine

Fascism Watch, February 6

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(image by Steve Sack)

Trump

Ron Rosenbaum, world-class expert on the rise of Hitler, refused to write about Trump for months. Until now.

Cut to the current election. We had heard allegations that Trump kept Hitler’s speeches by his bedside, but somehow we normalized that. We didn’t take him seriously because of all the outrageous, clownish acts and gaffes we thought would cause him to drop out of the race. Except these gaffes were designed to distract. This was his secret strategy, the essence of his success — you can’t take a stand against Trump because you don’t know where Trump is standing. You can’t find him guilty of evil, you can’t find him at all.

Government by White Nationalism Is Upon Us

President Trump is now speculating that the media is covering up terrorist attacks

Speaking to the U.S. Central Command on Monday, President Trump went off his prepared remarks to make a truly stunning claim: The media was intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks.

“You’ve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening,” he said to the assembled military leaders. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”

John Yoo op-ed: Executive Power Run Amok

As an official in the Justice Department, I followed in Hamilton’s footsteps, advising that President George W. Bush could take vigorous, perhaps extreme, measures to protect the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks, including invading Afghanistan, opening the Guantánamo detention center and conducting military trials and enhanced interrogation of terrorist leaders. Likewise, I supported President Barack Obama when he drew on this source of constitutional power for drone attacks and foreign electronic surveillance.

But even I have grave concerns about Mr. Trump’s uses of presidential power.

Yoo is the author of the Bush-era Torture Memos.

A Der Spiegel op-ed has called for a German-led international alliance against Trump.

The United States president is becoming a danger to the world. It is time for Germany and Europe to prepare their political and economic defenses.

Donald Trump will not be allowed to address Parliament on UK state visit

“However, as far as this place is concerned I feel very strongly that our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons.”

“Any negative polls are fake news”: President Trump encourages his 24M Twitter followers to ignore accurate polls

Over a dozen state AGs support lawsuit against Trump ban

Bipartisan NatSec officials to court: “In our professional opinion, the Order was ill-conceived, poorly implemented and ill-explained.”

Mike Huckabee to Fox Business: I don’t understand the role of the judiciary, and I’ll frame my ignorance in toxic masculinity!

I think in the past we have had an executive branch that has emasculated itself by surrendering constantly to the idea that once the court says something, that’s it. It’s the law of the land, and when I hear that phrase, it’s the law of the land cause the court said it, I think did you guys pass ninth grade civics for gosh sake? The court can’t make law. They cannot legislate.

Last week’s Yemen raid should warrant as much investigation as Benghazi did

But by Republican standards, this should be a major, impeachment-worthy scandal. Unless there’s some arbitrary minimum number of U.S. casualties (greater than one but less than four) above which administrative heads should roll, there’s no standard by which Benghazi should have become the subject of a vast, conspiratorial inquest, but the botched raid in Yemen should not.

Melania Trump’s lawyers admit she hoped to cash in on being First Lady by selling clothes and fragrances

Russia

Kremlin says it wants apology from Fox News over Putin comments

Congress

The craziest politician in Washington last week was not Donald Trump. Let’s talk about the amazeballs letter Patrick McHenry sent to Janet Yellen.

Congressman Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC.), a vice-chairman on the House Financial Services Committee, has sent a blistering letter to Federal Reserve Chair Yellen telling her in no uncertain terms to stop cooperating with other central banks and insurance supervisors over global rules of conduct, at least until the new administration has given her a clear political line to follow.

Oversight chairman seeking copy of Trump hotel lease  Jason Chaffetz makes a vague gesture toward doing his job! Stop the presses!

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

NPR lists the status of all the Cabinet nominees’ confirmations!

CNN has finally refused to book Kellyanne Conway, which more news outlets should do when WH representatives stand up and lie to the public. Her claim that the “Bowling Green Massacre” was a slip is belied by earlier instances of the same nonexistent incident. Mika Brzezinski says MSNBC has also passed on having Conway on Morning Joe.

Scott Pruitt, EPA pick, perjured himself. No one cares.

The Ethics Case Against Betsy DeVos

As former ethics counsels to Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, we’ve reviewed more than our share of ethics filings for cabinet nominees. Seldom have we seen a worse cabinet-level ethics mess than that presented by Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s choice for education secretary.

Her extensive financial holdings present significant—and unresolved—conflict of interest issues. She also failed to provide the Senate with accurate information about her involvement with outside organizations. We have regretfully come to the conclusion that these concerns disqualify DeVos for that cabinet position.

Nearly 250 education and civil rights groups say they oppose Betsy DeVos. Kellyanne Conway says the opposition to DeVos isn’t from “real people.”

Democrats are holding the Senate floor all night to rally opposition to DeVos.

Fascism Watch, February 4-5

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Trump

Trump Clashes Early With Courts, Portending Years of Legal Battles

Late in the day, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to pre-emptively blame the judge and the judiciary for what the president suggested would be a future terrorist attack.

“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril,” Mr. Trump wrote, a day after referring to the “so-called judge” in the case. “If something happens blame him and court system.”

Appeals Court Rejects DOJ Request to Immediately Restore Travel Ban

Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order

The disagreement between Bannon and Kelly pitted a political operator against a military disciplinarian. Two administration officials gave the following account of their exchange: Respectfully but firmly, the retired general told Bannon that despite his high position in the White House and close relationship with President Trump, the former Breitbart chief was not in Kelly’s chain of command. If the president wanted Kelly to back off from issuing the waiver, Kelly would have to hear it from the president directly, he told Bannon.

Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles

But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

He does not read the orders he signs.

Trump tells Fox News California is ‘out of control’ and he may strip its federal funding

Pence suggests a path to end Russian sanctions

Trump is targeting up to 8 million people for deportation

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

Trump’s F.D.A. pick “has argued that companies should not have to prove that their drugs work in clinical trials before selling them to consumers.”

Jeff Sessions, vile human being, blamed disabled children for ‘decline in civility’ in schools

Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch Has a Troubling History When Ruling on Disability Rights Cases

Vincent Viola has dropped out of the running for Army Secretary because he could not divest himself of his business interests to the Pentagon’s standards.

How The Fast-Food Chain Led By Trump’s Labor Nominee Stiffed Workers Again And Again “Hardee’s workers in Pennsylvania were required to pay 10 cents per hour for the privilege of wearing a Hardee’s uniform.”

What You Can Do

Keep calling your representatives (and only your representatives), even if you have phone anxiety. Check It’s Time to Fight or 5calls.org for your call list and scripts.

Fascism Watch, February 3

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Immigration ban & Constitutional crisis

Yet another federal judge ordered a halt to the immigration ban, and this time DHS says it will immediately revert to pre-ban procedures and reinstate the 100,000 visas that were revoked.

The Department of Homeland Security announced it has suspended all actions to implement the immigration order and will resume standard inspections of travelers as it did prior to the signing of the travel ban.

Also, a State Department official tells CNN the department has reversed the cancellation of visas that were provisionally revoked following the President’s executive order last week — so long as those visas were not stamped or marked as canceled.

Predictably, Trump threw a tantrum on Twitter after the announcement

The Texas governor has stripped $1.5m in criminal justice grants from Austin, whose county sheriff campaigned on a promise to make it a sanctuary city

This week, Travis County stopped honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests—which ask local police to hold individuals suspected of violating immigration law until they can be picked up by federal agents—unless those people had been charged with murder, aggravated sexual assault, or human smuggling. Under Hernandez’s predecessor, Greg Hamilton, the city had the nation’s third-highest rate for deportations initiated under Secure Communities, a defunct federal program that President Donald Trump reinstated last week.

The Texas GOP couldn’t cut Hernandez off at the pass, but it’s bearing down on her now. On Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared sanctuary cities an “emergency item,” which allows lawmakers to vote on the issue during the first 60 days of the 140-day session. On Wednesday, Abbott responded to Hernandez’s move by cutting about $1.5 million in criminal justice grants to the county, which fund drug-diversion programs, family-violence therapy, and juvenile justice programs. On Thursday, in front of a raucous crowd at the state capitol, lawmakers began debate on a bill to force Austin to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The The San Francisco Police Department has cut ties with the FBI’ Joint Terrorism Task Force rather than participate in surveillance of Muslims

Trump

The Yemen raid did not undergo the usual vetting process. Trump was not present in the situation room when it was carried out.

The Trump administration is going to let financial advisers go back to ripping you off. The AARP (!) issued a statement calling the reversal of the fiduciary rule harmful to its members.

Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 in hotel bills

The Uruguayan trip shows how the government is unavoidably entangled with the Trump company as a result of the president’s refusal to divest his ownership stake. In this case, government agencies are forced to pay to support business operations that ultimately help to enrich the president himself. Though the Trumps have pledged a division of business and government, they will nevertheless depend on the publicly funded protection granted to the first family as they travel the globe promoting their brand.

Furthermore, the trust into which Trump placed his assets in no way resolves his conflicts of interest:

While the president says he has walked away from the day-to-day operations of his business, two people close to him are the named trustees and have broad legal authority over his assets: his eldest son, Donald Jr., and Allen H. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer. Mr. Trump, who will receive reports on any profit, or loss, on his company as a whole, can revoke their authority at any time.

What’s more, the purpose of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust is to hold assets for the “exclusive benefit” of the president. This trust remains under Mr. Trump’s Social Security number, at least as far as federal taxes are concerned.

…

“I don’t see how this in the slightest bit avoids a conflict of interest,” said Frederick J. Tansill, a trust and estates lawyer from Virginia who examined the documents at the request of The New York Times. “First it is revocable at any time, and it is his son and his chief financial officer who are running it.”

Trump aides hold ‘Kumbaya meeting’ with reporters

Russian tech exec sues Buzzfeed for publishing unverified Trump dossier

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

As a student, President Trump’s Supreme Court pick expressed contempt for protesters, praised right wing militias, and supported apartheid in South Africa.

Congress

Good News

The last 3 days have been busiest in Capitol switchboard history

Some admirable wit has started a website for The Bowling Green Massacre Victims Fund. All the donation links lead to the ACLU.

If you liked Sarah Pinsker’s Twitter thread of all 100 senators and their opinions on the immigration ban, you’ll love @WriteTF, which has done every single representative. Respect. Here’s their thread for Texas.

The 12-Year-Old Yemeni Girl Who Was Stranded in Djibouti Is About to Become a U.S. Citizen

The Iranian baby who was halted on her way to the US for heart surgery is being allowed in

Fascism Watch, February 2

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Immigration ban & Constitutional crisis

Virginia has filed a contempt motion over Trump admin’s failure to comply with court order on immigration.

Google, Apple, Facebook, and Uber have drafted a joint letter opposing Trump’s travel ban.

Steve Bannon’s first major play is shaping up as a full-blown fiasco

Kellyanne Conway cites ‘Bowling Green massacre’ that never happened to defend travel ban.

At one point, Conway made a reference to two Iraqi refugees whom she described as the masterminds behind “the Bowling Green massacre.”

“Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered,” Conway said.

The Bowling Green massacre didn’t get covered because it didn’t happen. There has never been a terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Ky., carried out by Iraqi refugees or anyone else.

Good news: Ali Vayeghan, the Iranian man who was deported from LAX in violation of the federal court’s TRO, has returned.

Vayeghan’s successful return was the result of a federal judge’s emergency ruling overturning the government’s decision to ban him, making Vayeghan the first person denied entry to be allowed into the country after a legal challenge to the White House’s executive order.

Trump

Trump aims to “totally destroy” law prohibiting churches from engaging in political activity

There is no recording of Trump’s phone call with Putin on Saturday. “The White House could not provide additional details about the call because staff had disabled recording equipment.”

Trump loosens sanctions preventing Russia intelligence agencies from cyberspying

Congress

Congress says coal mining companies can go back to dumping waste in streams

The G.O.P. Campaign to Repeal Obamacare Hits a Wall

Chaffetz backs off on plan to sell off ‘excess’ public lands

Chaffetz says the House Oversight Committee may investigate Trump’s possible conflicts of interest. I don’t even know what to say to this except to implore you to keep calling your representatives and screaming about this.

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

Steve Bannon: ‘we’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt’

Senate Republicans suspend committee rules to approve Scott Pruitt, Trump’s EPA nominee

Press Secretary Sean Spicer Falsely Accuses Iran of Attacking U.S. Navy Vessel. In response, Iran president says Trump will cost the US, calls him a political novice.

The CIA’s New Deputy Director Ran a Black Site for Torture

Protests

Yemeni bodega owners went on strike in New York. Thousands protested in front of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall.

We Are The Scientists Against A Fascist Government.  “We are writing as scientists who are concerned about the rise of an authoritarian, Trump-led, and GOP-dominated government.”