Tuesday, January 31, 2017

A message to HS Immigrants from a Principal - Well worth reading.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/30/1627556/-From-a-high-school-in-Iowa

The following announcement was made this morning by Kevin Biggs, principal of Theodore Roosevelt High School (Des Moines).

"Good Morning Roughriders:

I apologize for the interruption. Please place down your pens or pencils and listen to this announcement. This weekend, much of the world’s attention was focused on an effort by the federal government to impose far-reaching restrictions on the ability of immigrants and refugees to come to the United States. From protesters at airports and on the streets to lawyers and judges in courtrooms, there was a swift reaction by many in support of immigrants and refugees.

To all of our students who are immigrants or refugees – and to their friends and classmates and teachers who are also concerned because of these recent events – know that you belong here – Roosevelt HS and DMPS stands by you. As you know, TRHS is a school of such diversity, with a student body that encompasses over 40 different languages and cultures. Over the years, thousands of refugee students from around the world have attended school at DMPS. Many have labeled TRHS as the most diverse high school in the state of Iowa, which in my opinion is a strength and gift that we are to be extremely proud of, but also use to grow as human beings.

Each one of you is sitting here today because your parents or guardians wanted you to attend a real-world high school, that exposed you to various cultures, religions, languages, experiences, and beliefs…because understanding and respecting these differences is what allows each of us to grow into the respecting, accepting, and loving leaders of tomorrow. Because of your attendance at TRHS, I believe you possess, or will eventually possess, a unique perspective on life and the world, one that will prepare you well for whatever conflict is thrown your way in the next few years.

For our students of immigrant families, we want to help you learn and succeed in school. We want to see you have fun and make friends and find your passions. We want to be there to celebrate that day when you walk across a stage to receive your diploma. We want to help you grow into the people you want to become. At TRHS, we welcome immigrants and refugees as our students and families, as our neighbors and friends. The entire district values our students, no matter where they might come from – this is your home and we are honored to serve you. The adults in the building are here to help in any way that you might need.

When children in Des Moines show up at our schools – no matter their place of birth or religion or language or skin color – they should know that they belong here and we stand by them. America is a country of immigrants; every one of us has roots which began in countries across the globe. America was built on the pursuit of freedoms, and it is our responsibility as citizens to stand-up for what we believe is right and just.

For our immigrant students, especially those of you who’s home country is Iran, or Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, or Somalia…we are here to support you as this attempt to ban your family from our country is constructed by the federal government. I ask every TRHS student to stand by our friends, support them with unwavering love and empathy, and be respectful during this chaotic time. This is a time where Roughriders can show the world what happens when unity and love can overcome injustice. We love and respect each and every one of you and hope to prove that through our actions each day. Thank you for providing me a few minutes of your time. Go Riders!"

CNN questions Bannon being on NSC Meetings instead of Military Experts

http://mediamatters.org/video/2017/01/30/cnns-lead-explains-trumps-unsettling-decision-put-stephen-bannon-national-security-council/215182

Expert NOT WANTED by Trump!

JAKE TAPPER (HOST): An American president has a tremendous amount of power. At least once a week, a life or death decision comes across his Resolute desk: a military strike against a terrorist cell, a hostage rescue attempt, an Iranian ship too close to a U.S. naval vessel in the strait of Hormuz. A president needs information. He needs intelligence, and he needs the expertise of seasoned professionals. The very first week of the Trump presidency does not provide much evidence that information and expertise from outside the president's immediate circle are valued as much as they should be. That's at least according to Democratic and Republican national security experts with whom I've spoken. The number of agencies and experts and congressional leaders consulted or even briefed upon the executive order on immigration and refugees was, Republican and Democratic officials say, shockingly small.

The White House today took great pains to suggest that reports of a major shakeup at the National Security Council are, quote, "utter nonsense." To be charitable, those are alternative facts from our friends at the White House. National security experts in the presidential memorandum making the change disagree. The president in his new memo gave Steven Bannon, the former publisher of Breitbart, a seat on the principal's committee of the National Security Council. To be clear, this has never been done before. President George W. Bush did not even invite strategist Karl Rove to the meetings. Barack Obama would allow strategist David Axelrod to occasionally attend NSC meetings, but only as an observer. Because giving a purely political staffer a principal's committee seat on the National Security Council, that's brand new, and it is unsettling to a great many experts from both major political parties.

In addition, President Trump has said that the director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are no longer on the National Security Council principal's committee but, quote, "They shall attend where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed," unquote. This is also a tremendous change, despite claims otherwise. Why the president would think that the former publisher of Breitbart is a more important voice on national security matters than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the director of National Intelligence, that's a mystery.

Except, of course, that the fear is that this is a White House that seems not to value sufficiently information and expertise from outside expert voices. Republican Senator John McCain called the National Security Council changes a, quote, "radical departure," and Ambassador Susan Rice, President Obama's former national security adviser, described the decision as, quote, "stone cold crazy."

President Bannon has a MASTER PLAN! Chaos and Disorder is the plan so the US Government help to poor and meddle class can be taken away.

http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/bannon-master-plan?akid=15164.294211.aecYL9&rd=1&src=newsletter1071426&t=10

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 immediately affected 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 bar Muslims from entering the country during the campaign, famously making a speech after the San Bernardino, California, 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 former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who bragged that he had told Trump he could bar Muslims from gaining admittance only by nationality rather than religion (while offering priority to those practicing a different religion) or he would run afoul of the Constitution. Now the Trump administration has absurdly proclaimed that it was just following former president Barack Obama’s lead (an assertion refuted by The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler).

On Saturday it soon became apparent that the order did not just apply to refugees or even visa holders but was also being used to deny entry to legal U.S. residents — green card holders who had been out of the country. It wasn’t long before leaks filtered out of the administration that Trump’s senior strategist, former Breitbart chief Steve Bannon, had personally overruled a Department of Homeland Security’s official finding that such legal residents would not be included in the ban. After an uproar, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly finally clarified that legal residency would not be “a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations,” basically meaning that individuals would not be denied entry and deported simply for being legal residents instead of citizens. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a member of Trump’s supposed party, wryly observed: “You have an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should have had.”

The situation remains confused and fluid. But the fact that Bannon had the ability to do what he did suggests that he’s going to use his power to advance his white nationalist agenda. And his power is growing substantially. While the Muslim ban got most of the attention over the weekend, it was also revealed that Bannon had been named a permanent member of the National Security Council, even as the administration denied that status to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence.

When asked to explain this, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on ABC’s “This Week” that “the president gets plenty of information from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff” and pointed out that Bannon is a “former naval officer” with a “tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now.” Bannon left the service in 1983.

Indeed, Bannon’s “understanding” of the world is exactly what has people concerned. Bannon has become Trump’s most influential adviser and (along with Stephen Miller, a former aide to attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions) seems to be guiding Trump toward his goals, even if the president is clueless about the details or the ramifications. Bannon is a radical white nationalist whose main objective, as he has openly admitted, is to blow everything up — essentially to destroy the existing social and political order. What that leaves us with after the smoke clears is anyone’s guess, since he is notably vague on the endgame.

Recall that a year before he joined the campaign, Bannon was telling people that he was Trump’s unofficial “campaign manager” and was quoted in an email as saying, “Trump is a nationalist who embraces [Sen. Jeff Sessions’] immigration plan." Nonetheless, as recently as last summer Bannon told Vanity Fair that Trump is a “blunt instrument for us. I don’t know whether he really gets it or not.”

At this point, it seems obvious that it doesn’t really matter. Trump is a narcissist with a very few simple bedrock beliefs, most of which intersect nicely with Bannon’s propaganda and tactics — which happen to intersect with global right-wing nationalism, manifested in the U.S. as the alt-right. This movement was well described by Vanity Fair’s Henry Porter in an article about Trumpism and Brexit:

They mistrust the political establishment and elites, in general; their rhetoric on immigrants is sometimes openly racist; they have a longing for past glories and the old order of things; they are very, very angry; and they present new levels of immunity to verifiable facts and expert opinion.

That worldview is reflected in far right movements and parties in the U.K. (the UK Independence Party), Germany (the Alliance for Germany), the Netherlands (the Party for Freedom) and France (the National Front), among others, and some of these movements have also been cultivated by the Russian president Vladimir Putin. (There is evidence of his government’s attempts to meddle in European elections, in a similar fashion to what allegedly happened in the U.S. during the recent presidential campaign.) This is the worldview that is likely to inform President Trump on policy.

You can see this perfectly manifested in the first week’s orders on (nonexistent) voter fraud, immigration and deportation policies. The ban on Muslims from certain countries has particular national security implications, in that experts believe it will be a splendid propaganda tool for ISIS and will drive a wedge between the U.S. and many of its allies — something that fits perfectly with Bannon’s overall “blow it up” philosophy.

As Bannon said last summer, Trump is just a “blunt instrument” and at this point it doesn’t matter if he “gets it” or not. In his new role as Trump’s Rasputin, Bannon is now in a position to literally make his dreams of destruction come true.

WHO IS PAYING FOR THE PROTESTS: asks Hannity: The Responses are Great

http://politicaldig.com/cuban-responds-to-sean-hannity-question/

On Monday night, Fox News pundit and Trump apologist Sean Hannity used his to feed wild conspiracy theories that the protests erupting around the country weren’t a spontaneous display of anger against President Donald Trump. Instead, he implied they were “bankrolled” by shadowy figures.

To drive home his message, Hannity decided to ask Twitter “who is bankrolling the protests” against Trump. It didn’t go well, and he’s is probably wishing he hadn’t asked that stupid question.

Mark Cuban was quick with a hilarious response:

But Cuban was not the only one. The tweet received some responses. More than 4,000 of them, in fact, were mocking him.

Here’s a sample:

Monday, January 30, 2017

CNN and Pres Trump's spokesman upset analyzed - Interesting

http://www.mediaite.com/online/i-think-we-heard-some-alternative-facts-cnns-acosta-sean-spicer-trade-barbs-again/

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and CNN’s Jim Acosta got into a bit of a tiff tonight during an event at George Washington University about the Trump administration’s relationship with the press.

Frank Sesno asked Spicer, “Is CNN being frozen out?” He referred to how Jake Tapper said the past two Sundays that the administration declined to send anyone on State of the Union for an interview.

Spicer said, “Jim Acosta, despite some of the stuff that he’s done, got a question in the Monday briefing.”

When Sesno asked him to elaborate, Spicer said that Acosta “misrepresented the facts” on what happened after his contentious back-and-forth with Trump. Spicer charged that “he misled viewers tremendously.”

Sesno revealed that Acosta was actually there in the room before Spicer insisted there’s no “retaliation” going on against CNN. He went on to accuse Acosta again of misrepresenting what happened in their one-on-one conversation after the presser.

RELATED: Sean Spicer: CNN’s Jim Acosta at Trump Presser Was ‘Disrespectful’ and Should Apologize

Acosta appeared on stage about 15 minutes later as part of a media panel. Sesno started out by asking him to respond to Spicer, and Acosta said, “I think we heard some alternative facts there.”

Acosta insisted he did not claim what Spicer said he claimed––that Spicer would have him thrown out if he asked any more tough questions.

Obamacare approval SKYROCKETS since Pres Trump Took Office. (REPEAL IS SHOWING HOW GOOD IT IS)

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/01/30/obamacare-approval-skyrockets-trump-office-repeal-backfires-gop.html

Obamacare Approval Skyrockets Since Trump Took Office As Repeal Backfires On GOP

By Jason Easley on Mon, Jan 30th, 2017 at 11:02 am

A new Morning Consult/Politico poll has found that the threat of repeal has made Obamacare more popular than ever since Donald Trump has taken office.

According to the Morning Consult/POLITICO poll:

Obamacare approval jumped to 47 percent in the Jan. 20-22 Morning Consult/POLITICO poll. That’s up six points from our poll at the beginning of January. The law’s disapproval dropped seven points in that time, from 52 percent to 45 percent.

The spike in approval was particularly pronounced among:

Voters who say the country is on the “wrong track” (Approval +13)

Urban Voters (+12)

18-29 year-olds (+11)

Voters who make $50-100K (+11)

There has been a net (+13) point swing in Obamacare’s popularity since Trump became president.

People are not as stupid as Trump and the Republicans thought. Remember, Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that voters don’t care about policies, tax returns, or his own behavior. It turns out that when Trump announced that he was taking away health care coverage from tens of millions of Americans, people did care. They were paying attention, and they are not happy.

Republicans privately admitted last week that there is no Obamacare replacement bill. Instead, they are going to repeal the law and try to patch the holes through executive orders and legislation as needed. A leaked tape revealed that Republicans are running scared over ACA repeal because they know that they are going to own taking access to health care away from millions of people.

Americans don’t want to see the health insurance system gutted. Trump and Congressional Republicans are in deep political trouble, and there is no escape as they are trapped between a promise to repeal Obamacare and the real world reality that people want to keep the ACA.

A Nazi and Russia loving Racist is now making Military Decisions but Experts are off the Panel to make Decisions.

https://www.good.is/articles/trump-nsc-steve-bannon-joint-chiefs-of-staff

Donald Trump’s executive order targeting refugees and immigrants may have only been the second most disastrous decision he made this weekend.

On Saturday, Trump quietly demoted the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence from his National Security Council and replaced them with his controversial personal advisor, Steve Bannon. The JCS and DNI are the two leading adivsory positions on the council, making their demotion much, much more than symbolic.

The decision means the nation’s most vital national security decisions will now be filtered through a political appointee with ties to the Alt Right movement and who just a few months ago was running a highly partisan news web site. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who have always sat in on NSC briefings, will now only attend meetings that directly involve, "issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed," according to Trump’s order.

The move sent shockwaves through the intelligence community and was blasted by prominent figures including Sen. John McCain and former Defense SecretaryRobert Gates, both Republicans.

CNN asks tough questions about the Muslim Ban

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

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.

“Carol, you’re delivering opinion,” Issa said.

She replied, “I’m not. This is what happened.”

TRUMP Hotels asked Twitter for Travel Stories: THEY ARE AMAZING: Poor Trump gets it again.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/01/29/trump-hotels-just-asked-twitter-share-travel-memory-responses-savage/

As Donald Trump’s appalling anti-Muslim immigration executive order led to hundreds of refugees and green-card holders being arrested and detained at airports across the United States, his own hotel chain made the extremely poor decision to ask the internet to share a favorite travel memory.

Twitter immediately jumped on the company, barraging them with powerful stories of their families’ immigration woes and some well-deserved mockery.

The incredibly poor timing of that tweet is just mind-boggling. It really hits home the vast divides that separate sociopathic billionaires like Trump from real people; the horror and the fear of people whose lives and families are at risk after traveling over hundreds of miles in hopes of starting a new life juxtaposed against a casual celebration of bourgeois luxury and an attempt to secure you booking an overpriced hotel room in one of Trump’s unprofitable hotels.

Donald Trump’s ban on Muslims and the end of the refugee program is an outrageous insult to the countless American men and women who fought and died to preserve our values of liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all. We must resist Trump and his neo-Nazi puppet master at all costs.

Juneau, AK, The Long Winter

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

A message to HS Immigrants from a Principal - Well worth reading.

CNN questions Bannon being on NSC Meetings instead of Military Experts

President Bannon has a MASTER PLAN! Chaos and Disorder is the plan so the US Government help to poor and meddle class can be taken away.

WHO IS PAYING FOR THE PROTESTS: asks Hannity: The Responses are Great

Monday, January 30, 2017

CNN and Pres Trump's spokesman upset analyzed - Interesting

Obamacare approval SKYROCKETS since Pres Trump Took Office. (REPEAL IS SHOWING HOW GOOD IT IS)

Obamacare Approval Skyrockets Since Trump Took Office As Repeal Backfires On GOP

A Nazi and Russia loving Racist is now making Military Decisions but Experts are off the Panel to make Decisions.

CNN asks tough questions about the Muslim Ban

TRUMP Hotels asked Twitter for Travel Stories: THEY ARE AMAZING: Poor Trump gets it again.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Monday, January 30, 2017

Obamacare Approval Skyrockets Since Trump Took Office As Repeal Backfires On GOP